Welcome to Service Business Review.

In many service businesses, dealing with ‘emergency’ calls is a fact of life. From a mission critical IT system going down, to a high priority cable subscriber experiencing technical problems, to a lottery terminal breaking down a few hours prior to the big draw. Definitions of what qualifies for an ‘emergency’ call will vary from one company to another but I am sure that not one SBR reader will deny that a gas leak requires an ‘emergency’ response. SBR recently sat down with Gaz Metro to discuss how they are meeting their strict emergency regulations.

Also in this issue:

• Fuel costs are rising – over 50% increase in the past two years – and raising the costs of service operations. Our expert discusses what a field service organization can do to control these costs?
• No More Waiting Please! How technology can eliminate those lengthy appointment windows
• Take the Scheduling and Routing Survey Today and get a free copy of the findings

Got an interesting story or topic you would like to see discussed? As always, your feedback is welcome.

Enjoy!

Simon Morris
Editor, Service Business Review

Feature Story

Christine Comtois	Elie Hossari

The 35-Minute Mandate
How Location-Based Services Will Help Gaz Metro Meet Their Emergency Service Regulations

Gaz Metro recently sat down to talk with Service Business Review about the latest addition to their workforce management solution: location-based services. Project Manager, Christine Comtois, and consultant, Elie Hossari, explained the rationale behind the decision, the unique emergency service requirements that location-based services will address, and advice to other companies looking to enhance their operations with this kind of solution.

As one of the five largest natural gas distributors in Canada, Gaz Metro delivers 97 percent of the natural gas used in the province of Quebec. Gaz Metro is also one of the largest companies in Quebec, with more than $2.7 billion in assets and more than 1,500 employees. In all, the company serves over 165,000 customers through an underground pipeline network that stretches more than 6,000 miles.

Service Business Review: Can you describe the field service operations you’re involved with?

Gaz Metro: We have approximately 300 field technicians who work in different areas, including new installations, maintenance, meter management and sampling programs. Three years ago, each of those technicians would only carry out work that fell into their specific line of business, until we negotiated resource sharing among business units. Today, with the exception of some meter specialists, most technicians can handle jobs from any of the business lines.

An important part of their work is emergency coverage. In all, we field approximately 12,000 emergency calls a year – and as a regulated business, we have to respond to every one of these calls in less than 35 minutes. Even if it’s just someone thinking they smell gas, we have to respond in a timely manner. This makes it very difficult for the people who plan the day, because no matter how they’ve scheduled work in advance, they have to take someone off the job to cover the emergency.

SBR: Was emergency work and the 35-minute response time the business driver that pushed you towards location-based services, or were there other business challenges as well?

Gaz Metro: Emergency response was the primary incentive to work with location-based services. Gaz Metro is all over the Quebec province – it’s a very big territory with nine different regional offices. Sometimes, a technician from regional office “A” can be nearer to an emergency than a technician at regional office “B” – but the dispatcher at regional office B is completely unaware of this. In addition, technicians from our corporate office can cover the entire territory. Using the location-based services wizard, dispatchers in each regional office are aware not only of their own technicians, but also every other technician, and can find the best one to answer any particular emergency.

SBR: Are you experiencing any push back from the field technicians?

Gaz Metro: We’re still rolling the system out, so at this point, the only push back we’ve had was at the beginning of summer, when we began to install the GPS devices in the trucks. But it’s a first step for the technicians. They know that we’ll know exactly where they are at any time, but our emphasis has to be on emergency coverage and public safety. We agreed with the union that the main objective is not to track technicians – we just want to make sure we are able to identify the best resource available in the least amount of time.

Gaz Metro had to discuss all of these items with the union on several occasions. I should also point out that the project will permit the transfer of fleet management data, including maintenance information, truck information, idle time, gas consumption, kilometers, etc. The fact that this information is also being transferred to Gaz Metro by the GPS modules that are linked to the truck’s computer has helped us to gain acceptance.

