Metales pesados

Having a list of prospective customers, the customer service team create a Business Partner (BP) record when they receive a confirmation that an individual wants to place an order, thereby converting the prospective customer from an enquiry (lead) into a customer. Following the sale, the customer service team create an activity to update what they have done against the BP record, as well as when the next contact is due. If there is need to add another BP record then the process is repeated. These activities serve as a reminder to customer service to contact customers in the future to enquire whether the customer requires service to be carried out on their equipment. It also forms the basis upon which customer service decides which customer to contact and the purpose of the calls. When the customer service team check the list of activities to follow-up on, they phone up the customer to enquire if the customer requires a service or maintenance on their building or facilities. If the customer does not require either a service or maintenance, the customer service staffs create a follow-up activity and if the customer requires a sales quotation in order to make a decision whether or not to request a service, the customer service team creates a sales quotation and links this to the follow-up activity. It is also important to note that the quotes at the beginning of the research were sent out manually in the post. The activities marked in blue are those carried out in SAP Business One as shown in figure 4.9a.

If the customer requires a service, then the customer service team proceeds to check the diary in a different system called Resultware and agrees a service date with the customer. They then go back into SAP Business One to create a service call and an activity to track what has been discussed with the customer. They also create an activity in Resultware in order to organise the service engineers’ diary. After updating the service call, a sales order is then created by copying

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the sales quotation in SAP Business One. In order to keep Resultware up to date, the customer service team update the activity to include the sales order number and service call details. This is marked as the green activity in the diagram below, figure 4.9a.

Then a third system is updated to keep track of the customer’s equipments. This gives Alpha a detailed history of the equipments on the customer’s site, what services were carried out on each of the equipments, what service parts were replaced and who serviced the equipment. This also gives Alpha a knowledge base of similar equipments which is transferred to similar issues on other customers’ sites. This is marked as the orange activities in figure 4.9a.

The sales orders are sent to the engineers by standard post or email. If a filter is required, then a copy of the sales order containing the filter details is sent to the manufacturing department, which makes the filter and gets it sent directly to the customer’s site before the scheduled date of service. If a material that needs to be purchased from another supplier is also required for the service, then the purchase department purchases the item and gets the item delivered either directly to the customer’s site or to the engineer. On the service day, the engineer carries out the service and explains to the customer what has been done. The customer checks the work and signs the service confirmation document to confirm that the work has been carried out correctly.

The confirmation of service (CS Note) is sent by the engineers on Fridays, and as a result, there is a delay on invoicing services carried out earlier in the week. Upon receiving the CS Note, the office staffs match the CS note with the job sheet, which is used to invoice the customer, as well as confirm the hours payable to the engineers weekly.

From the analysis the following issues were identified:

1. There is a possibility that time sheets might be missing or delayed, which means that office staffs have to chase up missing time sheets.

2. Most processes are still manual.

3. Communications with engineers are done manually by post or email.

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5. There is no clarity whether Alpha fully invoices all 40 hours posted in the system against each engineer.

6. The issue of who extends the orders and who confirms what is invoiced is also raised, because there is no audit trail due to the use of disparate systems.

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Total process time =

Possible % reduction in time

=

1: Room to have to chase up for some time sheets 2: Most processes are still manual

3: Communication with Engineers done by post & email 4: How do we account for 400 hours paid 5: Do we invoice all 400 hours posted

6: Who extends the orders and who confirms what is invoiced Issues 4 To copy an existing order by finding previous order Find button Duplicate order Add BP details

Add service call o and sales order No in Resultware

Open Telemagic

Find Customer

Enter visit date

Update equipment Print (service confirmation letter and technician's sheet 2 Check diary in Resultware and agree date with

cust Click service call button Create service call Create activity (pre-service) Create activity (post-service) Update service call Return to Resultware and update activity Click sales order button (for complete new

orders) 3 Add order Proceed to raising a sales order 1 Ring client Create a BP in SAP Create activity1 (Task/Recall) Open activity list Click next activity number

Update activity1 & close activity (Out/Call Result) Ready to create a quote? Sales A/R Prospect list Create Quotation Add customer

Add quote lines

Find activity2

Link quote to activity Create F/U activity2

(Task/Action)

No Add another

prospect?

