FINNING UK & Ireland has revealed that adopting a new approach to service operations has resulted in a 75% first-time fix rate for customer equipment faults.
The figure has been achieved by leveraging condition monitoring technology and historic data from over 5,500 remote diagnostic sessions.
The remote services and diagnostic team at Finning introduced the new approach to its service operations using data from machine telematics, which is then cross referenced with historic service data.
Drawing on data from real-time remote diagnostic sessions – with the team conducting up to 300 each month – the engineers use this to accurately predict asset faults and issues remotely. This enables them to take necessary action – such as ordering the right part or parts – so that the engineer visiting the site can resolve the issue during just one site visit.
Nikolaos Kakoudakis, strategic operations manager for Finning UK & Ireland, explained, “Having the ability to remotely diagnose an equipment fault is crucial for both us and the customer operating that equipment. For us, being able to identify the precise nature of the fault means that when the engineer goes out to site, they have the correct parts and can resolve the issue quickly for the customer.
“This ensures any downtime is kept to an absolute minimum, which can be costly and cause project delays. It also reduces operational inefficiencies on site.”
The approach has been so successful that Caterpillar, during a recent visit to the company’s Leeds branch, awarded the team a certificate recognising its ‘excellence in condition monitoring and remote services’.
Lavanya Ajesh, MD at Caterpillar Commercial, Northern Europe, said, “We are focused on leveraging and optimising remote services and condition monitoring to accelerate customer satisfaction and services growth. The dedication of the Finning team towards using these tools to improve first-time fix and to drive service growth is highly commendable.”
Chris Hepworth, general manager for service operations at Finning, added, “Over the last three years, the technology and remote services team has delivered transformational results demonstrating improvement month-on-month. The team provides services to exceed our customers’ needs, from breakdowns to proactive interventions preventing failure. These results have been achieved through teamwork and collaboration with the wider service operations team. Well done to everyone involved.”
