ARBON EQUIPMENT Customer Story

Arbon’s service leadership wanted to continuously innovate for customers and become more proactive. This prompted the beginning of a digital transformation journey with ServiceMax.

In 2013, the Arbon service team attempted to go digital, turning to their ERP system, JD Edwards, and a homegrown service management application. The solution sufficed for a while, but the team knew they needed a robust, dedicated field service management tool to grow the business.

Their ideal solution would enable them to quickly create and process work orders, automate repetitive tasks, easily transfer information to and from technicians, provide complete visibility across the organization, and enable them to move rapidly toward proactive service.

But most importantly, Arbon Equipment was looking for a platform that could grow with them. "We wanted a software program that would grow with us because with the previous one, while it worked, a lot of our great ideas got blocked because of the time and cost of development," says Tim Bellows, Northeast Operation Manager at Arbon.

Following a comprehensive search, Arbon Equipment chose ServiceMax because it had everything they needed to manage the service business and extended partner network. In addition, the extended ServiceMax product and knowledge ecosystem provided the platform for innovation and insight to allow Arbon to grow and innovate for its customers. The ServiceMax solution has had an impact on every person in the service and installation organization, from back-end administrative staff to customer-facing technicians.

Install & Service Schedulers can coordinate schedules, rather than just plug holes. The tribal knowledge that used to only reside in the heads and notebooks of employees is now being captured by the Regional Managers. With iPads in the field, technicians have easy access to key information, like surveys, instructions, and manuals.

"ServiceMax is enabling us to do things we haven't been able to do before. It's allowing us to get the right pieces to the right places at the right time, which greatly impacts our efficiency and efficacy."– says Ed Blau, VP and General Manager at Arbon Equipment.

One of the biggest benefits the Arbon team has experienced comes from ServiceMax's data reporting capabilities. "The visibility into our service business has been life-changing. It's a dramatic improvement over our old system," says Mirian Herold-Young, Business Process Manager at Arbon Equipment.

Today, they have ten dashboards and roughly 100 reports, four of which are delivering to service and install managers on a daily and weekly basis. "We can now use data to make informed decisions around goals and objectives for our service coordinators and technicians," shares Bellows. With ServiceMax, Arbon has increased utilization of Service technicians, who are now active or training 85% of the time.

Arbon Equipment wants to do more than improve their KPIs. With ServiceMax, Arbon now has the necessary tools and data to focus on proactive service for its customers. In five years, they want to be able to take action before a customer ever picks up the phone.

As they work towards that goal, Arbon is gearing up to leverage more of the ServiceMax platform and pursue the ideas that their team is developing in partnership with the ServiceMax product, support, and innovation teams. "Collaborating with ServiceMax means we are not alone in innovating for our customers. ServiceMax is constantly adding new value for us that we can turn into better service for our customers," says Herold-Young.