Print and post quote No Yes P ro s p e c t lo o p C o n ta c t lo o p Yes Is service required? Next call ? No Yes END Yes No

Save order and auto print Save to S drive Retrieve orders from tray Any material to order? Raise purchase order in SAP Yes Purchase material (material arrives and ready for job)

Goes into girls lever arch No Any material to produce? Yes Send to production to make the filter/material Send filter/material to engineer for the

job No

Put printed orders into the tray

Send job to engineer

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Total process time =

Possible % reduction in time

=

1: Room to have to chase up for some time sheets 2: Most processes are still manual

3: Communication with Engineers done by post & email 4: How do we account for 400 hours paid 5: Do we invoice all 400 hours posted

6: Who extends the orders and who confirms what is invoiced Issues Retrieves account managers files Receives TS/CSN bundles (1 min) Finds corresponding time

sheet entry/ sales order (1 min) Staples CSN to

sales order & stamps rear with TS

hrs etc (2 mins)

Match time sheet hrs to sales order

(5 mins) Match purchase order to job sheets

& enter details (4 mins)

Places SO/ CSN pack into red box

Input lab hrs to SAP (hidden) for

job costing (3 mins) Invoice in SAP (3 mins) Send invoices to customers by post (3 days)

Receive red box

Complete service certificates etc in Telemagic (6 mins) Weekly GP analysis by rep by invoice (6 mins)

Payroll & utilization reports ( ) Return SO/CSN

Extend & update SAP sales order to

suit time spent and close service

call (3 mins)

Check quote against invoice

?

8

Checks and totals time sheet

(7 mins) Attaches CSN to rear of time sheets

(1 mins) Manager signs time sheets (1 mins) Complete Payroll (4 mins) Input payroll hrs (1 mins) Send CS Notes and time sheets to

office by post (3 days) Fill in CS Note and/or LEV Note (15 mins)

Meet customer and explain CS Note detail + sign

off + Give customer's copy

(10 mins)

Fill in time sheet (5 mins)

Wait till Friday to post off CS Note, job sheets & time sheets (4 days)

Engineers Job sheets received by

email (12 hours)

Carry out service job (X hrs)

6 7

5

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From the VSM and data collected, the following areas have been identified to be peculiar to the hybrid HVAC servcie and manufacturing business process and have not been covered by previous researchers.

 Account for parts used for particular jobs and by specific engineers.

 Travel hours to and from the customer’s site.

 Diagnostic time (time taken for the engineer to carry out the job).

 Equipment types and the corresponding consumables located on customer’s site.

 How to reduce the time taken before customers are invoiced.

 How to improve the efficiency of data communication between field engineers and back office.

As mentioned earlier, one of the issues faced by hybrid service and manufacturing organisations is the lack of a comprehensive system that is capable of tracking the types and models of equipment on a customer’s site. Also the parts and consumables used during each service for specific customer equipments should be documented within the system as a knowledge base for future works. The availability of a knowledge base is essential for both future services as well as training of staff. To the customer, the value adding time is that time spent by the engineer diagnosing or servicing their equipment. However, to the hybrid service and manufacturing organisation, it is equally important to capture the time spent by the engineer traveling to and from the customer’s site, since the engineers are paid for this time.

One other issue identified through this research is the inability of disparate systems, which send documents electronically to customers without using add-ons. As a result, the business has to wait for days in order to send an invoice to customers for services already carried out, which reduces the cash flow of the hybrid organisation. This also extends to communication with the engineers, because sending documents via post can cause substantial delays to urgent services.

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4.1.3 Risk assessment of adoption and implementation of ineffective service ERP