Tell us a bit about your company
CEM install and maintain commercial HVAC plant in communal plant rooms: residential blocks, offices and commercial properties.
In addition, CEM is the only Authorised Service Partner in the UK of Alfa Laval, the leading global manufacturer of plate heat exchangers.
Please tell us a little about your position in the company
Steve Cullen, Sales & Marketing Manager, responsible for securing new Maintenance Contracts and Refurbishment projects. In addition, is responsible for administrating the CEM website and branding.
What problems were you having that FieldMotion was brought in to fix?
CEM was operating a manual task management and reporting system that was predominantly reliant on engineers visiting the office to be allocated tasks and to deliver handwritten report sheets.
When on site on medium term projects, this meant paperwork was received very late which affected turning around remedial quotes and delayed invoicing.
Communicating instructions was difficult due to mobile reception issues in plant rooms and wasted administration time with callbacks.
Handwritten report sheets, especially 3rd NCR copies, was difficult to read and had to be typed for quotes, reports and invoices.
How has FieldMotion affected your business since you’ve started using it?
Report sheets are available in the office the moment the task is finished. This allows CEM to be aware and turn around any remedial quotations required and verbally report to clients instantly.
Report sheets in pdf format can be quickly emailed to clients.
Invoices can be raised instantly, details of work done electronically copied from FM, and therefore improving cashflow.
The office can raise tasks and allocate to engineers as they arise – the engineer can respond remotely when they have wifi reception.
For PPM tasks, an engineer has all the tasks due that week on the system – therefore can attend when it is most efficient in terms of location and what other tasks they are allocated.
Electronically inputting reports and taking photos to demonstrate issues, saves a lot of time on site and improves efficiency in completing remedial quotes.
For out of hours callouts, the engineers can raise their own tasks and therefore produce report sheets against job numbers.
All management and administration staff can view all tasks – either in the office or remotely.
If you could put a number on it, how many hours/person/week have you saved by switching to FieldMotion?
- For each engineer we estimate that around 4 hours a week is saved as a minimum.
- For office staff that manage the allocation of engineering tasks, it is probably about 8 hours a week.
- For administration staff that handle quotations and communicating with clients, about 4 hours a week saved.
- For administration staff responsible for invoicing, about 4 hours per week.
The above estimates must be taken in the context that the same number of staff has been able to able to manage a significant increase in work since implementing FM
Through your use of Fieldmotion, has your company seen a positive financial benefit, and if so what would that be?
Apart from the comments above regarding FM enabling growth in turnover with the same staffing levels, the biggest other benefit is improving cashflow by invoicing more quickly.
Do you think that FieldMotion software will help your company take on more work?
To increase business was a prime motivation in selecting FM. Undoubtedly FM will greatly assist and manage future expansion as it is easily scaleable.
In our sector, the most important constraint to growth is identifying and recruiting experienced and highly qualified commercial HVAC engineers.
The Outsourcing functionality is working well with our sister company, CEMWH, and we hope that our other partners adopt FM!
