newsArticleText4 = "<br>CASE STUDY<br>[February 12, 2003] <br>What Works: Centre State Computer Maintenance <br><br>BY DAVID YOUNGER<br>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br><br>Centre State Computer Maintenance performs IT-related services for clients located in the vast areas of central and northern Queensland. It is not unusual for technicians to travel by vehicle to client sites up to 400 km away, often in remote and regional areas of the state. Centre State\'s business clients expect that the quality and timeliness of service delivery in regional areas will be similar to that found in the capital cities.<br><br>The growth of the business has been such that it needed an effective back office solution to manage its clients\' expectations with limited resources over a diverse geographic area. Such issues as speedy logging of customer jobs, technician dispatch, logistics management, invoicing and the timely escalation of calls needed to be monitored to ensure that contracted service level agreements were being met. Additionally, an efficient mechanism of issuing jobs to technicians and gathering back that information once the job was completed was required. The cost in terms of man time, communications and delays in processing jobs to invoice were significant and needed to be cut considerably.<br><br>Additionally Centre State delivers gaming-related services at venues in four major coastal cities so it was imperative for both the short- and long-term health of the company that an effective solution was found. The company wanted to reduce their administrative costs, especially their phone bill, which was considerable and growing due to the large distances involved -- not to mention the administrative time involved making the calls.<br><br>The whole job cycle leading up to invoicing was way too long, sometimes taking up to three weeks to produce an invoice. This was causing considerable cash flow issues, which could easily be resolved with the implementation of new technologies. Due to the nature of the business and existing systems implemented, much data was entered twice into multiple systems, and a significant reduction of delays and administrative overheads was required.<br><br>Finally, the current technicians were not being utilized efficiently, requiring additional technicians to complete the required workload while restricting growth.<br><br>THE SOLUTION<br>Centre State has been using a field service automation package called TSM The Service Manager for over 10 years. Originally a DOS system and now upgraded to Windows, TSM provides a complete back-office and technician management system. Until recently, jobs were dispatched manually using the mobile phone to relay job information, or jobs were faxed overnight. Additionally, equipment purchases were manually processed and faxed to the suppliers. With TSM V5, Centre State can now e-mail and SMS jobs directly to the technicians. This has not only resulted in increased accuracy but also a considerable decrease in administration time dispatching jobs. Technicians in the field use Palm Pilots running a cut down version of TSM to enter job information, time sheets and parts used. This information is then synchronized back to TSM at the end of the day. It was important that standard devices be used to minimize the cost of equipment purchases.<br><br>The Visual Job Scheduler in TSM enables efficient scheduling of technicians to jobs and enables at-a-glance viewing of all technicians\' activities. Another critical requirement is seamless integration with Centre State\'s MYOB accounting software. TSM provides automatic generation of MYOB transaction files to regularly transfer invoices to MYOB.<br><br>The implementation of TSM V5 has enabled Centre State to more effectively distribute jobs to technicians. Time spent on the phone has dropped by 50 percent. All job information is received back the same evening rather than up to seven days later with the old system. Additionally, double data entry is eliminated as all job details are synchronized directly from the engineers\' Palm Pilots. The time to invoice has been reduced from an average of three weeks to less than one week, resulting in a significant improvement in cash flow.<br><br>MORE INFORMATION EQUALS BETTER MANAGEMENT<br>TSM has also allowed Centre State to not only respond more quickly to service calls, it has also provided significant management information previously unavailable. Simple job reports, parts used analysis, purchasing analysis and time sheets all the way through to detailed performance reports, mean time to respond analysis and job completion statistics enable Centre State to satisfy 20 percent more jobs and increase employee productivity by over 30 percent. Additionally, staff administration expenses have been reduced 25 percent due to streamlining of internal processes because of implementation of TSM.<br><br>Centre State is continuing to improve its systems with the TSM service management solution. Throughout the rest of 2002, they will implement further TSM modules. At their request, TSM has developed an SMS module to provide active feedback that the technician received the call. Additionally, 80 percent of jobs dispatched are based on prepaid contracts so customer paperwork is not required. The new SMS retrieval module allows technicians to send back via SMS job completion information and automatically update the related job card in real time. This has provided an 80 percent savings in administrative time.<br><br>EXTENDING TO THE PDA<br>Centre State plans to implement TSM\'s wireless solution when it is released. TSM wireless provides real-time access to job information on PDA devices using the GPRS mobile network. With a real-time wireless solution, Centre State technicians will be able to update jobs in real time with job updates immediately updating the back-office system. This will allow for improved management of SLAs along with real-time access to customer and product pricing/stock control.<br><br>Because technicians cover large distances, keeping track of their locations is important to calculate the technician closest to the next job. An additional option for Centre State is to implement GPS technology to keep track of each technician and estimate the time it would take to travel to any given job. TSM is investigating the possibility of incorporating GPS using the GSM mobile network to establish a technician\'s position by triangulating their mobile phone from three base stations. This should provide a roughly accurate position, which would then be converted into a regional map grid coordinate.<br><br>Centre State has also taken on the GoldMine CRM solution and will implement it throughout the organization. GoldMine provides their sales department with the tools to effectively manage existing customers and market Centre State services to new prospects. It will also provide a mechanism to keep in touch with existing clients via newsletters, and will incorporate automated processes to facilitate the implementation of standardized sales and marketing workflows. Linking TSM with GoldMine provides real-time job information to sales representatives to keep them fully informed about customer job histories. It also reduces double entry by making new client information available to TSM in real time.<br><br>David Younger is managing director of TSM The Service Manager. TSM The Service Manager (formerly Proware) is a leading provider of service management software - TSM V5. The TSM suite of products helps service organizations improve revenue and service productivity, reduce operating costs and increase customer satisfaction. TSM can interface with a number of CRM solutions, adding sales force automation and help desk functionality.<br> <br>";