Job Completion by Smartphone

A ”one-touch job completion” by engineers on site, has long been an aim for resource-sensitive service providers. One of the problems has been the cost of PDA’s, and the fact that they become obsolete quite quickly. Operating system rationalisation in the Smartphone world now means that mainstream apps can be provided for almost all Smartphones.

Fast Track Mobile from FMDirect complements existing Windows and Web solutions, to provide a low-cost solution for mobile staff. Engineers receive new jobs as soon as they are issued, and job status changes (such as Responded To and Completed) can be achieved with a click of a finger (or thumb!). If the Smartphone has a draw capability, such as with a touch screen or stylus, end user customers can also SIGN the job there and then.

Fast Track Mobile works with iPhone, Blackberry and Android (contact FMDirect for version details), and works with Wifi and Internet connections, and also when no connection is available.

Control Job Costs with SCHEDULES OF RATES

Using pre-loaded schedules of rates is becoming a popular way to control job costs, and can be used to accurately forecast contractual costs for both existing and new contracts.

Utilising your own rates and tasks, a national schedule of rates, or your own customised version, exact tasks and costs can usually be found in seconds, leading to accurate costing and speedy distribution of instructions to the right staff member or service provider.

Level of Detail
The contents and pricing of the Schedule of Rates (SOR) tasks can be broadly descriptive, or extremely detailed – you just match the detail level to your requirements.

Margins and Contracts
Utilising the margin mechanisms with different mark-up calculation methods, the same SOR task can be used to derive different costings based on contract margin variations.

Benefits of Schedule of Rates based work tracking
* Add your own Task Descriptions and COSTS
* Find standard and non-standard tasks IN SECONDS
* Very low DEPLOYMENT COSTS
* Scale up to multiple CONTRACTS with multiple MARGINS

CAPEX or OPEX?

Utilising Hosted Systems, or Software-as-a-Service, is becoming more and more popular as organisations look to avoid expensive capital expenditures (CAPEX). A trend is to reduce costs by paying for systems out of operational expenditure (OPEX). Saving on large outlays is one of several advantages to be gained from using hosted solutions.

Benefits of hosted systems:

* NO CAPEX (Capital Expenditure) Required
* NO BLESSING from IT Required
* NO DELAYS – use your system within days
* NO HIGH COSTS – pricing typically starts from £35 per user per month
* NO DEPLOYMENT COSTS at all?

Hosted Solutions

The cost of hosted solutions has steadily reduced to where they are being considered by more and more organisations. The main benefit seems to be outsourced IT resources. "On-Demand" Room Booking and Help Desk systems can be “turned on” for users with minimal project assistance from corporate managers, and the number of licenced users can be varied monthly, according to needs.

PPM Preparation – why spreadsheets?

Many managers and consultants who have a great deal of experience in the preparation of PPM plan data, insist on preparing the base data for PPM systems (asset and procedure pairing, start date and cycle, service provider) in a spreadsheet. Spreadsheets are undeniably convenient, but most of the managers and consultants being described would say that preparation of plan data in a spreadsheet is ONLY way.

It’s quick, similar plans can be copied, and whole sections can be cut and pasted. This sounds good, but it’s all prone to error, the type of error which may not reveal itself until the plan is live.

If base and plan data is entered directly into a system which is back-ended by a professional database such as SQL Server, most of the errors which occur in a spreadsheet can be precluded, because the database simply won’t allow them. The application should provide any further required protection against bad data.

The best PPM systems also have time-saving mechanisms, such as creation of Tasks and Task Dates by groups of assets. Essential an expert user would be saying “create the 28-day inspection task for all the air handlers in the specified building, to start on 1st July” or “all the assets in this room are to have their quarterly inspection, starting on 2nd July”.

Fine-tuning can be done later (often visually, as in the case of staggered start dates), but creating the plan in this way completely prevents the bad data that creation in spreadsheets can allow.