Konica Minolta Business Solutions U.S.A. is a leader in document imaging innovation, offering technologically advanced products and services to organizations of all sizes, from home office to large production operations. The merger of Konica and Minolta doubled the size of its workforce to 6,000 sales, service, and marketing employees, and 1,400 field technicians at 80 branch locations across North America. The sheer number of field workers, the demand for faster service and the competitive business climate made it essential to accurately manage technician time. In addition, the company was experiencing a high volume of invoice inaccuracies and parts shrinkage due to its manual data entry systems.
With the goal of improving service levels and decreasing inventory costs, Konica Minolta set out to find an automated solution. The two basic requirements: use the existing rugged cell phones their technicians already carry and integrate seamlessly with the company’s back-end systems. After careful evaluation, Konica Minolta adopted the Sprint Nextel wireless solution and AirClic’s® bar-code scanning capabilities to monitor inventory and labor.
Post-deployment, Konica Minolta realized quantifiable gains in several key areas. First, real-time visibility into technician time decreased the average service response time by 18%; second, bar-code scanning enabled workers to reduce errors in parts usage and truck inventory reporting by a factor of five; third, accurate accounting of parts lowered inventory shrinkage levels from 8% to 1%; and finally, service profitability and customer satisfaction levels increased significantly due to higher first-time fix rates.