SMC produces very sophisticated and complex drilling, excavation, crushing and screening machinery, equipment and tools.  But, according to Ken Stapylton, Sandvik Tamrock division manager for parts and service, while its manufacturing operation was streamline, the after-sales servicing operations have not been sufficiently coordinated.  ‘Our machines require careful planned maintenance to keep them operational as down-time can be extremely expensive for our clients, especially when they’re mining thousands of metres below the Earth’s surface,’ he said.  ‘To date we have used a variety of service management solutions in our global operations and this has meant we have not been able to run a totally coordinated and efficient operation. So, with the huge growth in our southern hemisphere markets and the significant contribution after-sales makes to our income, we decided to introduce a global standard solution which would provide tight links to our global ERP system.'

The new solution, to be delivered by the end of the year, will provide visibility of ‘virtually all aspects’ of SMC’s service offering ranging from coordinating customer phone calls and web-based enquiries and to scheduled maintenance and breakdown calls for the most efficient deployment of its field service engineers. The after-sales parts operation will be synchronised with inventory management to ensure spare parts are available before a job gets underway.

Anders Klang, the IT development manager for SMC, said the company was a long standing user of Geac software including System21, Field and Workshop-based Service Management and Job Management but added ‘we now look forward to Geac delivering its new, single integrated solution for our global operations to bring all of these systems together.’