Optimizing workforce utilization in industrial cleaning operations

One of the distinguishing features of the industrial cleaning industry is a higher level of ad hoc (or “one-off”) service requests. After all -- if something isn’t clean and that lack of cleanliness is preventing effective performance, a company wants that addressed immediately. This happens to occur more in industrial cleaning than it does in other industrial services industries, and that can create a problem for the field service side.

With more and more ad hoc service requests, scheduling and dispatching become major challenges for industrial cleaning companies. (If you’re reading this and work for one, chances are you’re nodding right now.)

If you want to embark on a path to profitability as a field service management organization, there are a number of different options -- some are more theoretical and relate to your culture and structure, and some are more direct and relate to your tools and processes. We’ve put together a white paper about all the different concepts; you can download it here.

But if you’re specifically looking to achieve greater revenue gains from field service within industrial cleaning, you need to think about a field service management solution that helps with workforce optimization. (We also wrote an eBook about how to make the case to senior decision-makers that an FSM solution is a good idea!)

Here are some of your targeted goals within industrial cleaning when looking at FSM options:

• Reduce paperwork
• Keep techs happy
• Keep customers happy
• Try to avoid driving techs all over a metro area doing one-off jobs

In order to hit those four goals, what do you need?

• Alignment between scheduling, dispatching, inventory, and customer information (all data in the same place and ‘speaking to one another,’ essentially)
• The ability to generate quotes and work orders from anywhere
• The potential to create invoices from anywhere
• Tracking of invoices, parts, and techs in real-time

It’s nearly impossible to do this with paper-based processes in back-office dispatch and scheduling, especially when servicing industrial cleaning. If you try that, your customers are likely to move to a field service provider who makes it easier -- i.e. who lets them track techs in real-time and sign invoices on mobile devices before the techs leave the job sites.

Remember this simple equation: while money drives a lot of decision-making, people tend to value time more than money -- especially if the time equation ends up aggravating them (techs need to make repeated trips to fully finish up everything). This works on both sides of the equation: your techs will be annoyed (repeated trips to the back-office or warehouses) and ultimately want to work for a more streamlined operation, and your customers will be annoyed and ultimately want a one-time solution driven by a good first-time fix rate.

The surest path to revenue on the industrial cleaning side of field service management, then, is the adoption of an FSM solution that allows integration of various key components (tracking, scheduling, dispatching, inventory, and customer info). For ideas on how to make the case for a field service management solution to your decision-makers, consult our eBook. 

Written by Jim Hare