Success Story:
ABM Industries
Improved efficiency and technician safety by overhauling customer-facing operations
Company:
ABM Building Services
Industry:
Building Services
Location:
Phoenix, AZ
Website:
www.abm.com
“Our maintenance costs have gone down because we know when the maintenance is overdue on a particular company vehicle. We’ve also cut down on wear and tear on the company vehicles because we know they are only being used for business purposes.“
Pat Stauber
General Manager, ABM Phoenix
Highlights
Dramatically improved time management and efficiencies
Improved driver safety in the event of severe weather or other emergencies
Gained ability to reconcile GPS tracking data and service data to generate accurate invoices
Company
ABM is one of the largest facility management services providers in the U.S. With over 100 years in facility solutions experience,
they offer an array of state-of-the-art, dependable building maintenance services for various industries such as aviation, finance, and healthcare.
Challenge
Unable to Verify Driver Locations and Inefficient Dispatching
Before implementing the new fleet management solution, the various ABM locations never knew for certain where the company vehicles were located. When emergency calls came in, it could take 30 to 45 minutes for dispatchers to call the drivers, check the dispatch logs, and identify which technician was the closest who to respond. ABM needed a more efficient system of handling emergency calls and identifying where their technicians were at any given time.
Invoice Discrepancies with Customers
The company first turned to the GPS Insight tracking and fleet management solution to better track how long the technicians were at the customer site.
“We often get calls from customers saying they received an invoice, but they don’t think the technician was on-site for the number of hours we’ve billed for,” says Tod Truettner, Safety Manager for ABM Industries. With no ability to verify or debunk these customer claims, ABM needed a solution that would do just that without having to go on the word of the customer.
Safety Concerns Over Vehicle Maintenance
ABM also wanted to improve employee safety by being able to monitor vehicle location and view diagnostic and maintenance information for the company trucks. The safety of their technicians is a top priority for ABM, so having reliable and safe company vehicles for them to use is paramount. They sought a solution to help identify when important maintenance needed to be done on the vehicles so it was no longer neglected.
Solution
ABM Phoenix selected GPS Insight in part because the vendor already had experienced working with ABM’s other divisions. They also found an all-in-one solution in GPS Insight to improve their operational efficiency and technician safety.
Improved Time Management & Decreased Fuel Costs
Customer sites and parts suppliers have all been entered into the GPS tracking solution as pin drops. When calls come in, dispatchers can see which ABM technician is the closest to each location and can dispatch the calls accordingly. This has dramatically improved time management and efficiencies within ABM’s workflow. Dispatchers no longer have to waste time calling and getting ahold of drivers to find out their location and who can get to the next location the quickest.
“If we get an emergency call, the dispatcher can look at the screen and decide which technician is closest and provide the fastest response. This has made our ETAs to customers incredibly accurate,” said Pat Stauber, General Manager at ABM, Phoenix, AZ.
Improved Vehicle Maintenance & Driver Safety
Because ABM gets notified when service on vehicles is due, maintenance costs have gone down since implementing GPS Insight. Wear and tear has also particularly declined because they know that vehicles are being used for purely company business reasons.
“It’s made our jobs easier across the board. I wish we would have put it in sooner,” said Pat Stauber.
The new fleet management solution has improved ABM driver safety as well. In the case of severe weather events or other types of emergencies, ABM can refer to GPS Insight to see if any of
their drivers are in a danger zone. The drivers are now protected and kept safe in these scenarios. Drivers also work alone, and in an instance of them not responding to a safety check, ABM can pinpoint exactly where the vehicle is to send help.
Decreased Customer Invoice Discrepancies
ABM drivers carry phones that run a wireless service management solution on their mobile devices. All of the dispatch information, work orders, billing, and repair data are presented through
the mobile app. As a result, the GPS data and service data are reconciled. ABM can generate more accurate invoices because the company now has precise mileage and fuel usage data that wasn’t previously available. Overall, the combination of fleet and field data has improved the way they run their business.
