What field service metrics are medical manufacturers tracking?

Research findings from a 2015 Field Service Management (FSM) Benchmark Survey conducted by independent research analyst Strategies For Growth? (SFG?) reveal that there are nine individual service performance metrics, or KPIs, presently being used by a majority (50% or more) of the medical manufacturing organizations that participated in the survey (compared to only five among the general survey population) – and, in each case, they are used by a larger percentage of organizations than that reflected by the overall respondent base. 

These KPIs include:

• 83% Customer satisfaction (up from 80% among the general population)
• 78% Total service revenue (up from 72%)
• 74% Total service cost (up from 69%)
• 63% Field technician utilization (up from 59%)
• 60% Service contract renewal rate (up from 42%)
• 55% Mean-Time-To-Repair (MTTR) (up from 46%)
• 55% On-site response time (up from 49%)
• 55% Field technician productivity (up from 48%)
• 51% First time fix rate (up from 47%)

What these levels of KPI usage show is that medical manufacturing organizations are measuring the right mix of metrics to ensure that they adequately keep track of field technician productivity and utilization and, in particular, monitor the success of their service contract renewal rates (i.e., 18% higher use of this KPI than for the overall services community).

As a result, it is clear that by using almost twice as many KPIs to monitor their service performance as the overall respondent base, they are also intent on measuring, monitoring, and tracking their performance in these key areas over time.

Other capabilities currently being provided by at least one-third (33%) of medical manufacturing organizations to their respective field technicians include:

• 45% Ability to provide customers with an Estimated Time of Arrival (ETA) or Time to Completion (TTC)
• 42% Access to real-time parts inventory/availability
• 41% Access to problem resolution scenarios

Accordingly, whether it is access to data and information that represents the past (i.e., customer/asset history), the present (i.e., current status of work orders), or the future (i.e., providing customers with an ETA/TTC), medical manufacturing organizations apparently already recognize the importance of the ability to provide real-time data and information access.

Further, among the benefits of building a strong KPI program for measuring the performance of the organization’s service operations is the ability to track improvements over time. For the industry segment, as a whole, the survey results reveal that roughly 68% of medical manufacturing services organizations have experienced some improvement in year-over-year field technician productivity (measured in terms of average calls completed per day), comparing similarly to 67% among the general population. However, while more than three-quarters (78%) have also experienced improvements in service revenue, per field technician during the same period, a slightly smaller percentage (73%) have also experienced improvements in their year-over-year service profitability.

In fact, this pattern of year-over-year performance increases have helped the medical manufacturing industry segment to attain a mean average of 40.3% service profitability in the most recent reporting period, compared to only 38% among the general services community. Further, at a mean average of 87.1%, medical manufacturing organizations currently enjoy higher customer satisfaction levels than those attained by the general population (only 85%).

To learn more, download our medical device manufacturing industry White Paper. 

Written by Shloma Baum