Managing Quality - Schroeder chapters 8 & 9 - - Field Service Division of DMI - Case Study Example

Answer The queues and delays mainly occurred at the level of field staff who were either busy attending other calls or the parts were not available. If the parts were not available, they were express delivered to the client’s place and repair work delayed till next morning. Many a time, field engineer would report late to clear a service. This would increase the queue and delay target response time. There is distinct lack of motivation in the field staff. Hence, managerial leadership at DMI must ensure that field engineers must be given incentive based defined target so that they are motivated to improve their work performance.

This would result in reducing the queues and delays because they would report the service at soon as the call is attended. They can thus, be assigned new service call. Apart from express delivery of required part, the company should also make efforts to forge alliances with local electronic businesses and firms that can help facilitate the procurement of desired part. Third part service is another very important means of ensuring timely and efficient way to attend service calls. This would reduce long wait and encourage raise customer satisfaction.

Answer 2 The innovative approach to re-engineer the process is critical part of strategic decision making. The company needs to evolve and adopt technologies like expert system to diagnose problem at the customer end from its call center. The field engineers should also be equipped with expert systems that could expedite the process of identifying the defect and thereby reduce repair time. The facility of online conferencing with the experts of the company should also be part of field service so that customers’ problems could be resolved as early as possible.

With fast advancing technology, the change was a major challenge and expert technicians were difficult to be found for repairing old machines. Use of technology by field staff who can use online conferencing with experts at company’s head quarters would significantly improve service call. The company can also use electronic tracking devices for its field staff that can track geographical location of field engineer. Thus, engineer who is nearest to the service call can attend the call. There should be well maintained logbook of field service detail, duly signed by customer so that it could be used to corroborate the level of customer satisfaction with the level of service provided by the field technician.

Hence, ServQual questionnaire needs to be important part of quality service process within the FSD. Answer 3 Yes, DMI/FSD should consolidate the regional dispatch system into one location because it primarily uses technology to log in customer calls and tracks electronically the field engineers who is available and also at the nearest location to the customer. This would not only save cost to the company but also ensure judicious and expert exploitation of technology to improve it overall performance outcome.

All call details are entered at the console of call center that are sent to the dispatch center which match the service call with the qualifications of field technicians and try to place call to those who are nearest to the customer. Since all five regional centers use the same technology to facilitate field call, consolidating them make sense. Answer 6 The major strategic issues for the division and the company were that of meeting the challenges of customer service satisfaction and retaining of competent field technicians.

The changing technologies had brought in great variety in the product choice and made the market more competitive. Hence after sales service had become key element of competitive advantage for them. The need to re-engineer the process flow for service call had become highly critical factor due to increasingly competitive market. Thus, DMI/FDS needed to introduce new dynamic vision that would not only motivate higher productivity but would also ensure that company retains its market position. The re-engineering process would incorporate the tenets of advancing technology to diagnose problems at field site and help facilitate the field technicians to resolve them with success.

New measures that would define the service performance of field staff need to be introduced. The incentive based performance becomes major enabling factors that increase output and therefore must be introduced within the new process. Most importantly, the new strategic vision must include higher level of customer satisfaction vis-a-vis quality products and efficient and time bound after sales service. Hence, efforts must be made to ensure that target response time is met diligently. (words: 744) Reference Schroeder, R. G., Goldstein, S.M., & Rungtusanatham, M. J. (2011).

Operations management: Contemporary concepts and cases (5th Ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill Irwin. ISBN-13: 978-0073403380. Appendix 1 Process Flow Chart for Service Call Fresh complaints Late call/ dissatisfaction National Service Center Service call Information Try to resolve complaints Give response time to customer Customer feedback Regional despatch center Despatcher Part replacement Most likely field tech Express delivery Attend call Report service call