Making technology work

Wireless service provider Fastnet facilitates the transmission of data for point-of-sale systems and other applications that require rapid, cost-effective transfer of relatively small amounts of data between two or more sites.

Fastnet's most public products are the radio devices used by credit card machines to connect back to the banks, seen in many local retail outlets. The company has approximately 40 000 of these devices deployed countrywide, which it supplies on a rental basis. Service assurance is part of the contract, while managing installations, maintenance, upgrades and repairs is a logistical task of no small order.

Says Fastnet operations executive Stephen Austin: "We need to manage the flow of orders coming in and ensure new devices get installed on expected dates. We also need to manage faults and repairs to devices. This was the primary reason we needed a workflow solution - it's the nature of the business."

Local business process management (BPM) solution provider Quton has been delivering software services to Fastnet for six years. It implemented its process-driven, call-logging help-desk solution called Pronto at Fastnet in 2005. Quton embarked on a project to implement mobility with its mobile partner MyMobility in April. This project is being rolled out region by region, starting with Gauteng.

Anything that's reported can be seen on the live system.

Stephen Austin, operations executive, Fastnet

"The workflow solution ensures orders captured are automatically routed to the work distribution flow, which sends them to the department that validates customer information and arranges for installation," says Austin.

"Customers are issued with a reference number when they are notified of an installation date. They can thus contact our call centre and learn the status of an installation using the reference number, irrespective of who arranged it.

"The call centre also performs service assurance. If a device has a fault, all the customer does is read off the serial number; the call centre agent will perform a fault analysis and attempt to repair [the device] telephonically. If a site visit is required, the call centre can dispatch a technician. The workflow system will send a job card through to the relevant technician through the mobility solution. The job card includes all details of where the customer is, what the fault is and [details of the] device so that the technician is fully prepared to [carry out] the service call," he says.

The new mobility functionality allows technicians to receive job cards on their handheld devices, input all relevant information about the job directly into the workflow portal, including enabling the client to sign off the job electronically. There is thus no paper to be handed over at the end of a job and the system is immediately updated.

Says Quton head Susan Tredoux: "All work performed on the mobile device is linked back to the workflow engine running at the call centre. The solution is also reporting on the status of task-processing using dashboard technology, which provides the organisation with real-time access to service statistics."

The handheld also keeps track of all stock the technician is carrying so that if a swap-out is required, stock control is maintained.

"The direct and immediate benefit is that anything that's reported can be seen on the live system," says Austin. "This transparency means that when there are job or service assurance issues, you can see who dealt with it and what's on hand. It also allows you to give the customer confidence in that they know a fault is on the system, they get a reference number, and the history of previous faults is available to the technicians."

This is particularly useful for analysis purposes, he says, as Fastnet can build up an understanding of what the most likely faults are. Fastnet has, for example, changed its power supplies in the past because system data showed that this is where problems continued to originate.

"Because it is a workflow solution, you can see where the bottlenecks are. For example, if the accounts clearing section has a problem, you can clearly see that and can take action to remedy it," Austin notes.

In future, Fastnet plans to incorporate a customer interface into the portal via Web-based forms that will let customers apply online or report non-urgent faults online after hours, rather than having to call the after-hours standby to report problems.

Fastnet also intends to build document management into the workflow so it is able to attach relevant documents to customers, such as the initial application, company registration documents or anything that would need to be referred to often.