Twenty-five dollars isn't what it used to be at NEC America. It used to be the cutoff point for "free" parts for repairs by Radio Communications Service Division, Product Maintenance Dept. That was before the company installed Service ProÆ from CPS, Inc., Fairfield, NJ. Service Pro is a powerful service management and customer service-support software solution for managing in-house and field service repairs, tracking customer assets, administering RMAs and managing service contracts. By tying Service Pro to its ERP/Accounting software, NEC America can automatically track every action and part cost associated with a repair, including the cost of numerous small parts used in thousands of repairs over the course of a year.

"We have 21,000 line items that we can be called on to repair," said Robert Edwards, manager, NEC America, RCSD, PMD. "That requires such a large inventory of parts, and they were all kept in a separate data base. Technicians had to sign out parts, enter job codes and do MRAs (Maintenance & Repair Authorizations). The logs were picked up weekly and used to compile the charges. Due to the magnitude of that effort, NEC America implemented a policy to provide free service for repairs under $25. Now, we can charge for all parts - even 30-cent parts - and recover our costs."
Fast, accurate repairs to manufacturers' specifications always were and continue to be the top priority for Edwards' division. The technicians fix microwave and satellite communications systems used worldwide by a variety of industries, including telecommunications, transportation and retail. Because its customers' system uptime is so vital, any business solution had to maintain - if not improve - NEC's ability to deliver the highest quality work in a highly efficient manner. With an initial investment in Service Pro of some $50,000, including training and customization, NEC America was able to decrease repair time and improve cost recovery. This investment paid for itself in less than 12 months through cost recovery, increased productivity and the ability to transfer three employees to jobs where they could better aid productivity.

For Edwards, the key to improving cost recovery comes from Service Pro's capability to combine four databases into one that communicates with all parties in real time. "Each of those databases took in some pieces of the information," Edwards said. "As a result, we had a lot of people adding accounting and billing information - some of it the same. We had our accounting software as an end system, and everything had to feed into it." Because the data were spread across so many platforms, each database held minimal information simply to speed access to the bare necessities. Sometimes, it took as long as a day or two to find a needed piece of information! Data search time essentially slowed all facets of the repair, billing and customer service response time. The increased number of nanoseconds needed to send and receive data through the network and the minutes people needed to find information in file cabinets created inefficiencies. Service Pro looked at bottlenecks throughout the NEC system and helped the company select hardware that would maximize the benefits of the software. By tying their accounting system into Service Pro, NEC was able to use Service Pro's capabilities to maintain inventories, conduct failure analyses, monitor trends and automate its administration, including using bar codes to eliminate keyboard data entry, especially by repair technicians who were getting bogged down by paperwork.

Streamlined Operation

"With our present system, each repair arrives with an RMA filled out by the customer," Edwards said. When the part and RMA arrive, NEC processes the repair, scanning the pre-printed barcode that puts Service Pro in action. The bar code enables anyone in the department to know the type of part being repaired and its internal job number. It also adds information to the RMA, such as whether a part is taken out of inventory and the technician's time. This information is crucial because there is a do-not-repair threshold that Service Pro alerts the user if any job exceeds a percentage of the repair's total cost. A technician can tell when the job crosses the threshold and immediately stop work before incurring costs - and absorbing non-billable time. If parts are returned to inventory, Service Pro puts the part back into inventory, updating both customer charges and the inventory in real time. "That has increased our productivity tremendously," Edwards said. "With the software and the bar code working together, our technicians don't have to do all the paperwork needed to adjust inventory and billing. And, they don't have to do a lot of typing. We all just push buttons - even on the administrative side. It cuts down errors, and it reduces the paperwork to about 30 minutes a day for the 6 to 12 items each technician repairs on a daily basis." Service Pro also saves technicians' time by automatically notifying them of ECNs (Engineering Change Notices) for any particular piece of equipment they are repairing. The system automatically matches up the model number for the equipment covered by the ECN and the serial number for the specific piece of equipment to see if the ECN work was applied.

"We've also reduced a lot of time and errors by incorporating a lot of common tasks into Service Pro and the bar code reader," he added. "Our technicians are not wasting time on administrative details; they're able to concentrate on their repair work."