Meet Berndt Larsson, IT & Process Manager at Vattenfall Services Nordic and a customer to isMobile for over 10 years. Vattenfall Services Nordic works with maintenance and services of energy and electrical assets and has used isMobile’s case and work order management system since 2010. Take part of Berndt’s throwback in time, evaluation of primary business value and his view on a long-time partnership.
Let us take it from the beginning, why and how did the collaboration start?
Vattenfall Services was formed in 2008 when several companies merged into a joint company. I was responsible for processes and systems and it was already from the start one of my focus areas to implement system support for better case management and a mobile support for the technicians.
We needed to be better at handling cases and we had to become more mobile. At that time all the technicians started the day at the office picking up their work orders for the day in a plastic folder. Their work and time were documented on paper which later was registered into the system by administrators. In 2009-2010, we carried out a procurement and chose isMobile, who could live up to our requirements which in short were a flexible system able to handle continuous change as well as all delivery processes and case types.
The ability to handle continuous change was one of your top criteria, how would you describe the main changes during the past decade?
I am glad that we prioritised flexibility. After all these years of continuous change we still have not encountered a change that we could not find a solution for.
The new way of working was really a cultural change in the beginning. Have in mind the computer skills were not at all what they are today. We had to start with basic computer knowledge lessons for many of the technicians. Looking back, it is easy to focus on the immediate benefits that occurred. The field technicians had all information they needed so they could start directly in the field in the morning and the administration became much more efficient since the technicians could register their time and work notes directly in the system. However, not everybody wanted to work with computers and the change also led to less interaction with colleagues as they did not meet up every morning anymore. Today the digital skills are at a whole different level and old work methods would not be accepted anymore.
Another area that really evolved is customer interaction. At the beginning we had one customer asking to integrate with our system and we tried to convince other customers to join. Today most customers want integrated systems, and they have extensive requirements for how and when the systems should communicate. Therefore, our systems need to be very synchronised. In some cases, the systems can send up to 50 messages between each other in one single case.
“Today most customers want integrated systems and they have extensive requirements for how and when the systems should communicate. ”
What do you regard as the main value of the system?
The system’s primary business values have varied over time. At the beginning I would say that the reduced administrative load, the support for planning and the real time reporting visualising the status were absolutely of great value to us. Today, new challenges arrived, and we would not be able to handle customer requirements without the system support. It is simply too many cases, too much information and too complex to manage without system support. We would for example not be able to adjust to customer specific requirements and we would definitely not be able to keep our customers informed with case statuses and verified service deliveries. To sum up, I would say that the greatest value is that we can control and handle a great number of cases and still deliver according to extensive customer requirements with efficiency and quality.
What about the mobile support for service technicians?
Not having available case information would not be acceptable today and they do not seem to miss the plastic folders with daily work orders. The technicians have much better conditions for smart planning and there is less personal dependence. However, if the technicians got to choose themselves, they would prefer less reporting. On the other hand, they know it is information requested by the customers, so they accept it. Although isMobile had support for smart devices already in 2010, we started with a pc-based solution. Now we are step by step implementing support for smart devices. The interface is similar to the apps they use on their spare time with intuitive process flows which further improves the system’s ease of use.
Being partners for over ten years, do you feel that you can read each other’s minds?
Not really, but close. When we get a new customer, we interpret service level requirements and turn them into system requirements and sit down with isMobile. In the beginning it took more time to come with a solution. Now isMobile knows our priorities, what is possible and what is not, and they propose changes that are doable for us. The collaboration is really effective when you get to know each other.
We are quite impressed by Vattenfall’s determination to enable fossil-free living within one generation. How is this affecting your work?
Our greatest contribution is helping our customers to reduce their carbon footprint and we also work continually to reduce ours. For example, our isMobile system contribute through efficient use of resources and smart planning leading to much less kilometres in our cars.
And the final question, technology and digitalisation drives change. What do you see as possible development the coming years?
I predict that we are going towards increased administration with growing volumes of information requirements. Therefore, I look forward to smarter systems and machine learning that will help us collect the data and use the data to improve process efficiency. Perhaps the need for human interaction can be reduced in some repetitive tasks and maybe the system can gradually learn how to give personalised support to our technicians by recognising individual needs. Time will tell!
Read more about isMobile Case and Work Order Management or contact us to discuss how we can improve your case and work order management together.