Save time, and avoid omissions with Shepherd’s Parts Requesting
This month’s newsletter shines a light on Shepherd’s Parts Requesting functionality, designed to give technicians on the ground a means of flagging a necessary part, without the need for an existing service order to link it to.
Before this functionality was developed, technicians coming face to face with a servicing need could only order or request a part as an aspect of an existing service order. But not every technician has access to all service orders, or perhaps the order does not even exist yet since the service it would cover is not for another 3 months.
A common profitability leak
Whatever the procedural cause, the result in those situations might have required an email or message to the servicing manager, a “note-to-self” to tell the relevant party once back at head office, or some other stop-gap measure.
One thing all of those work-arounds have in common is an increased chance of that part order being forgotten, overlooked, or deprioritised. And any one of those situations increases the risk of the request not happening meaning the part won’t be available when the next service at the location in question comes around.
Sure, such an outcome might not be the end of the world, but it’s one of those circumstances that chip away at a company’s credibility with customers or its efficiency in-house. The service date arrives, the part is not there, the service is delayed and time is lost. That means money may be, too.
Shepherd’s simple plug
Shepherd’s Parts Requesting gives companies the option to let technicians flag and address the need for a part they see requires replacing before an associated service order exists. This swap in the order of actions is the key change. So, the technician identifies a faulty or failing part and can request it as part of the existing service order. Alternatively, if unrelated to the service order in effect, a new order can be raised and parts can be requested in relation to it.
An example could be this: a technician is at site solely to review that a machine is still running within a specified performance range. While doing so, the technician notices a seal leaking. That leak means a new part. But replacing it does not fall under the purview of the current service order. A new order is needed, and with that the new part is also requested.
It may be that a service manager needs to rubber-stamp that service order, but the parts order, at least, is now in the system, whereas before it would not have been. Also useful, is the fact that the part requested need not be in the system already. It could be a part that has never been ordered before, but needs to be now. The technician can enter the part identifiers and the warehouse can deal with acquiring it.
Who benefits
Although it comes down to how individual companies deal with servicing, and for whom, the candidates that may spring to mind are companies in field service and rental where the asset being serviced may well not be in the same location as the warehouse stocking its parts. Aside from the processes it impacts, many people can probably relate to that sense of calm at being able to tick off an item as done as and when it arises, rather than having to add it to a list for resolution later.
Service managers can still retain oversight and sign-off if needed, but they don’t need to rely on a garbled cellphone call, dubious handwriting or an obvious typo to decipher to know what the part in question is. And the system itself records the technician making the request as well as the customer, site, asset, and date information entered, so a paper trail to the originator is as clear as day. Meanwhile, the risk of the technician revisiting the site only to find the required part was never ordered, nor assigned, reduces considerably. And with it, the risk of a wasted journey and day.
Limits and measures put in place
The notion of technicians being able to order from site, unhindered, does have some cause for concern among managers, and checks can be put in place. For example, the parts request can be limited to what is available in an affiliate’s geographic region, ensuring that the appropriate warehouse is in charge of procurement.
And while the technician cannot specify this, a manager can decide to send an alternative part instead of the one requested. If the technician decides a new battery is needed and selects the original manufacturer unit, the manager can send a pattern battery in its place: the same specifications, performance, and dimensions, but a fraction of the price.
As is often the case, the devil is in the detail, and this situation was previously a potential cause of delays and mistakes. This new functionality does a good job of eliminating that risk, should Shepherd users choose to include it in their configuration. Those who do should get in touch with their implementation consultant at Shepherd.
Featured Blogs:
This letter’s featured blog is about how construction companies have chosen Shepherd for a counterintuitive feature: its timekeeping module. Full equipment-tracking software might seem like a given for an industry built on heavy machinery, but for many construction firms that’s not where their investment goes and so that is not what needs to be tracked.
Shepherd’s timekeeping module accurately captures crew hours for payroll, automates tricky pay rules like night and holiday rates, and gives real-time visibility into schedule progress so materials get ordered at the right moment. Find out why this matters to this sector more than monster diggers, and how it sets construction firms up for a natural next step into such verticals as Health, Safety and Wellness, or even a full NetSuite-native EAM, if and when they need it.
Case Studies
Who’s talking about your company?
Rather than visitors to your site, consider other information sources, like the industry press, partner blogs, and independent outlets. When your company appears in places that you don’t manage, that gives the reader a sense of impartiality that is worth a fair bit in terms of credibility.
By being a Shepherd case study, you’re creating such an impartial information source for others in your sector to read and learn about what you do. And how it can help them.
A Shepherd case study is not simply talking about Shepherd’s solution in your business. It’s rather about your business and why a solution like Shepherd’s matters to you and your customers. You get to talk about how your service differs, the strengths of your product and what has made you the right choice for your customers.
All that is needed is some time for an interview. After that you get to review and approve any draft that gets published. You can provide images that showcase what you do too. And you can use the case study text as a source of soundbites, or quotes to use in your own channels and materials if you choose.
