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Case study · Manufacturing

The right engineer, with the right part, holding the right certificate

A material handling manufacturer was dispatching engineers who arrived without the part, or without the certification the machine required. We rebuilt scheduling on Dynamics 365 Field Service so a job is only offered to an engineer who can actually complete it.

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Engagement · Implementation & rollout

Field service where a wasted visit costs a day.

Industry
Manufacturing
Solution
Field service management
Platform
Dynamics 365 Field Service
Engagement model
Dedicated product team
Scope
Scheduling, inventory, mobile, contracts
Users
Engineers, schedulers, service managers
Constraint
Certification and van stock
Target
First-time fix

Outcomes

Field service lives or dies on first-time fix

A second visit costs twice and tells the customer the manufacturer does not know its own machines.

  • +31% First-time fix rate

    Scheduling checks van stock and engineer certification before offering a job, so the engineer who arrives can complete the work.

    Measured across completed jobs before and after rollout

  • 0 Jobs assigned without required certification

    Certification is a hard constraint in the scheduler, not a note on the job. An uncertified engineer is never offered the work.

    By design: certification enforced at assignment

  • −42% Van stock write-offs

    Van inventory is tracked as real stock against jobs rather than assumed, so parts are replenished against actual consumption.

    Measured across stock reconciliation after rollout

Context

Why visits were being wasted

The scheduling system knew about people and time. It did not know about parts or qualifications.

The business

A manufacturer of forklifts and material handling equipment, servicing its own installed base across a national engineer network.

The starting point

Jobs were scheduled on engineer availability and geography. Parts and certification were checked by the scheduler, from memory, when they remembered.

The trigger

Return visits were running high enough to be visible in the service margin, and customers with production lines down were not forgiving about an engineer who arrived without the part.

What they wanted

Scheduling that treats van stock and certification as constraints, engineers who can work without signal, and service contracts that are actually enforced.

Constraints

Certification varies by equipment class and expires · van stock is real inventory nobody was counting · sites often have no usable connectivity · contract entitlements differ per customer.

System

What it runs at today

The service operation as it runs today.

  • +31% First-time fix

    Against the pre-rollout baseline

  • 0 Uncertified assignments

    Enforced by the scheduler

  • 100% Van stock tracked

    As real inventory

  • Offline Engineer app

    Full job detail without signal

The engineering problem

Four reasons engineers arrived unable to fix the machine

None of these are the engineer's fault. All of them are the system's.

  1. Certification treated as a note

    Equipment classes require specific certifications that expire. Held as a note on an engineer record, it gets missed, and the visit is wasted or unsafe.

    What we did

    Certification modelled with expiry and enforced as a hard scheduling constraint. An engineer without a current certificate is not offered the job.

  2. Van stock nobody counted

    Parts left the warehouse onto vans and stopped being inventory. Schedulers assumed stock, engineers discovered otherwise on site.

    What we did

    Van stock as a tracked location, consumed against jobs, replenished against actual usage rather than a standing order.

  3. No signal, no job detail

    Sites are warehouses, basements and rural yards. An engineer who cannot load the job cannot do the job properly.

    What we did

    Offline-first mobile with the full job pack cached ahead of the visit and updates queued for sync.

  4. Contract entitlements applied inconsistently

    Response times and included parts vary by contract. Applied by memory, customers were either over-served or under-served, and both cost money.

    What we did

    Entitlements modelled on the contract and applied automatically to priority, response target and billing.

Architecture

How it fits together

Simplified — the shape of the system rather than every service in it.

  1. Service model

    • Equipment
    • Contracts
    • Entitlements

    The installed base as records, each with its contract and what that contract entitles.

  2. Scheduling

    • Availability
    • Certification
    • Van stock
    • Geography

    Four constraints, all hard. A job is only offered when the engineer can complete it.

  3. Inventory

    • Warehouse
    • Van stock
    • Consumption

    Van stock as a real location with real movements.

  4. Mobile

    • Offline job pack
    • Queued updates
    • Parts consumption

    Everything the engineer needs, cached before the visit.

Treating certification and van stock as scheduling constraints rather than reference information is the whole change. Everything in the first-time fix number comes from that.

Solutions

What we implemented

Field service where the schedule reflects reality.

  • Equipment & contracts

    The installed base with entitlements attached.

  • Certification model

    Class-specific, with expiry, enforced at assignment.

