Improving the Plumbing and Solar Repairs Process

It was hot out here in the California desert. Although city fathers had carved out a thriving community of middle class homes, trees, parks and pools, the sun was still the boss.

When we purchased our home, we inherited a rooftop solar heating system whereby pool water is circulated through a series of PVC rooftop conduits and heating elements then to be returned as heated water for our nearly year around enjoyment. Close-up, it was Rube Golbergesque.

So we were very concerned when the rooftop system developed a leak.

This was no minor issue, because if that leak became more fractured and if we were away from home, we would have the entire contents of a 14x 20×10 pool of water demolish our home from above.

You’d think it would be easy to find a repair crew to make the fix but I soon found out that most of the local solar companies specialized in installing and repairing their own systems but were reluctant to waste time on repairing someone else’s work. Crazy, huh?

Finally our pool cleaning guy recommended a reputable company that was not afraid to take a challenge.

We were happy when a pleasant and talkative Field Technician arrived early one morning to address the problem. He was on the roof in a heartbeat and quickly diagnosed the problem. His repair estimate was reasonable and included two hours of labor.

About 1½ hours later, I saw him spraying black paint on a length of PVC piping. He explained that he had run out of supplies material and had to substitute available PVC into black to match the remainder of the piping.

At the two hour mark, the technician was still on the roof. At the three hour point he called from the roof to explain that he had under estimated the time it would take to allow for the drying of the epoxy and the spraying of the white PVC pieces.

Next he had to conduct a series of test runs to allow the pool water to traverse the entire system and he had to examine the system for leaks. By now the sun had come up and the roof was not very hot.

In the end the entire job took just over 4 hours, or double the estimated time.

What went wrong?

Most small to mid-sized companies have evolved without having a professional systems process analysis of their business, therefore a sound process analysis during the TaskCaddy implementation stages would be beneficial for the company.

For more information on how Plumbing and Solar Installation and Repair Companies could benefit from the utilization of affordable field services technologies go to www.taskcaddy.com

Instant Benefits from TaskCaddy

• 1. Using the TaskCaddy system, the project manager can input all task orders into the database. Task steps are defined once, and used often, so that the job ticket creation for routine maintenance projects is dramatically speeded up.
• 2. All job standards – Task duration, scheduled stat time, planned material usage and other costs are measured against actual
• 3. The field tech can print the work acknowledgement directly unto a mobile printer in the presence of the customer, thus speeding up the approval process and reducing return calls, faxes and unnecessary correspondence
• 4. Using TaskCaddy, the supervisor would match the technician with the assignment before deploying the project
• 5. Using TaskCaddy, the supervisor would attach installation instructions and other support material if required, to be viewed on the PDA or on the host server via the mobile device
• 6. Using TaskCaddy, the supervisor may automatically assign multiple projects to multiple techs (paperless)
• 7. Using TaskCaddy, the system would match tasks by qualifications and certifications
• 8. Using TaskCaddy, the tech start-stop activity would be logged and sent to the main server
• 9. Using TaskCaddy, the tech would capture an electronic customer signature and print a service acknowledgement
• 10. Using TaskCaddy, the system would automatically compute inventory usage upon job completion
• 11. TaskCaddy provides the ability to store and reuse estimates from previously completed jobs for current or future use
• 12. You can Incorporate the ability to use GPS for driving optimization and Location Based Tracking
• 13. Using TaskCaddy a field tech has the ability to take a before and after photo capture of the job site
• 14. Using TaskCaddy mangers can capture the task completion metrics and feed to Excel or other business reporting systems

For more information on how Plumbing and Solar Installation and Repair Companies could benefit from the utilization of affordable field services technologies go to www.taskcaddy.com