Telecommunications – Field Operations
Our Client is among the leading, full-service tele-communication providers in North America with a workforce of 50,000 employees and yearly sales in excess of $20B. They currently service over 13 million phone lines. They offer a wide range of communication products and services, including telephone services, wireless communications, high-speed Internet, digital television and voice over IP.
Project Overview
Objectives
- Increasing the overall performance of Field Operations
- Increasing service levels to both residential and business customers
- Reducing operating costs
- Enhancing communication with the Field Technicians
- Increasing employee satisfaction
- Improving quality of work by reducing rework and repeat levels
- Improving customer service and satisfaction levels
- Reducing contractor costs
Assessment Findings
- Technicians did not follow existing policies and procedures when preparing for a service call
- Technicians were not solving the problem on the first visit, which resulted in rework due to skill issues or subpar job quality
- Technicians would will keep ticket orders open for 2-3 hours before informing dispatch which then by-passed the whole automated dispatch system process
- Technicians were going on completed jobs causing rework and multiple truck rolls
- There was a lack of tracing information on work orders by previous technicians associated with jobs
- Extra work was being completed with no charge to the end-use customer
- Lack of effective job assignment led to technicians repeatedly calling the Dispatch Center for their next assignment
- Mismatched capacities was caused by not enough work being dispatched for the hours of work available for the technicians
- Technicians came back early to the Work Center due to a perceived lack of work
- Not matching the tickets to the Technician’s skill set resulting in lower customer service and satisfaction levels
- Technician profiles were not updated by the Field Directors, generating issues with the dispatching of the technicians and generating more calls at the Dispatch Center
- First-Line Managers avoided following-up with their Technicians (they keep to a minimum the number of visits to the technicians on a monthly basis)
- First-Line Managers believed that since their people have been assigned from the Dispatch Center that they know what they need to do
- First-Line Managers generally spent almost all of their time doing administrative activities in their offices, rather than being proactive with their people in-the-field
- In planning the use of resources, the estimated work times are averages of historical performances and have not been developed based upon the pure time of the activities
PVA's Response
- Improved individual, district and departmental performances resulting in the recovery of hours per technician per day
- Reinvested these recovered hours to improve customer service and quality of service
- Clarified roles and responsibilities of the First-Line Managers to spend more valuable time in-the-field with their technicians identifying and resolving operational issues
- Established structured communication between the Dispatch Center and Field Operations to ensure that all First-Line Managers are kept informed of the daily workload of the technicians and can make necessary adjustments as required
- Designed and implemented a standard performance measurement process based on an earned hour calculation and other critical Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s)
- Developed and implemented a resource planning methodology based on volumes and estimated hours to assess the up-coming workload requirements as opposed to using historical information
- Designed and implemented weekly executive reporting (Balanced Scorecards) of Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s), trends and performance variances
- Transferred hours into capital work through increased preventive maintenance and network activities
The Results
Some significant results obtained by our Client included:
- Increased load factors in terms of tickets per day for Technicians (25% improvement in tickets per day)
- Maintaining customer due dates while handling increased volumes resulted in improved levels of customer service and satisfaction
- Sharing resources across geographical areas to increase overall performance
- Contractor work brought in-house
- 40% improvement in overtime levels
Improvement in Supervisory Activities
Long Term Work Continuation
- A Client Coordinator was trained and certified during the PVA engagement
- A quarterly audit program of the new Management Operating System was developed and implemented with the Coordinator
- PVA conducted audits over 18 months to ensure compliance to the continued utilization of the Management Operating Systems
- These Audits resulted in recommendations and action plans to further identify additional opportunities for improving operations