The global implementation by CompAir of Tesseract’s browser-based Service Centre 4.2 service management system is standardising, streamlining and improving the worldwide service operation for this market leading provider of compressed air and gas solutions by:

• Eliminating the potential for lost/error prone data
• Maintaining timely invoicing and customer call-back
• Controlling and managing workflow and job scheduling
• Streamlining asset management 
• Optimising stock levels

Being installed on a step-by-step basis across the globe – the system is already in use in the UK and Germany, and thereafter will be implemented in Spain, Holland, France, Belgium, Australasia, the Far East and the Americas – CompAir is gaining further benefits by fully utilising Service Centre’s browser-based functionality to:

• Run the system globally via the web on a single database (from the company’s UK headquarters in Redditch) to gain reduced IT infrastructure support costs
• Use electronic customer signature capture via field technicians’ PDAs to generate real-time customer feedback and to improve invoicing cycles

In addition, because Service Centre is integrated into CompAir’s corporate ERP systems, spare parts stockholding and despatch have both been improved, and the company will be able to access an enterprise-wide view of the overall effectiveness of its worldwide service activities.

Employing a workforce of more than 2,000 worldwide - and with manufacturing facilities in the UK, US, Continental Europe and China, as well as sales outlets in more than 100 countries - CompAir has always recognised the need to have the highest and most consistent standards of service delivery. In the UK, for example, it employs over 20 field technicians, as well as a network of approved third party service outlets.

It is this imperative that prompted the company to seek out a service management solution that would match its exacting global requirements while at the same time ‘bring some level of order to the disparate service procedures in different countries’, says Service Director, Alec Elliot. After a lengthy investigation of the leading offerings, Tesseract’s Service Centre was chosen as the system to help carry the company’s service operations forward.

‘With four independent service divisions operating across the CompAir Group in the UK alone,’ continues Alec Elliot, ‘we were losing a lot of information, failing to keep up to date with invoicing and customers weren’t being called back within the appropriate timeframe.
‘The company was conscious of the need to move to a single, integrated process. With Service Centre 4.2, all of these requirements will now be fulfilled.

‘Job data will be uniform and entered once only – eliminating the possibility of error – and because the job sheet is ‘electronic’, information cannot be mislaid or lost (it will always be in the system and easily accessible), while upstream administration will be reduced as consequence.’

Improved management of spare parts via integrated links with ERP is another area highlighted as particularly benefiting from Service Centre, he says. As parts are used (as per the field technicians’ PDA-based reports), the Tesseract software automatically updates the ERP system, which then places a demand on the warehouse and prompts parts to be dispatched in timely fashion - to either an engineer’s home, the courier company’s local collection site, or direct to site.

Why was Tesseract’s software regarded as the best fit? ‘In addition to being a cost-effective, comprehensive system [its main modules feature integrated functionality for customer assets, call control, parts (stock control), repairs, quotes and prospects], we could also use Service Centre on a country-by-country basis in the relevant language [the system is currently available in six different languages], says Alec Elliot.

‘The system also has a simplicity of use. It looks and ‘feels’ like it has been developed by people who understand service – it does exactly what it says on the box. We decided other systems couldn’t live up to that, and the ROIs for alternatives certainly looked good on paper but in real life would have failed to live up to expectations.’

One of the key differentiators between CompAir and its competitors is the scalability and flexibility of its service offering – from providing service ‘on demand’ through to 10-year plus contracts with guaranteed response times, as well as sophisticated web-based remote monitoring of machines. Around 40 per cent of business is contract-based.

‘Our customers are ever-demanding,’ concludes Alec Elliot, ‘and we have to ensure we are always one step ahead. ‘The Tesseract software will play a significant role in enabling us to continue to meet these expectations in an increasingly sophisticated and slicker way, particularly through the reporting mechanisms the system will provide.’