.KEYWORD service
.FLYINGHEAD PALM IN THE REAL WORLD
.TITLE How ServiceMaster and Greyhound manage quality with Palm devices
.FEATURE
.SPOTLIGHT FIGALT cover.gif
.SUMMARY With its simple but powerful operating system, the Palm computer is an incredibly versatile tool with applications for any enterprise. Steve Niles continues to explore the possibilities out there with this look at how a world-renowned cleaning company, ServiceMaster, has used Palm computers to more efficiently track the quality of its service.
.AUTHOR Steve Niles
Ah, the joys of public transportation. What’s not to love about bus travel, what with the stopovers, the disgruntled ticket booth attendants, the crying babies, and the creepy guys with the garbage bag luggage? However, if you ever find yourself traveling in the United States in a Greyhound bus like the one pictured in Figure A, know that your trip would be a good deal more unpleasant if not for the hard work of ServiceMaster employees.
.FIG A There’s no better way to see the United States than traveling cross-country in a Greyhound.
Headquartered in Downers Grove, IL, ServiceMaster operates in more than 40 countries and serves over 10.5 million customers. They operate a broad network of quality services, including TruGreen-ChemLawn (lawn care and landscaping), Terminix (pest control), American Home Shield (home warranty services), ServiceMaster (heavy cleaning), Merry Maids (residential cleaning), Rescue Rooter (plumbing, drain cleaning, heating ventilation, and air conditioning maintenance and repair), Furniture Medic, and AmeriSpec.
It’s thanks to them that we Greyhound passengers need not suffer the stink and clutter that naturally accumulates when several dozen of the appropriately-named "great unwashed" (you can’t take a shower on a bus!) spend twenty hours trapped together in a confined space with one bathroom. You see, ServiceMaster has an account with the Greyhound Bus Company, and they’re responsible for cleaning the fleet of Greyhound buses at 19 sites across the country. Once the cleaning process is complete, ServiceMaster must perform an inspection, the results of which are delivered to Greyhound.
In the past, a paper-and-pencil-based system was used in the inspection process. Supervisors would get on a bus and conduct an inspection, tally up scores, and then file it until the end of the week. They would then take out the file, compile the data, and make a report out of it. Information from all 19 sites would go to one unfortunate administrative assistant who would have to take the data and put it in an Access database and create whatever final reports the account manager wanted to provide to Greyhound.
When Greyhound expressed a desire to automate the inspection auditing procedure, the task was put to John Morrow, a support engineer for ServiceMaster, to come up with a solution. "To better serve the customer and to improve the process there was consideration given for using some sort of handheld device to collect and report," Morrow says. "Our initial look resulted in some pretty expensive solutions."
One of the first solutions Morrow and his colleagues considered was one of Microsoft’s Windows CE devices because the staff was already using them in the office for other purposes. However, this struck Morrow as being entirely impractical. "We wanted a tool and an application that was appropriate to the task and operating environment. We did not want to waste time and money on unnecessary features."
While he was looking at the Windows CE devices, someone suggested he take a look at what Palm had to offer as well. After weighing costs and features of the various alternatives, including Windows CE devices, Palm devices, and other industrial strength handhelds, Morrow and his colleagues came to the clear conclusion that the Palm solution was the most economical response to their need.
According to Morrow, adopting the Palm solution led to several immediate improvements. "The inspection frequency was certainly not as great as it is now. Using the Palm handheld, we can inspect and report on a daily basis instead of a weekly basis. It has standardized the process because all 19 sites are now using the device with the bus inspection application."
The bus inspection program is made up of 22 screens through which the inspectors must navigate. When they finish their shift, they perform a HotSync operation via a landline snap-on modem to a central server, which is located in the Downer’s Grove headquarters. That populates a database from which reports and tables are generated. They then do a daily data dump to Dallas so that the administrative person in Dallas can create reports as desired.
The inspectors use Palm IIIe devices specifically. The device’s compact size is a major advantage, as the inspectors need to move in and around a bus, inside a bus maintenance facility. Morrow sites the device’s touch screen as being the key to its ease of use as opposed to something requiring a keyboard or a panel full of buttons. On the software side, Morrow has found Palm’s simple, clear operating system to be ideal. "We wanted to keep it as simple and as fast as possible. Most people using the Palm devices are not computer literate, and many of the people use English as a second language, as well."
The application was designed for ServiceMaster by Pen Computer Solutions based on ServiceMaster’s existing paper forms and information provided by Morrow and the company’s account manager. The entire process took approximately eight weeks.
Communication between ServiceMaster and Greyhound has improved considerably since the Palm solution was implemented. Morrow describes the benefits in communication this way:
.QUOTE The account manager uses the data collected using the Palm application to report to Greyhound the activity at each of his sites. The data is also used to monitor the types of scores achieved on inspections. This helps the account manager guide the staff on areas of improvement. We can look for trends by site, shift, and supervisor. We set the program so that ServiceMaster supervisors can conduct inspections and their counterparts in Greyhound’s management can as well.
They also include the bus driver in the process, giving him a driver comment card to complete, right on the Palm device! "This helps sync up views between ServiceMaster and Greyhound as to what a clean, squared-away bus looks like," Morrow says.
Implementing the solution wasn’t entirely smooth sailing, however. "Putting the application together was probably the easiest part. Getting the data viewable by those who needed it was the issue." Putting the back-end together turned out to be the most difficult part of the process, as they had to figure out where the data would be delivered and how it would be maintained. Eventually, they ended up acquiring a server locally and using that for the back-end.
With that problem solved, the ServiceMaster supervisors at the Greyhound maintenance facilities throughout the country have been able to standardize the inspection process, put structure around it, and report their results quickly and efficiently. This has made Greyhound a very happy customer.
Morrow sums up the results quite eloquently. "If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it, and we’re now measuring inspections for Greyhound much better than we did in the past thanks to this solution." And thanks to ServiceMaster, traveling on Greyhound is a pleasant experience for travelers.
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.H1 Product availability and resources
For more information on ServiceMaster, visit http://www.servicemaster.com.
For more information on Greyhound, visit http://www.greyhound.com.
For more information on Pen Computer Solutions, visit http://www.pencomputersolutions.com.
For more information about Palm computers, visit http://www.palm.com.
.H1 Bulk reprints
Bulk reprints of this article (in quantities of 100 or more) are available for a fee from Reprint Services, a ZATZ business partner. Contact them at reprints@zatz.com or by calling 1-800-217-7874.
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