The (field) service department in your organization is pre-eminently the department where you can achieve great results by streamlining business processes. An important rule to apply here is "management by exception.
Management by exception
To work efficiently, you try to make all processes run as smoothly, quickly and smoothly as possible, without controlling or taking action on this yourself. But there are always cases that deviate from how the business process should normally run and require special attention. You want those cases solved by a select group of employees who are specialized in them and have the authority to make decisions. In other words, management by exception. Imagine that one of your mechanics is on site at the customer's for a repair. There he finds that a part needs to be replaced. The mechanic has this part in his service van, but it is damaged. The part can still be used, but towards the customer a solution will have to be found. Charge the part at a reduced rate? Deliver a new part urgently? Use this part now and make a new appointment to replace it with a part without damage? You don't want to burden your mechanic with this choice. With such an exception to the regular process, e.g., the service planner or workshop manager will have to judge which decision to make.
Why management by exception?
By applying management by exception, you can quickly identify problems and put all your time and energy into them instead of dealing with less important issues or things that are running smoothly anyway. In addition, you don't have to look at everything, but can concentrate on a few issues, saving time and making better decisions. What's the point of going through and checking a stack of invoices every week, when most of them show no abnormalities? Far better to filter out the anomalous invoices already and focus entirely on these.
What should you pay attention to?
The difficulty in applying management by exception lies in defining and detecting what is standard or normal and what is deviant. You will need to have your business processes in excellent order and have a clear idea of how they normally run and when there is a deviation in the process. Determining and writing down your business processes can be done with a group of colleagues and possibly with the help of your software partner. The ERP software also plays an important role in this. After all, the software should also facilitate filtering the exceptions and assigning them to a specific user or user group. Therefore, talk to your software partner and consider together how your business processes can be made even more efficient by applying management by exception.
As Product Owner, Joan Gaastra has the wheel in his hands at Dysel. He determines which functionality will be developed and where the priorities lie.
