Founded in 1900, James CRAFT & Son Inc. is a family-owned and operated mechanical and HVAC contractor based in Manchester, Pennsylvania. Recognized for delivering top-quality craftsmanship, the company provides HVAC, plumbing, electric, sheet metal fabrication, service, design/build, and custom fabrication. James CRAFT & Son Inc. serves commercial and industrial clients throughout south-central Pennsylvania, northern Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, and Delaware.
Challenge
As the company prepared to expand its capabilities for growth, James CRAFT & Son Inc. knew it had to streamline its field service operations and how its technicians handled work orders. According to Bill Craft, Senior VP of Service for James CRAFT & Son Inc., “Our technicians were filling out paperwork orders with the details of their service calls and returning them to the office for data entry and billing. This process was labor and paperwork intensive, and introduced opportunities for errors.” The company also experienced other inefficiencies and hidden costs. “We experienced everything from losing important documents in technicians’ trucks to passing documents back and forth waiting for approvals to maintaining volumes of files & documents. The opportunity for improvement was huge for us,” says Craft.
Solution
James CRAFT & Son Inc. turned to FieldConnect and Viewpoint®. “FieldAccess by FieldConnect and Vista by Viewpoint® transformed our manual, paper-based work order process to a completely electronic one.
Instead of managing stacks of paper work orders, our technicians are now dispatched through Vista and our technicians receive work order details on their mobile devices through FieldAccess,” says Craft.
With FieldAccess, James CRAFT & Son Inc.’s technicians have access to real-time information to manage work orders and service contracts in the field. From any mobile device, their technicians can see all work orders assigned to them, read notes related to the customer or the assignment, retrieve maps and directions, upload job site photos & video, collect customer signatures, and even email service reports directly from the site. The technicians can also record their time by clocking in and out of assignments from the field.
Results
Since FieldAccess tightly integrates with Vista, all of the technicians’ data is immediately captured and stored in the ERP. This eliminates duplicate data entry and accelerates invoicing for faster speed of payment and revenue recognition. What’s more, technicians and service managers can manage parts, materials, and inventory better with FieldAccess. Technicians can quickly locate parts and supplies they need and assign them to work orders from their mobile devices and generate purchase orders with proper authorization. “Equipping our technicians in the field with the information and tools they needed to get their work done significantly reduced the disruptive phone calls between our field techs and dispatchers,” says Craft.
Thanks to FieldAccess by FieldConnect and Vista by Viewpoint®, James CRAFT & Son Inc. has access to up-to-date information from dispatching and work order completion to service contract management and invoicing. The company also gained complete visibility into its service operations. “As a progressive-thinking company, leveraging field service management software streamlined our operations by eliminating paper work orders, minimizing administrative tasks & data entry, and reducing service to billing time,” says Craft. “This has positively impacted our productivity, efficiency, and accuracy allowing our management team to clearly see the business value.”