Transforming Field and Service Operations

The drive to realise operational efficiencies, improve customer service, develop new markets and accelerate the introduction of new products has substantially increased the complexity of field service operations. To maximise the efficiency and effectiveness of these operations, organisations have embarked on a wide range of transformation programmes that have sought to introduce automation through the use of workforce management technologies. Despite the potential business value that can be provided by such transformation programmes, too often, the automation technologies have not been fully utilised and their expected benefits have as such not been realised.

Scholars of organisation change argue that the success of any transformation programme is a function of how well the technical, political, structural and social aspects of a specific project have been managed. The objective of this edited book is to provide insights into how organisations might successfully transform their field service operations with the help of workforce management technologies. Accordingly, the book is organised into four sections: Section A “The Case for Transforming Service and Field Operations” explains the rationale as to why organisations should actively consider transforming their service and field operations, while Section B presents various “Methods, Models and Enabling Technologies for Transforming Service and Field Operations”. In Section C, a number of “Case Studies” illustrate how new technologies can be applied to field and service operations to deliver concrete business benefits. Lastly, Section D considers “Challenges, Outcomes and Future Directions”.

Overall, this book provides valuable insights into how to successfully transform field service operations with automated technologies. It draws on years of experience from different industries and from different perspectives on realising change. It is aimed at managers, technologists, change agentsand scholars who are interested in field service operations in general and the use of advanced computing technologies in this area in particular.

Gilbert Owusu heads the resource management technologies research at BT and is Visiting Professor at the University of Essex. The technologies developed by Gilbert and his team have underpinned major transformation programmes and led to improved customer experience, cost savings and increased resource productivity in BT.  His current research focuses on developing technologies that provide a coherent approach to optimising (i) resource utilisation; and (ii) an organisation's service production lines with external partners.

Paul O’Brien leads the Business and Operational Transformation Practice in BT, an award winning practice delivering innovative solutions for transforming BTs business and its operations. He has over 20 years of experience in applying new technologies to the telecommunications industry. His interests include artificial intelligence, advanced data analytics, production management and operational modelling.

John McCall is Professor of Computing Science at Robert Gordon University, where he leads Digital Technologies research in the IDEAS Research Institute. He specializes in industrially-focussed research projects to add intelligent components to existing commercial software or to new software tools for optimization and decision support. Industrial collaborators have included large corporations in telecommunications and oil and gas as well as small to medium sized enterprises. His research in computational intelligence has been published in over 90 books, journals and conference papers.

Neil F. Doherty holds the Professorial Chair in Information Management in the School of Business and Economics, at Loughborough University. In addition to benefits measurement and management, his research interests include: IT-enabled business transformation; information security management; and the impact and uptake of electronic commerce. Neil is currently serving as a Senior Editor for the Information Systems Journal, and as an Associate Editor for Information Technology and People.