Installations are often not perceived as an after-sales service. As a result, these are not carried out particularly efficiently. Companies can save a lot of costs here through strategic implementation.
The following rules are by no means all that can be done to make installations more cost-efficient for your own service department. Experienced Service Manager know a number of tricks that can really save money on installations. The points mentioned here are a good starting point for becoming a little more determined in this area.
Which technicians do I use for installations?
If the schedule allows for some leeway in terms of personnel, you should make sure that you do not send the youngest service technicians to work. To give inexperienced technicians an opportunity to become more confident in their work, maintenance assignments are particularly suitable. These are the simplest machine-related activities in technical customer service. This is also where the least can go wrong. This is great for beginners.
At the same time, you don't necessarily have to assign installation work to your most experienced veterans. You can preferably use your best performers for complex repair jobs, as repairs are the most complicated and require far more expertise than relatively standardized installations or completely plannable maintenance. Repairs usually require complex fault analyses to be carried out. A technician should be almost as knowledgeable as the developer of the machine.
Installations can become complicated if something does not work during commissioning and errors have to be searched for. However, they are usually in the middle range in terms of difficulty. They mostly involve activities such as repairing transport damage or checking cabling.
It is therefore best to use your service technicians with medium experience and performance. They offer you the best cost efficiency, as they are fast, can easily handle minor difficulties, but do not occupy the highest salary levels in your organization. Perfect for keeping installations within budget while delivering satisfactory work.
Use external personnel for simple tasks!
Not all installation-related activities are technically demanding. It is therefore not necessary to use specialist technical personnel for these. In this way, you can save a great deal on expensive in-house capacities. Determine in advance which work can be carried out by non-specialist, less qualified workers and then buy in external personnel accordingly, possibly via a subcontractor. Mechanical activities, for example, are often suitable for this. This also means that you do not have to tie up so many of your own employees with simple tasks.
Determine a target piece to be produced with the customer in advance!
Before starting the installation, define with the customer what the finished target piece should look like in the end and what requirements it must fulfill. Otherwise, customers tend to develop new wishes and requirements during the process, which your employees often have to fulfill free of charge and additionally.
Another problem is customers who do not know exactly what they want and change their mind several times on crucial issues. This also does not have a positive effect on the speed with which such an assignment can be completed. The implementation of an installation should be tightly organized.
Set fixed target times for carrying out the installation!
You should always give your service technicians a time frame that they can use to complete the job. It is in the nature of things that nothing gets done without a deadline and clear targets. Of course, unforeseen things can always happen that delay the completion of the job. However, this does not release you from the general need to draw up a plan. In the event of difficulties, this may simply have to be adapted.
You should not just set a maximum number of hours for the entire completion of the installation. It is best to divide the job into smaller sections and set a time budget for each one (for example, 4 hours for bringing in the machine and another 8 hours for the exact positioning and leveling of the machines, etc.). In this way, the progress of the work can be tracked at all times and everyone involved knows how well they are on schedule.
Specify installation time targets in the system specifications!
Machines are constantly being developed with target dimensions such as higher productivity and availability in mind. Much less often is it considered that the required installation time should also improve from generation to generation. After completing an installation order, you already know how long you have needed and how long it would take to complete it if the next generation of machines were designed slightly differently in one place or another (keyword: design for service).
Think about the potential here in terms of the required working hours and note the specifications and requirements in the specifications for the next machine. Otherwise, this point is unfortunately neglected far too often when designing the next generation.
