“Is The iPhone [iPad] Tough Enough For Field Service?”
Check out this article over at Field Technologies magazine about how Johnson Controls, a $42 billion global diversified company in the building and automotive industries, switched from rugged devices to rugged-case-clad iPhones for their 4,000+ field service technicians.
Replacing leased rugged devices with rugged-case-clad iPhones and eliminating the need for a service-specific help desk will save Johnson Controls close to $3.6 million in operating costs.
… the project team believed the iPhones would be easier for technicians to use, provide a greater amount of functionality because of the preexisting applications already available on the market, and could help increase user adoption.
Selecting iPhones also fit with the company’s Service Simplification initiative. One of the key tenents of that program was that Johnson Controls wanted to make it easier for employees to do their jobs. “This tool became something that could help them get the job done in a way that is easier and intuitive for them, so they could focus on the actual work at hand, and the relationship with the customer,”
The other common concern with consumer-grade phones is that employees will spend more time playing Angry Birds than actually doing their work. But Saucier and Mylett say that the risk was worth the benefits of the platform. “I took the position that I would rather have them sitting on a couch on Sunday on Google on these phones, as long as we’re making them more efficient with the device when they are using it for us,” Saucier says. “That’s worth the incremental cost we would have to pay.”
We made the decision to launch exclusively on iPhones just because it made it easier for us to manage getting the devices to the technicians, and to coordinate the training and deployment.
These guys saw the light, to the tune of a $3.6 million operating cost savings. You just don’t need a $1,500 plus rugged device for field service use, unless maybe you’re in the military in a 3rd world country with no local Walmart and your life depends on the device working. And then again, even the U.S. military is using Apple devices by the thousands.
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