The ADDIC services enhancement program boosts business to the next level of excellence

In steps from the free of charge 30-Question-Service-Audit until securing the determined benefits after implementation. See how to boost your service department to the next level of excellence and make sales department, country mananger, and head quarter very happy.

Recommendation – Take the chance that our senior experts will carefully listen to you and advice on best possible steps you can take for your company.  Do not hesitate to contact us. Click here to request a visit.


Testing steps:

  • Survey about the internal perception of the service operation and competitor's service operation
    This will deliver a thorough information about the internal perception of the performance of the entire service department, spare parts stock and logistics, as well as the performance of the strongest competitor. It provides excellent information on where to look at and creates typically a great buy-in by all people involved.
  • Customers' requirements & satisfaction & preference survey
    This will provide information on your customers' satisfaction and the reason for it. It further reveals details about customers' service requirements and preferences. Additionally it shows the perception of the strongest competitor's service.


Decisive steps:

  • Full mapping and analysis of the current service related business processes
    This investigation will provide the full understanding of the way the service operation works. It begins with the first contact a customer makes until the machine or device can be used again, costs are allocated or an invoice is ready be send. It includes also working details on ordering and sending spare parts to engineers as well as the process of returning unused spare parts. The analysis makes time consumption and the involved costs fully visible. It typically also reveals information on issues not directly related to the business process but influence the service operation.
  • Full analysis of all 6 elements of a service operation
    This investigation delivers the detailed picture of the situation of all six elements of a service operation. It also provides the basis for the next step: Define the future.
    • The report includes the very best estimation of the benefit potential possible.
    • Note: If Full Mapping and analysis of the current business process and/or Customers' requirements & satisfaction & preference survey are done already, only the remaining elements  elements of a service operation need to be investigated.
    • Click here and ask for a visit by our experts to explain further details.
  • Basis for this working step – The performance of the service operation is fully understood and the enhancement potential is estimated to the extend possible
  • Define the future feature of the service operationthe service institute japan's senior experts will assist you with weighing workload with expected performance and benefits

    In this working step our senior experts will also assist and advice you concerning:

    • Quick- wins - Based on the result of the analysis, quick-win items can be pulled forward to gain benefits as fast as possible
    • Stretched time-line – To avoid any budget constraints, the next working steps of the enhancement project can be stretched
  • Basis for this working step – Management approval of the features of the future service operation and the time-line.
  • Develop the features of the future service operationthe service institutes japan's experts guide, coach and support your project team during this working step and ensure the decided feature are fully developed.

    Also during this phase key performance indicators for monitoring the service operation's performance continuously and regularly will be developed including measuring and analysis methods and reporting formats.
  • Basis for this working step – all features of the future service operation are ready for implementation.

  • Implement the feature of the future service operationthe service institutes japan's experts guide, coach and support the project team during the step and ensure the organization is ready to “go-live”. The actual "go-live" is supervized and supported as well.
  • Basis for this working step – The new operation is implemented and the organization works according to the new features. Key performance indicator monitoring procedures and reporting formats are ready for use.

  • Control the operation to ensure the benefits – Based on the decided and prepared key performance indicators the service institutes japan's experts monitor the situation and, if needed, take measures to ensure that the enhancement benefits determined in working step "develop" will be obtained.

    Controlling phases out over a period of 1 year and the service team is coached to phase in and take over.

Evaluation Programs - Know more about the company you want to work with or buy

Several evaluation programs for service operations in due diligence situations.

Due Diligence - Service Operation is Important but Usually Neglected

When it comes to starting a business in another country, contracting a dealer, setting up a joint venture, and acquiring a company are the alternatives often used to establish one’s own organization. However, in the case of due diligence activities, typically, the functions of a service operation are usually neglected.

When service needs to be installed, maintained, and repaired in an operation, it becomes an extremely important element for gaining customer satisfaction. Customer satisfaction has a very strong influence on how a business picks up; on how revenues and profits increase; and on how prices can be kept above competitors. "The first machine is sold by Sales, the second by Service" is an often used proverb, which speaks the truth. Therefore, when two companies want to work or merge their operations together, it is very important to know how the service operation truly functions.

