Success Story:
LN Curtis
Delivering maximum productivity and enabling growth with GPS Insight.
Company:
LN Curtis
Industry:
Equipment Manufacturer
Location:
Oakland, CA
Website:
www.lncurtis.com
“GPS Insight is helpful because it gives us a better idea of where technicians are physically located and to see what they’re doing companywide.”
—Mia Tafuna
Customer Service & Operations Manager
LN Curtis
Highlights
- 95% of the jobs can be created in the field by technicians
- More than doubled the amount of service jobs per day
- Paperwork reduced by 90%
Company
Based in Oakland, California, LN Curtis manufactures equipment used by modern-day heroes: firefighters, law enforcement, and first responders. Besides manufacturing turnout uniforms with base layers, helmets, boots, PPE, and flashlights, LN Curtis markets its products for both their affordability and durability both at home and on the job.
A core part of their business is care and maintenance for the products they sell such as rescue tools, breathing air compressors, SCBAs, small engines, and gas detection. The company’s factory-trained service technicians are mobile and are available to customers to inspect, service, repair, and test equipment to make sure they are reliable. Due to COVID-19, LN Curtis also specializes in the cleaning, inspection, and repair of personal protective equipment (PPE).
Their service area is wide: Besides covering the 13-state region of the Midwest, LN Curtis also services clients on the west coast as well as Hawaii and Alaska. A growing part of their business is serving overseas military bases in countries as far-flung as Korea, Italy, and Japan. About 70 percent of their service clients are municipalities; the remaining 30 percent is everything else: power plants, refineries, scuba shops, and more.
Challenge
While LN Curtis successfully established itself for years in the marketplace, growth was slow because organizing documents like invoices was a manual process. The nature of work that first responders deal with is fast, however, service technicians were forced to operate slowly, said Customer Service and Operations Manager Mia Tafuna, because of the time required to organize, submit, and manage paperwork. Worse, there was no visibility into how each customer handles quotes or billing, for example, which only slowed down the process faster.
“We needed to manage our technicians better. Because there was so much manual work being done, we were missing out on customers whose deadlines we were missing.” she said.
Clearly, a change was due and LN Curtis decided it needed field service software to improve their daily operations and help them grow. Their requirements: the software needed to handle inventory management, have a schedule, and the ability to submit mobile requests, and integrate with the NetSuite ERP system. In the end, the choice was simple: FieldAware by GPS Insight.
Solution
GPS Insight simplifies field service management and puts the focus of technology in the field with the FieldAware platform. The dynamic solutions drive maximum productivity from field workers while providing real-time information and reporting to the back office.
The solution also enables customers like LN Curtis to preserve and extend their existing technology investments with easy ERP & CRM integration. For LN Curtis, FieldAware’s Netsuite Connector saved time and freed up resources by relaying information from one system to the next, with no downtime so they always had visible data throughout all key systems.
Result
The benefits of choosing GPS Insight soon became obvious: The Netsuite Connector improved productivity because suddenly technicians now had everything they needed before they showed up for a job and can complete all the paperwork before they exit the worksite.
With the FieldAware platform, Tafuna said, “95 percent of the jobs can be created in the field by technicians.” A full-service check- up of a client’s assets can be scheduled in advance, so when a technician is heading out to a site he or she will know exactly what they’ll need to complete it correctly, where they need to go, and the exact service required. Once finished, they can capture their electronic signature or upload pictures or video on their mobile device, plus submit any necessary task details to create full transparency for the client. The time saved usually means they can complete a job at a second site on the same day Dispatch is also an improvement: “FieldAware is helpful because it gives us a better idea of where technicians are physically located and to see what they’re doing companywide,” Tafuna said. “That way we can see who has a heavy workload or not and match jobs to the right technicians in the right area at the right time.’
The productivity has led to immediate growth: Before, we averaged about 15 service job per day. Today we average between 30 and 40 service jobs,” Tafuna said.
“The amount of time service technicians take to do paperwork has been reduced by 90 percent. With a 20-person workforce in the field currently, the increased workload also means we are in a position to hire at least two more technicians before the end of the year.”
“We’re growing and our clients are happy,” said Tafuna. “ We know we made the right choice with FieldAware.”