  • Constraint scheduling

    Availability, certification, stock and geography.

  • Van inventory

    Tracked location with real consumption.

  • Engineer app

    Offline job pack with queued updates.

  • Service reporting

    First-time fix, response and stock accuracy.

Key capabilities

What it does day to day

Six capabilities across the service cycle.

CapabilityRunsRefreshWhat it does
Equipment records System Continuous The installed base with service history and contract
Entitlements Automatic Per job Response targets and included parts applied from the contract
Scheduling Automatic Continuous Availability, certification, van stock and geography as constraints
Van inventory System Per consumption Van stock as a tracked location with real movements
Engineer mobile Field Offline capable Job pack, history and parts consumption without signal
Service reporting Automatic Daily First-time fix, response performance and stock accuracy

Integrations

How the moving parts plug in

A job is only offered to an engineer who can finish it.

Job raised

  • EquipmentWith service history
  • ContractEntitlements applied
  • SymptomDriving parts expectation

Scheduling constraints

  • Availability
  • CertificationCurrent, for this class
  • Van stockParts on board
  • Geography

Engineer

  • Offline job pack
  • Parts on van
  • Consumption recordedSyncs on return

The scheduler no longer holds certification and stock in their head, which means it stops depending on which scheduler is on shift.

Security & data

What protects the customer and the engineer

In heavy equipment, a certification control is a safety control.

  • Certification enforcement

    Expiry tracked and enforced at assignment, so an uncertified engineer is never sent to a machine class.

  • Service history

    Every visit, part and finding recorded against the equipment, not the job.

  • Entitlement application

    Contract terms applied by the system rather than negotiated per call.

  • Stock accountability

    Van movements recorded, so parts remain accountable after they leave the warehouse.

The brief

A schedule that ignores parts is a guess

The manufacturer's scheduling worked on availability and geography, which is how most field service starts. It produces a plausible schedule and a poor first-time fix rate.

We added the two constraints that actually determine whether the visit succeeds — certification and parts on the van — and made both hard.

  • Certification as a hard scheduling constraint, with expiry
  • Van stock tracked as real inventory
  • Offline-first engineer app
  • Contract entitlements applied automatically

What the implementation had to handle

  • 01Certifications that vary by equipment class and expire
  • 02Van stock that had never been counted
  • 03Sites with no usable connectivity
  • 04Contract entitlements that differ per customer

Process

We counted the vans first

You cannot schedule against stock that has never been reconciled.

  1. Stage 1

    Van stock reconciliation

    A physical count across the fleet to establish an opening position worth scheduling against.

  2. Stage 2

    Certification model

    Every equipment class mapped to required certifications, with expiry captured from the training records.

  3. Stage 3

    Scheduling rules

    Constraints added one at a time, each validated against historical jobs that had failed.

  4. Stage 4

    Mobile rollout

    Engineers trained on the offline app before the scheduling change, so the field was ready.

  5. Stage 5

    Contract entitlements

    Modelled from the contract documents and validated against a sample of recent jobs.

Technology

Dynamics 365 Field Service, with the constraints that matter

Standard Field Service extended where the business is specific.

Platform

  • Dynamics 365 Field Service
  • Dataverse
  • Custom constraints

Scheduling

  • Resource scheduling
  • Certification constraints
  • Stock constraints

Inventory

  • Van stock locations
  • Consumption tracking
  • Replenishment

Mobile

  • Offline job packs
  • Queued sync
  • Parts capture

Business impact

What changed for the service business

Three things the service director could point at.

  • First-time fix up 31%

    Because the constraints that decide whether a fix is possible are now checked before dispatch.

  • Stock write-offs down 42%

    Van stock became inventory instead of an assumption.

  • Scheduling stopped depending on the scheduler

    The knowledge that lived in two people's heads is in the system.

The result

The engineer who arrives can finish the job

First-time fix is up 31% because the system now checks the two things that decide it before a job is ever offered.

Van stock write-offs fell 42% because parts stopped disappearing into vans and became inventory again.

  • First-time fix up 31%
  • No jobs assigned without current certification
  • Van stock write-offs down 42%
  • Engineers working fully offline
Talk about a project like this

What we hold to in field service

  • 01Schedule against the constraints that decide success, not just availability
  • 02Van stock is inventory or it is a write-off
  • 03Offline is a requirement, not an enhancement
  • 04Reconcile before you automate

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