Another big point is that these trucks are Gaz Metro assets, and some of them are very, very expensive. Having GPS and location-based services on those assets is important for insurance purposes.

SBR: In the future, do you plan to evaluate technician performance based on the information you get from the field?

Gaz Metro: Honestly, this is not included in our plans in the near or medium term. The first step is to make sure that acceptance is there from the field. I don’t think that Gaz Metro is going to use it to calculate engineer performance at large.

SBR: Do you have any measurements in place to measure the ROI of the location-based services solution? Are there any quantifiable benefits you’re expecting to gain from the implementation, or any other metrics in place?

Gaz Metro: There is, of course, all of the information that we already know – that by selecting the engineer closest to the emergency, we’re going to save on gas, and we’re going to save on travel time. In the same way, if we’re always selecting the engineer that is 10 minutes away, rather than the one that is 25, we have a gain right there. If you multiply that by 10,000 or 12,000 or 15,000 emergencies a year, it’s a huge gain.

SBR: Clearly, location-based services technology is going to enable you to know where your field technicians are, but, as was highlighted in a recent Aberdeen Group report, additional high value comes if you combine it with automated scheduling. Is that in line with your vision?

Gaz Metro: As a first step, Gaz Metro wants to use location-based services solely for emergency handling, where there is no automated scheduling. We always want a human being, a dispatcher, to decide which engineer to send to urgent tasks because of the responsibility that lies behind it. The system suggests the different possibilities with the estimated travel time, of course, and the dispatcher makes the final decision taking into account different aspects including the information the system provided.

Traveling is just one aspect to be considered. For example, there may be three different technicians who are 10, 12 and 15 minutes from an emergency. The one that’s 15 minutes out, but already in his truck, is probably more appropriate to cover the emergency than the one who is 10 minutes out but already working on the street. He needs preparation time before he starts traveling to the emergency (Gather his tools, tell the customer he needs to leave, walk to his truck…). That’s why travel time is not the only criteria for a dispatcher to use. It’s an important one, because we have to be there in 35 minutes, but we also have to take into consideration other aspects.

SBR: What were some of the selection criteria behind your location-based services solution provider?

Gaz Metro: It was a no-brainer. We’ve been using ClickSoftware for more than three years, and it was the natural evolution. The different vendors that we were talking to about implementing GPS in the trucks had their own tools, which Gaz Metro looked at briefly before deciding that we were going with ClickSoftware for the location-based services component.

All the tasks that are in SAP come down to ClickSoftware, the integration already exists, it’s a solid component, and everything works well. With ClickSoftware we’re able to see all of the tasks and all of the technicians on the map at the same time. The dispatcher has only one place to look to make a decision.

SBR: There are many organizations out there considering a move to location-based services. What are some of the things companies considering this move should focus on? What advice would you give them?

Gaz Metro: A lot of change management can be involved in these projects – be sure to have a clear business case, and be sure to know what you are going to use it for. Be prepared before discussing it with your internal management, union, different teams, or technicians. You may meet resistance from a union; you may also meet resistance from middle management.

In some situations, you can have conflicts with dispatchers who may not like the idea of a dispatcher from another region knowing where their technician is. There can be fear that the other dispatcher might steal the technician and start assigning their jobs.

Success also involves a lot of communication with people. Gaz Metro's project team had multiple meetings with the union and middle management. We always informed all the parties of the progress of the implementation, and we did some test cases with them in order to ensure acceptance. We took it one step at a time.

What also helped us with the location-based services and GPS project was that we also had a mobility project going at the same time. That project is providing our technicians with PDAs that they’ll use to receive work orders, and to record arrival and close status on those orders.
The resistance probably would have been stronger if location-based services were the only component that was going live. But since it was presented as a global project that includes location-based services, fleet management and mobility, it was easier to digest. Addressing the “what’s in it for me” factor from the technician’s point of view is very important.