Based on service operation experience, the following items are programs for evaluating service operations of potential candidates:

  • Dealership & Cooperation
  • Joint venture
  • A&M

For further detail and explanations, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Dealer or Cooperation Partner Service Operation

To decide on the best dealer or cooperation partner available, this condensed evaluation program is the ideal method for obtaining a clear picture of the service operation’s performance, its strong points, and its guidelines for improvement potential. Due to its high efficiency and effectiveness, this program can also be considered for comparing the last three candidates of the short list
 
The program consists of a high-level collection of information regarding the six elements of a service operation. The questions posted relate to the dealer’s and/or cooperation partner’s company and to the company’s strongest competitor.

tl_files/tsij_files/due-diligence/CooperationPartner.jpg

Question blocks relate to:

  • Service operation workflow
  • Spare parts, stock and logistics
  • Installed base, workload and travel time
  • Service contracts and pricing
  • Skills, training and career path
  • Customer requirements and satisfaction

 
The report describes the performance of the service operation, and includes a comparison of the best practice elements.
 
For further detail and explanation, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Joint Venture Partner Service Operation

To select a joint venture partner, it is very important to understand how the partner operates in the specific field. This knowledge is necessary because both partners have their own visions on how the operation should work.
Typically, the joint venture partners operate their own companies differently, and this difference strongly influences the success of the joint venture. Therefore, based on service operation experience, two programs are developed and offered to evaluate the service operation of the joint venture candidates.


Evaluation program 1 focuses on a high-level collection of information regarding the six elements of a service operation. The questions posted relate to the company and to the company’s strongest competitor.
 
Question blocks relate to:

  • Service operation workflow
  • Spare parts, stock and logistics
  • Installed base, workload and travel time
  • Service contracts and pricing
  • Skills, training and career path
  • Customer requirements and satisfaction


The report describes the performance of the service operation, and includes a comparison of the best practice elements.
 
Due to its high efficiency and effectiveness, this program can also be considered for comparing of possible candidates.
 
 
Evaluation program 2 focuses on an in-depth analysis of the service operation. A detailed observation of all the six elements of a service operation is conducted, analyzed, and reported. Due to the depth of the analysis, if necessary, a proper estimation of the improvement potential and effort can be given.
 
The service operation elements to be thoroughly investigated are:

  • AS-IS workflow model
  • Installed base, workload and travel time
  • Skills, training and career path
  • Contracts and pricing
  • Spare parts, stock and logistics
  • Customer requirements and satisfaction

The AS-IS workflow model is a full-fledged documentation of the current service process. The analysis will reveal an excellent picture of the effectiveness and efficiency of the service operation.
 
A customized program can also be put together upon request.
 
Our experts will explain all the necessary details. Please do not hesitate to contact us.

A&M -Target Service Operation Evaluation

When two companies merge, they do not only combine their capital, markets, products, and customers, but also their operations. As operations can be effective and efficient, they can also have a large improvement potential. Therefore, prior to the final merging decision, the service operations should be investigated in great detail.

To accomplish this, an experienced-based program needs to be developed. This program should provide a detailed understanding of the service operations for all the six service operation elements. Due to the depth of the analysis, if necessary, a proper estimation of the improvement potential and effort can be given.

tl_files/tsij_files/due-diligence/Aquisition-Merger.jpg

The service operation elements to be thoroughly investigated are:

  • AS-IS workflow model
  • Installed base, workload and travel time
  • Skills, training and career path
  • Contracts and pricing
  • Spare parts, stock and logistics
  • Customer requirements and satisfaction

The AS-IS workflow model is a full-fledged documentation of the current service process. The analysis will reveal an excellent picture of the effectiveness and efficiency of the service operation.
 
A customized program can also be put together upon request.
 
Our experts will explain all the necessary details. Please do not hesitate to contact us.

Service Management Training - Learn how to boost your service operation to the next level of excellence

The training program on cruical operational topics of service business, is designed for service managers, futures service managers, and others interested in service business. Learn from more than 20 years of experience, meet colleagues, expand your network, and share experience.

Purpose and Goals

Service operations are complex units, which need to deal with many topics: solving technical problems in a short time, having the needed spare parts always available, optimizing service areas, calculating the time when the next technician needs to hired and trained, optimizing continuously the skills of the technician team, dealing with limited number of technicians, creating customer satisfaction and tracking it, dealing with requests from sales for free of charge services, and making profit. This list can be extended by many other items.

What service manager has not experienced such issues?

Based on its experience with these issues and its expertise in service management the service institute japan provides service management training.

The training's goal is to give the audience a good insight into service management by delivering theory and a lot of examples from daily life of service management. At the end the participants will have a good understanding on the six elements of a service operation and how to apply the learned stuff in daily life.

