Formerly part of EDS Global Field Services, a&o systems + services employs more than 2,500 people and provides services and supports for all areas of IT infrastructure. Following its separation from EDS in 2006, the company supplies services to Germany, France, Spain and the Benelux countries, in addition to its many operations within the UK. Its headquarters are in Slough, with a northern office in Altrincham.

Employing 500 people in the UK alone, a&o generates £70m in revenue from this area, dividing its services into three main divisions of IT service support, infrastructure support and remote services.

The company’s client database includes blue chip examples such as Sun Micro Systems, which it handles on behalf of EDS, illustrating the advantages of continued cooperation with its former owner. An a&o engineer is permanently based at Sun Micro Systems and this is an arrangement provided to other clients where necessary. The company prides itself on its ability to provide bespoke operations for specific customer requirements in all areas of its operations.

Field service continues to form an essential part of the various options supplied to the majority of customers, although this has adapted to react to the considerable technological advances that have occurred during the company’s 40 year history.

The gaining of its independence in 2006 encouraged the company to analyse its business offering in minute detail to determine what was needed to provide growth and additional revenue in the future. The potential to extend its existing client base was identified through achieving economies in scale in some areas.

Adrian Cooper, business development director for a&o, told Service Management that this had been made possible through the service operation becoming less intensive in some sectors.

This had led to the company creating a three tier structure for its field service teams. Tier one is involved in basic maintenance and support, typically for desktop items that are often cheaper to replace than repair. Progressing on a logical basis, tier two engineers are engaged in providing services of a more demanding nature, while tier three includes the provision of complex support structures, some of which have SLAs of two hours and require dedicated engineers on site, such as the service supplied to Sun Micro Systems.

‘A lot of traditional service operations have been extremely complex, but some areas are becoming less demanding, increasingly so at the lower end of the product scale,’ said Cooper. a&o started with a relatively small field service team originally and used contractors to fill in wherever necessary. Having seen the many benefits provided by a service operation, the company embarked on a major recruitment drive to employ more engineers.

The tier structure has been a significant factor to ease the recruitment process, as it is obviously easier to attract applicants if the skill set requirement is lower. It is also a motivational tool for those who wish to progress their career – especially those that begin as tier one engineers – with the company providing training and support for those that choose to do so. This coincides, incidentally, with information arising from a recent meeting of the Service Management editorial advisory board. It was explained that a growing number of engineers were enquiring about career development opportunities within job interviews, which means that the a&o example could be implemented by companies wishing to attract forward thinking staff.

In addition to establishing a structured service operation, the company has also implemented the Dynamic Scheduling Engine (DSE) from 360 Scheduling. This allows calls to be processed with consideration included for details such as location, activity and skill sets required, the SLA time and complexity of the call.

The company’s engineers now sign on at the start of their day, using GPRS-enabled PDA devices using the Windows Mobile platform with mobile data managed by Cognito. As service calls are progressed, the system automatically adjusts the engineers’ schedules as more calls are added throughout the day.

Cooper explained that the company has accordingly been able to reduce the number of people employed in the dispatch department, as fewer people were able to deal with the requirements of more engineers. ‘DSE runs itself and we need less people to be involved in the office. The system also tells us if an SLA is not going to be achieved.

Our scheduling was handled on a territory-based system before, which was the most practical way. But when calls were near the boundaries of the territory, it sometimes meant that two engineers were dispatched when one may have been enough. The system we use now has allowed us to replace that method and make more efficient use of engineers’ time,’ said Cooper.

At the time of my visit, the DSE system had been implemented with the first two tier levels of the service operation. The company had also begun working to roll out the system to tier three, including GPRS tracking and additional details such as the estimated time of arrival of the engineer.

Further to this, the system has also been integrated with some of a&o’s clients through an automated interface that supplies a seamless flow of information back to the customer.

The handling of spares was also examined, resulting in supply and collection being outsourced to DHL. Tier one engineers carry spares in their vehicles and these are replaced using the DHL overnight service. The company has also looked at improving the supply of parts to its tiers two and three engineers and has found that it can be more effective for these to be delivered at locations closer to the customer’s premises, allowing the engineer to collect on the way to the call.

‘We tried to be open with our engineers when planning for the new system,’ said Cooper, ‘and good management practices reduced any initial reluctance on their part. The system is linked to increasing customer satisfaction and the paying of company bonuses and we made the PDA simple to use. The engineers now know that there’s a rational decision behind all service call dispatches and that’s helped with the buy-in process.’

Those wishing to hear more of the a&o story can hear Adrian Cooper at the Service Management Expo speaker seminar programme at the NEC on 16 September.