I am very pleased to advise that we have begun the coding of the new and updated Field Service and Support Services questions for the revised TSIA Benchmark Survey in our new survey tool. I spent the better part of this past week in our San Diego HQ office working with our technical team entering completely new questions in our updated survey tool. It’s my first hands-on exposure to our new survey creation capability, and I’m pleased to report that I think it’s going to be great.
One feature I really like is the ability to provide a very detailed explanation about exactly what we mean by the question and how it should be answered. We will provide these precise definitions for all questions that could possibly be open to multiple interpretations in the new benchmark survey. These definitions will be clearly visible to those taking survey and will help eliminate confusion and differing interpretations of what the questions mean. For those taking the survey, these detailed definitions will make the survey easier and faster to complete, and they will assure more accurate data on the back end.
As promised, we are working closely with members in updating and developing questions for the new benchmark survey. Member companies providing support for all types of hardware and medical devices will be pleased to know that we are focusing our initial survey question development efforts on field service, specifically on service spare parts. Thus far, we’ve received valuable input and suggestions on this topic from AmerisourceBergen, GE Healthcare, and Stratus Technologies. We expect additional comments and suggestions about the spare parts questions early this month from a major server manufacturer and an international telecommunications company.
The final survey will have twenty-five to thirty questions focused specifically on service spare parts. The questions will gather benchmark data on key measurements such as:
- first pass fill rates,
- emergency order rates,
- DOA and NTF rates,
- spares inventory investment as a percent of service revenue,
- actual to book value inventory variances,
- and other important measurements.
The survey will also collect information about the practices companies are using to control and manage their significant investment in service spare parts. For example, the survey will gather data about how often and what kinds of software tools companies use to forecast and plan their service spare parts deployments and stocking levels. We’ll track how often companies outsource their service spare parts inventory management and fulfillment activities, and what types of vendors they use for those purposes. And we’ll be able to correlate how these and other practices impact important service spare parts KPIs, like first pass fill rates, inventory costs, and emergency order transportation costs.
Additional sections of the survey, such as depot repair, field service, financials, support operations, SaaS, channels/partners, sales/marketing, etc. will all be built and revised in the same manner, with significant input from the members who have volunteered to be part of the steering committee(s). You’ll be hearing from me. Feel free to contact me in the meantime at michael@tsia.com or (702) 562.1270.
Thanks for your interest – IT MATTERS!