Curriculum

The curriculum covers the six operational elements of a service organization.


1 - The service process or workflow

The service process, or with other words, the workflow or the flow of work connects all operational elements and goes across departments and sections. It determines the effectiveness and efficiency of the resource utilization and the speed things are done, it has the biggest influence to customer satisfaction and profit.

You will learn about:

  • The importance of the service process as the basis of your business
  • The influence of the service process to
    • Customer satisfaction,
    • Your department's and company's EBIT
  • The power and method of the modern and advanced process mapping technique IDEF0
  • How to:
    • Identify good and bad process elements
    • Shorten your service process and utilize the most suitable staff
    • Identify of key performance indicator to measure the process quality

 

2 - Installed Base, Workload & Travel Time

This topic deals with resource requirements, optimization of staffing of service areas and the optimization of service areas for further expansion of the installed base.

You will learn about:

  • The meaning of
    • Call rates (or MBTF)
    • MTTx figures (x= install, repair, maintain, etc)
  • How to calculate workload for service areas
  • Include travel times in the daily workload of a technician
  • Optimization of service areas allocated to a technicians
  • Determination of staff requirements based on planned sales figures

 

3 - Spare Parts Stock & Logistics

Field Service Engineers must get all needed spare parts in the shortest time reasonable to create customer satisfaction. This is the challenge. But learning the essentials will help you to reduce stock, increase of availability and achieve a faster and advanced delivery to technicians.

You will learn how to:

  • Analyze your spare stock and consumption
  • Look into the process of ordering, delivering , and returning spare parts and its influence to spare parts stock and customer satisfaction
  • Optimize the car stock based on installed base  and consumption by machine type

You will also learn about critical issues concerning:

  • Inventory check
  • Removal of spare parts from machines on stock
  • Advanced spare parts delivery possibilities
  • The importance of the integration of spare parts order and logistic in an enhanced service business process

 

4 - Skills, Training & Career Path

This element covers the topic of resource optimization. An engineer with highest technical skills and skills in “handling” of “fixing” a customer will increase customer satisfaction. Therefore it is important to train the engineers in these matters. And it is of the same importance to keep the engineers on board to keep customer satisfaction.

You will learn how to look into:

  • Required and available skills for the installed base in each service area
  • Training methods and their effectiveness
  • Evaluation methods  and their importance
  • Career path preparations for  engineers
  • Motivation of engineers


5 - Contracts & Pricing

A service operation, like any business, needs to create customer satisfaction and make profit. Thus ,service and prices must be in balance. Service offerings are not limited to contract or non-contract offers but can be created and customized along 5 + 1 axes of service business.

You will learn about:

  • Matching of service offerings with customer requirements along 5 + 1 axes fo serrvice offerings
  • Profitability analysis of time & material business
  • Profitability analysis of contract business
  • Contract coverage and profitability from various points of view
  • Contract sales process


6 - Customer Requirements & Satisfaction

Customer satisfaction is, beside profitability, the most important objective of a service operation. This implies that customer requirements are always understood and, like customer satisfaction, are regularly and structured measured, analyzed and adjustments made.

You will learn about:

  • Collection of information for customer requirements and satisfaction in combinations with possible new service offerings with most suitable questions
  • Matching of service offerings with customer requirements for
    • Time & material business
    • Contract business
  • Creating the basis for enhancement of service business
Audience and Related Service Business

Audience
For following persons the course will provide insight into daily service management matters, how to deal with all matters and how to enhance the customer satisfaction and profitability:

  • Service Managers
  • Future Service Managers
  • Service engineers with interest in service management
  • Sales or Marketing staff with interest in service management
  • Marketing people with interest in marketing “service” to increase service revenue and customer satisfaction for increased sales and service revenues
  • Managing Directors with strong interest in enhanced service operation


Service business in focus of this training
This training program is about service business, dealing with:

  • Call taking for service requests
  • Repair Center service operations
  • Field service operations
  • Service activities including
    • Installation
    • Maintenance
    • Repair
    • Refurbishing
    • etc
Training Units and Durations

The complete program consists of 10 training units.

Each unit lasts 4 hours, thus 40 hours of lectures, case studies, and discussions will be delivered.

Invoicing and Payment

We will invoice you or your company upon application for the training. Payments are due with in 1 week after invoicing.

Questions and Registration

For questions about and registration for the training please use our contact form and select the topic matching your interest.