Ford & Doonan
Ford & Doonan
Executive Summary
Ford & Doonan is a Western Australian owned company and market leader in the supply and installation of Air Conditioning and Ventilation Equipment throughout the Commercial and Residential sectors with their Head Office in Kardinya and 10 locations throughout Western Australia.
Ford & Doonan was established in 1985 and has been growing and going from strength to strength ever since, winning several supplier and customer service awards – becoming Western Australia’s most awarded Air Conditioning Company.
Ford & Doonan manage an extended workforce of employees and contractors throughout Western Australia, many of which are service technicians performing critical installation and maintenance services often in remote locations. This workforce is led by an experienced leadership team who work hard to create a culture that promotes professional and ‘top notch’ customer service for all of their customers.
Ford & Doonan engaged TOKN Technology to create a solution that would allow their business to scale while maintaining the high levels of customer service they pride themselves in providing.
Ford & Doonan needed a flexible technology that would allow Field, Administration and Management team members to easily and quickly execute critical workflows ensuring immediate and accurate information is passed from field to office and office to field cementing their position as market leaders.
“TOKN has enabled the immediate receipt of critical information from the field to the office at the touch of a button. This has reduced the wait times for our customers and in turn allows us to continually improve the service we are able to provide; this has had such a positive effect on our department both internally and externally.”
– Theresa Skewes, Ford & Doonan Senior Service Administrator.
Problem
Ford & Doonan’s highly mobile workforce are required to complete the servicing and installations of high-tech units, across a large geographical area, often in cramped, hot and remote locations. Technicians require accurate and up to date information such as equipment manuals, spare parts information, safety, billing and pricing information.
Technicians are required to be on time at the right location, with the correct customer and contact details. It is from this attendance that the technician was required to accurately record system information, reports and diagnostics and ensure to provide the office with information and requirements for repair and replacements of systems post attendance, and this needed to be accurate and timely.
Not only were the technicians required to complete these tasks, it was also imperative that their timesheets were accurately recorded and job costed for financial and job control management internally.
Backoffice teams need to have immediate, accurate and up to date visibility across all transactions, site findings and works. This information is to be relayed in real time, be able to expedite any billing process and process timely payroll activities. Management teams are expected to triage any issues and approve workflows fast and efficiently. Failure to do so could lead to customers not being billed or billed incorrectly, people not getting paid or getting paid incorrectly, people being put in harm’s way or worse!
There are also critical requirements to adhere to strict trade regulations and maintain a comprehensive compliance record for all installation and maintenance work. To do this, mobile staff require an array of information to be able to complete the appointments, including; the location of the appointment and asset and equipment, the details of the client (including name, address and phone number) and work order details. It is also a requirement that in addition the workers must also be able to complete accurate risk assessments for all tasks.
Ford & Doonan were executing all of this with combination of web-based forms and manual, paper-based processes that are not integrated to any systems; information had to be re-keyed into multiple systems after the fact, which adds extra administration work and can result in manual entry errors.
Workers on site were often disconnected and experiencing low levels of efficiency by having to complete manual paperwork while on site, and the Ford & Doonan leadership team wanted to continue improving efficiency and assist field and administrative tasks in reducing their data entry and back end tasks to focus on their customer service and customer experience.
Solution
The Ford & Doonan leadership team saw an opportunity to tap into the use of a more digital mobile technology to increase productivity and reduce cost by automating critical workflows.
This is why they approached TOKN Technology, to look at the implementation of a more digital mobile asset management solution that would be fully integrated to Payroll, asset management and accounts payable systems as well as cater for a robust digital safety and compliance record.
The TOKN Service Requests App was created to allow mobile field workers and back office staff to be more integrated and connected in real time, ensure fast efficient and safer execution of planned work. TOKN gives the technician access to view, edit and comment on service requests in the field, up to date schedule information, access to customer and asset location GEO enabled, complete risk assessments and Take 5 safety documentation, complete pre and post installation checklists, capture details for follow on work, prepare invoices and take payment, capture time confirmation all from their mobile devices.
The TOKN self-rendering Enterprise Mobility App works instantly across any smart device, securely and at scale. Running on the award winning TOKN Enterprise Cloud Platform, the Service Request App allows technicians to easily access and manage all of their service activity in seconds with access to requests, statuses, cusomer information and more.
Back office teams can access digital record of all data captured, approve timesheets and administer the entire mobile ecosystem. The App was built using the TOKN low code app development workbench and runs any device natively supporting IOS Android and Windows operating systems.
The solution is fully integrated to the MYOB business and payroll systems with the TOKN API integration module, providing a fully integrated solution, with systems that talk to each other in real time.
“Since having TOKN the paperwork side of what I do is now non-existent. I can focus on the diagnostics and the repairs of the air conditioner and not have to waste time filling in paperwork – it really has made my job much easier.”
– Aron Poole – Ford & Doonan Technician
Outcomes
- Increased staff engagement by delivering company news and updates directly to individuals and teams in remote locations;
- Faster digitalisation of lengthy processes and workflows – elimination of repetitive, manual paper based process;
- Improved data quality – Faster and more effective communication with the ease of being able to clearly identify who has or has not seen the message;
- Quick and secure configuration of connections to external systems, using a variety of services;
- High degree of flexibility in how a user interacts with different connected systems through TOKN Workflow, unifiying end user data across different business systems;
- Improved timesheet capture with an intuitive, easy-to-use mobile app- no password required;
- End-to-end timesheet approval management, including 3rd party approvals, with no extra licensing required;
- Enhanced digital capability and increased use of mobility within a simple framework;
- Low implementation, installation or hardware expenses;
- Adopting a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) solution, increasing engagement and reducing device provisioning expenses.
“We are pleased with the current daily operations of TOKN internally and externally. Our processes have been refined particularly around our OS&H requirements and the documentation of outcomes. We will look for continual improvement to our office to field systems and look forward to further working with Clinton and the team on enhancements and improvements with our MYOB/TOKN integration.” – Robert Duff, Ford & Doonan Executive Manager