The Challenge
Canon’s Field Service team consists of around 50 mobile technicians who travel throughout New Zealand to maintain and repair printers. The team required a refresh of their mobility platform to improve job update and response times in the field. The solution could not be delivered on their existing mobile devices. These were replaced with Windows 8 tablets rather than handhelds and laptops for advanced mobility and reduced IT footprint.
The Solution
Datacom’s Christchurch-based team of mobile developers created an application to run on Windows 8 tablets, leveraging our mRoute frameworks. The solution sends jobs to the field team and tracks progress and completion. Once the job is done, the team can record what parts were required for the job and request parts to replenish vehicle stock. Job update times became near-instant.
Canon purchased Windows 8 tablets through Datacom’s procurement service and leveraged our existing Enterprise Management solution, mRoute, to keep track of tablets in the field. Devices connect to the internet when necessary to feed data back to mRoute, but are fully operational and incur no data loss when taken offline. The solution is based on a Software as a Service model for ‘breathe in, breathe out” adjustment of services, and is hosted in Canon’s secure area of Datacom’s cloud.
Datacom engaged with Canon in mid-2013 and the application was live by year’s end. We continue to provide ongoing service desk support for the application.
“The team at Datacom really took the time to understand our business, the way the technicians work and how our existing system worked. This resulted in the delivery of a much improved solution, in time and within budget. ‘ALLY’ as we call it within Canon is faster and much easier to use. It frees up our technicians to do what they do best, spending more time with our customers.”
Lee Fairbairn – Head of Service Canon New Zealand
Results
- Significantly improved real-time turn-around of job acceptance and job resolution updates
- Improved usability by combining multiple data entry screens into a single instance
- Improved usability and system reliability
- Enhanced end-to-end latency in job updates
Technologies delivered
- Native Windows 8 application with mRoute Studio
- Datacom’s mRoute Enterprise management system
- SaaS solution hosted in Datacom’s cloud
- Ongoing service desk support
The Partnership
Datacom took on the project from end-to-end to ensure that Canon could get on with business as usual, delivering the technical design, artistic design, layout design, build, and ongoing support.
Datacom was trusted to drive the direction of the project because of extensive knowledge of Canon’s business and requirements, and proven ability to deliver mobile applications on all kinds of platforms.