Field repair
Companies, particularly those that manufacture high-ticket mechanical or high-tech equipment, need to support their products with field service organizations. Field service engineers must have daily work orders clearly communicated to them.

They also need "any-time" access to replacement parts inventory, and the ability to order parts required to complete the repair ticket. Corporate headquarters needs to keep track of their remote workforce, as well as the status of all field repair work.

What's the up side of mobile field service?
The advent of handhelds has been nothing short of a blessing for enterprises with remote and mobile field forces. Handhelds have become the reliable tether between the field force and the central corporate office for all communication and data exchange. There are a number of obvious -- and not so obvious -- benefits common to most field service mobile solutions. Let's take a look.

Improved data accuracy
Without handhelds, field forces rely upon paper to manually record captured field data. Handwritten data is then transferred to the central office to be transcribed and keyed into the central corporate data repository. Paper, being a passive instrument, can't apply data validation checks as the data is entered. Paper can't alert the field member if the data record was incomplete. And paper can't insure legibility of the data that's captured.

Handhelds overcome all these weaknesses. In addition, the need to reenter the data into the data repository is no longer necessary. Eliminating this step avoids a major opportunity for additional data inaccuracy creep. Paper fosters an error-prone business process. And let's face it ... it's difficult to make smart business decisions using bad data!

Lower field service costs
The field data inaccuracy problem often leaves no recourse but to send a field service member back out to the site to recollect the data. In addition, paper is easily lost and damaged, further fueling the need for repeat visits to the field. In terms of expense, lost opportunity, and staff productivity, this is an expensive proposition for an enterprise.

Lower shipping costs
Believe it or not, a considerable amount of data collected in the field is actually shipped to central headquarters via shipping and courier services. A large field force making daily express shipments of sizeable data packets can reach well into the 6-figure territory annually! Such data transportation cost is avoided with handhelds because data is electronically transferred.

Avoided administrative costs
Field data that's transferred electronically doesn't need to be transcribed into the corporate data repository. The administrative staff cost associated with this task is totally eliminated.

Increased field force efficiency
Field force handhelds are a two-way communication device. Each field member can download their daily work docket and be prompted in real-time of docket changes. Corporate data regarding customers, their service contracts, and parts inventories is readily available. This makes the field force far more efficient. The end result is an enterprise can typically accomplish more work with the same or less field staff -- representing a bottom line savings in staff cost.