Product category:
Software, off-line programming, CAM, for metal cutting machine tools
News Release from: Tesseract | Subject: Service Centre software
Edited by the Manufacturingtalk Editorial
Team on 08 March 2004
Modern management package updates m/c
services
It was to improve its call management and engineer scheduling - as well as the management of spare parts - that a machine tool supplier acquired a modern service management system package.
Leading machine tool company Hurco Europe has long recognised that the benefits of combining the supply of high-quality, cost-effective machine tools with superlative levels of customer service are essential to success in today's fiercely-competitive marketplace With more than 2,000 CNC milling machines and machining centres installed in the UK, the High Wycombe (Bucks) based company also firmly believes that its policy of continual improvement across the entire business is key - and, of course, that includes the way it interacts with its customer base
This article was originally published on Manufacturingtalk on 30 Jul 2002 at 8.00am (UK)
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"Hurco has always been a very customer-focused company," says Service Manager Steve Coleman, "and our customer care philosophy starts when the 'phone is answered.
" In addition to a team of seven technical field support staff, Hurco Europe's in-house service team includes diagnostics engineers and product specialists.
It was to improve its call management and engineer scheduling processes - as well as the inventory management of spare parts both within the central stores at High Wycombe and each engineer's car stock - that the decision was taken to replace an ageing Unix-based service management system with a modern package.
Further reading
How will you support my machine?
With the hundreds of machine tools on show at MACH 2002, an interesting exercise for visitors would be to quiz exhibitors on the procedures they have in place to support and back up their machines.
Cost-competitiveness and functionality wins out
A leading supplier of injection moulding machines has installed an Internet-capable service management system to manage and control its customer service and machine maintenance operation.
Service centre maintains supplier leadership
A service centre service management system is playing a key role in enabling Lion Laboratories to maintain its world leadership in the supply of breath alcohol test equipment.
At the same time, the company wanted a system that would also allow the resulting customer/engineer/spare parts/invoicing information to be quickly and simply input by its field engineers and presented in real-time so that everyone in the company - whether Managing Director, Accounts or Service Manager - could gain a realistic view of exactly what was happening in terms of customer interaction.
The selection of eight seats of Tesseract's Service Centre coincided with the installation of a new accounting package - Sage Line 100.
The Tesseract software was chosen because not only did it offer the appropriate (and best) functionality compared with the alternatives on offer, but also it was an easy-to-use off-the-shelf system with remote access capabilities (for the field engineers) and could be linked to Sage for integrated financials.
Hurco has more than 25 years' experience of supporting customers in the UK.
It was not difficult to appreciate the benefits of a live link between service, spares, accounts and the engineers in the field.
Before purchasing the software, Hurco Europe spoke to existing Tesseract users and discussed the project in-depth at Tesseract's HQ.
It also took advantage of the fact that both companies are MACH exhibitors (for this year 's show, Hurco Europe and Tesseract are both in Hall 5).
After a trial run, the transfer of asset (machine installation) data and customer information (users as well as suppliers) was problem free, and the new system was fully in use within a couple of weeks.
Customer histories were not carried over to the new system, but are still available if required.
It is planned that customer call information will be communicated to field engineers either by remote dial-up or direct access to the Internet, which can also be used to close calls - although developments are in hand to further improve these remote communications.
The system can be accessed by every type of communications medium and hardware (laptops, PDAs, Nokia devices, WAP 'phones and Acer tablet PC).
According to David Waghorn, Managing Director, the software started to deliver immediately upon going live and, overall, is living up to expectations, particularly in terms of call and inventory management.
"The driver for our investment in Service Centre was to make us more efficient and able to provide customers with a better service, starting with the way we handle and manage their calls," he says.
"The system is certainly doing that, particularly by allowing us to capture the important details of each service visit or telephone call into the diagnostics desk." Today, eight months after installation, Hurco Europe is already looking to further capitalise on the benefits of Service Centre's integrated modules for Customer Assets, Call Control, Parts Centre, Repair Centre, Quote Centre and Prospect Centre.
As a subsidiary of a major global manufacturer of machine tools, Hurco Europe is required to supply prompt, detailed feedback regarding warranty issues to corporate quality control in Indianapolis, USA.
The Crystal reporting link allows any required item to be extracted and tabulated using simple commands.
As a result, more detailed custom reports can be generated to highlight possible issues as they happen.
The result is an ongoing focus on improved machine tool reliability.
It is the opinion of everyone involved in customer service at Hurco that the technology has already generated considerable improvements in terms of administrative time savings and paperwork, by eliminating time sheets and the time and effort taken to generate invoices from these.
But, importantly, Service Centre has also led to the introduction of new, streamlined methods of credit maintenance and improved customer service.
MACH 2004 - April 19-23 - NEC Birmingham, UK.
Hall: 5, Stand: 5201.
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