CASE STUDY: CE SERVICES GROUP
CE Repair Services provides repair services (at home or in a workshop) and related services for electrical appliances, such as televisions, monitors, audio equipment, household appliances, computers; and for technical installations such as heat pumps and air conditioning, with 7 branches spread across the Benelux.
With the growth of the organisation (now around 80 technicians and many appointments), optimal planning became a greater challenge, accelerating the search for route planning software in 2020.
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During the selection process of a planning solution, the following question quickly came to our mind:
Which planning system (algorithm) achieves the greatest productivity improvement?" "The difference in procurement and implementation costs was / is quickly apparent but not the difference in terms of productivity improvement. In order to 'justify' and test the difference in costs, we carried out comparison tests of field service processes. This made it clear that the costs of FLS VISITOUR were acceptable and fair as the difference in productivity improvement was qualitatively and quantitatively significantly greater than FLS VISITOUR at the time of the test." -- Paul Veth, Commercial Director CE Services Group
Using a template, the guidelines were clear as to the minimum data required to simulate a planning round with its own data in the FLS VISITOUR planning system and in the other planning system. In this test the 'old' way of planning was kept as much as possible in order to measure the differences between both planning systems, but also compared to the 'old' way of planning.
The benchmark in this test is the initial planning tool where 555 appointments over 80 technicians are planned. With one algorithm (based on logistics issues) 73 technicians are needed and with the FLS algorithm (based on field service issues) 68 technicians are needed. A saving of 12 resources compared to the initial planning tool (15%) and a saving of 5 technicians (7%) compared to the planning tool with an algorithm from the transport and logistics world.
• The cost for an engineer with car and equipment is on average €50,000 per year for the employer.
• With a difference of 5 engineers, the quantitative difference is €250,000 on an annual basis compared to the other algorithm driven route planning application. This has a major impact on the initially calculated OPEX and on the final decision making.
This was one of the reasons why
CE Services Group chose the FLS algorithm and its Field Service Scheduling application FLS VISITOUR.