News: Articles:
The Productivity Imperative
By
Michael R. Blumberg, CMC
President & CEO, D.F. Blumberg Associates, Inc.
The desire to increase productivity is a common
goal among most managers
and executives, whether they are working in a non-for profit
or commercial
enterprise. In fact, you can be sure that no matter how high
the level of productivity within your organization, there will always be
someone
challenging you to improve this level. This is a common theme
in all types
of organizations because productivity has such a high impact
on financial
performance and customer satisfaction. This is particularly
true in the field
service industry where one extra service call per day per field
engineer
means higher profits and happier customers.
Within the field service industry, productivity
levels can usually be
improved by finding ways for field engineers to be more efficient
by either
doing more work in less time or producing more results in the
same time. A
number of different strategies are available to achieve these
outcomes
including but not limited to:
- Increasing installed base density:
By increasing the density of the
installed base, the field engineers support more customers
in the same
number of hours. Installed base can be increased by supporting
more
(i.e., new) customer sites or more equipment within customer
sites, or
both. This is why multi-vendor service appeals to many service
organizations since it can be a cost effective way for increasing
productivity and thus profits.
- Implementing process improvements: By re-engineering
processes,
such as call handling and dispatch, the service organization
can make
better decisions about dispatch and thus be more effective
in
responding to service requests.
- Deploying new technology solutions: By
deploying new service
tools and technology such as optimized scheduling or mobile
solutions, a service organization can save time and money.
Automation can stream line operations, thus do more with less,
and
empower workers to be more proficient and efficient in completing
their work.
The strategies identified above are often easier to describe
than to actually
implement. Indeed, organizations face many impediments to increased
productivity. These challenges often stem from issues endemic
to their
organization such as cultural differences, poor morale, ineffective
communications, antiquated and/or fragmented information systems,
the
lack of planning, etc. Never the less, most managers and executives
are
aware of these issues and want to find solutions to these problems
in order to
achieve productivity goals.
In surveys conducted by our firm, very few (less than 10%)
managers or
executives admit that their service productivity levels are
best in class or
exceed industry targets. In fact, the majority feel that higher
levels of
productivity are possible. This not only suggests that the targets
are
continuously raised but points to the fact that service managers
and
executives realize that there is always room for improvement.
The question is not so much what improvements need to be made
but rather,
given the challenges, in what order one begins to make improvements.
In
other words, where does one find the greatest bang for the buck?
Some
executives will argue that it is through education and training;
others will
point to process re-engineering, while others are proponents
of new
technology deployment.
Although these are all critical elements toward implementing
productivity
improvements, most service executives believe that education
and training is
the most critical component because it encompasses all aspects
of the
productivity improvement process, from planning to execution.
Service
managers and personnel must receive the proper level of education
and
training with respect to understanding current levels of productivity,
the
impact of these levels on financial performance and customer
satisfaction,
the reasons why improvement is necessary, the options available
for
improvement, and the cost/benefit of these improvements.
This training allows managers and executives to make the right
decisions; it
is integral to the planning process not separate from it. Once
the
stakeholders receive the required training, they can now design
and/or reengineer
processes and procedures to achieve improved levels of
productivity. Training is again required to ensure that front
line employees
understand how the processes work.
Service executives indicate that technology provides a mechanism
for
enabling long term, consistent and sustainable productivity
gains. Although
research studies show that technology that has the greatest
impact on
productivity, without the preceding components of training and
process reengineering,
its impact is limited. All these components work together and
optimally, organizations will strive to implement all of them
but training
should be the first step to maximize the benefit of process
re-engineering
and technology enhancements.
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