Alleviating the challenges of manual data collection with field force management integration interface

Product manufacturers can gain significant competitive advantage to their service business by utilizing detailed information about the product individuals that form the installed base or are under service contracts. This Service Base Information includes details on failures and maintenance, location and site, compositional structure, operation and environment, and data for key performance indicators. Information can be collected manually or by automated means. However, 8 cases from Finnish machine building and telecommunications industries indicate that the state-of-the-practice still has significant room for improvement. Quality of manually collected information is often insufficient for many analyses and scope often too narrow. We identify the information needs and describe a proposed OASIS standard - Field Force Management Integration Interface (FFMII). When FFMII is applied with appropriate data content, coding systems, and user interfaces, it is possible to increase the scope and quality of service base information without excessive reporting burden on field engineers. We show how FFMII can be applied to collect necessary information. This, in turn, enables fact-based adaptation of preventive maintenance programs, more efficient field operations, more accurate pricing of service sales, and analysis of field reliability.