In common with any company with a field service operation, Harveys Furniture had found that its home delivery service – established to provide its consumer customers with an efficient means of delivering furniture after their purchase – was beset by a number of issues.

It frequently proved difficult to gain access to the consumer’s home, especially those in the south of England, resulting in additional trips and disruption to the operation. Claims of damage to furniture was another area of concern. Some of these were dubious, but difficult to refute, with little or no means to contest the claim. This type of problem is common to the furniture industry and no doubt many others.

While companies are keen to provide a responsible service, we all know that bogus claims are used by some individuals for any of a number of reasons and can add considerable cost to the business concerned.

Home delivery also required the completion of a number of forms. Mark Spicer, head of IT for Harveys, explained that this would often generate up to five pieces of paper, all of which had to be carefully filed and returned to the office after the driver and customer had taken the time complete them.

Advantages

Kevin McQuillan, Harveys logistics director, had previously worked within the electronics industry for over 30 years in a similar role and had experience of the efficiencies that could be achieved through the use of mobile solutions and hand held devices. The various advantages provided by these included tracking, improved reporting, navigation, better contact with field workers, reduced paper work and image capture.

These combined to improve the delivery of the service operation and raise customer satisfaction levels, increasing confidence and encouraging them to make further purchases in the future.

‘It became apparent to me at early doors that it [the Harveys delivery schedule] was far more difficult an operation than just doing electricals, because of the nature of the products and also the complications of getting these into customer’s houses in a condition that is supposed to be the same condition as it came in.’

It was decided to use a single device – rather than a mobile phone and additional PDA. A bespoke solution was considered to be too expensive for its requirements, which also helped the company to narrow its focus when looking at the various options available. McQuillan’s previous experience and research on hand-held devices was used to begin looking at the various options available.

More flexible

He told Service Management that the decision to go for hand held devices was seen as providing a number of advantages over in-vehicle solutions. One of these was that a hand held device was not tied to a particular vehicle and therefore allowed its user to be more flexible in its use. The company chose Blackberry devices for its drivers, described by Mark Spicer, head of IT for Harveys, as an action of reverse psychology. ‘They [the drivers] know that these will be fragile and this means they take more care of them,’ said Spicer. ‘They all have their own mobile phones, so know what’s required. We paid less than £200 for each Blackberry and this also includes free insurance.’

Following personal recommendation from other industry contacts, Harveys chose Momote to deliver its mobile solution. ‘We didn’t look at a huge number of providers,’ said McQuillan, ‘but found that Momote listened to our requirements.’

The requirements concerned included the previously mentioned advantages identified by McQuillan in his previous employment and through his renewed efforts with Harveys, along with a number of options to allow delivery staff to react to issues arising in the field. Image capture provided solutions to a number of these, requiring field staff to photograph such things as faulty goods or damage to a customer’s property, serving to both validate claims and allowing the company to resolve such issues promptly. This also allows field staff to prove they have attempted to gain access to a customer’s property to deliver furniture at the agreed time by photographing their front door or entrance in the event of no response on the day.

Routine

‘If you make the driver have to go through the whole process of simple things, there’s a good chance that he’s not just going to drop and run and not do half of the things he’s supposed to do,’ McQuillan explained. ‘He’s got a set routine that he’s got to go through and if he’s not done some of those routines, we get default reports that Mark has designed telling us very quickly if something’s not been done, such as assembly, for instance.’

There was considerable effort devoted to identifying the various things that could go wrong during a delivery and include options within the system to address these issues. ‘We sat down and, one after another, put in all the things that we would like it to do,’ said McQuillan. ‘It’s true to say that we’re still putting further design features in it.’

Harveys purchased the system in May last year and began implementation last November at its Thurrock distribution centre. Initial trials took between six and eight weeks, beginning with just five devices and gradually adding more. McQuillan said although the roll-out took longer than the company had imagined, the extra time allowed them to conduct complete and robust testing of the system and devices, further identifying additional adjustments.

The company’s mobile solution now requires drivers to check the vehicle at the start of the working day to ensure that it is both roadworthy and that it has been loaded correctly. Once these have been completed, the driver then receives details of his first call. On arrival at the customer’s property, drivers are required to photograph goods to show the condition of packaging.

If a fault is identified after the packaging is removed, this is then proof that the damage occurred before the vehicle was loaded. If the product is in good condition, it is installed in the customer’s home. The customer is then required to sign the screen of the PDA, again helping to show that everything was correct at this point. When these requirements have been completed, the driver is then sent details of the next call.

Acceptance

McQuillan stated that he was not aware with any issues of acceptance of the new technology from the workforce. The system is used as a tool to verify payment of productivity bonuses. The simplicity of the system was highlighted by the fact that most employees only required training of approximately 30 minutes. A few drivers require further advice on taking better pictures, but most have adapted without any issues.

The company has found that there are have been fewer instances of failures in finding delivery addresses. Although the return on investment has not been assessed in detail, it was explained that small reductions in false claims and missed appointments would be sufficient to cover the cost of the system.

Improvements had already been recorded and it was thought these would continue to escalate, providing considerable benefits to Harveys and its customers. An example is the recent recording of a .25% reduction in damage claims in the month prior to my visit. This alone was estimated to be worth £180,000 to the company if perpetuated throughout a 12 month period.

‘One of the things that I would like to stress is that it’s great to have all this technology, but unless you’re using the reports and doing the debriefing and finding out the reason for failures and all the rest of it, then you’ve wasted your investment,’ said McQuillan. This has allowed the company to both identify areas where it’s operation could be more sufficient and support the claims of its delivery personnel, such as in instances where delivery has not been possible due to roads and driveways being blocked or customers not at home.

The system has also shown that additional time was needed to allow for certain assembly operations at the point of delivery. This has allowed Harveys to ensure that it’s daily delivery schedule is maintained, providing further benefits in meeting key performance indicators.

Further improvements

Basingstoke was the second distribution centre to be involved with the new system and the exercise was described by McQuillan as identifying further improvements and efficiency of use, which were then passed back to Thurrock. The company now has all its distribution centres on board and was looking at inclusion of its Belfast distribution centre at the time of my visit.

Harveys also wishes to include Harkers, its outsourced supplier based in Sunderland, within its mobile solution. The third party supplier delivers and installs cabinet furniture, which frequently requires assembly and therefore adds another dimension to its service. ‘This also includes overnight delivery and it means that additional aspects have to be addressed,’ said McQuillan. ‘We’ll bring them onto our Paragon system and give them PDAs and it will require a lot of work to integrate them.’

The company is continuing to assess its service operation and is currently considering the inclusion of bar code reading to provide further transparency and real time reporting on its delivery operations. Both McQuillan and Spicer stated that further work was required to ensure the company’s new system was used correctly by all its distribution centres, but it was emphasised that constant analysis had shown that many improvements had been achieved and these would continue to escalate in the future.