Complying with regulatory requirements is a fundamental part of doing business for many corporate functions — field service included. After all, regulations exist to protect customers and employees from harm, whether dangerous work environments or equipment downtime and that’s very relevant to service execution.
At ServiceMax, a lot of our customers build and maintain equipment in heavily regulated industries (medical device manufacturing, power and utilities and construction, to name a few). Those customers rely on our service execution management platform to help them meet compliance requirements — and to keep critical equipment up and running. From our customer engagements, we see that a smart compliance strategy is built on three pillars:
The Planning Stage: Setting up Service Execution for Compliance
In the planning stage, companies need to determine what data is relevant to address compliance and how the data will be managed. Compliant service execution – and successful service in general – depends on accurate installed base data, and a good field service management solution (FSM) provides a system of record for “as-maintained” equipment.
In addition, the service execution platform helps to ensure required certifications of technicians, calibration of tools, availability of procedures and documentation, and many other compliance requirements. ServiceMax also helps companies ensure that they meet staffing, health, safety, and environmental requirements. With a FSM solution, companies can easily capture any service data relevant to compliance.
The Execution Stage: Ensuring Efficient Compliance
Here, it is critical to strike the right balance between imposing necessary compliance and safety requirements on technicians without overburdening them. A good field service app guides technicians through the required steps and captures all relevant service data while keeping them efficient. The result? Fool-proof compliance and well documented service history that can be accessed anytime.
The app also prompts field technicians to apply necessary safety measures and guides them through regulatory steps related to compliance such as serialized parts tracing or hazardous waste disposal. But that’s not all: With a mobile app, technicians can capture inspection data, electronic signatures, tool and instrument calibration readings, and more.
The Response Stage: Keeping Compliance in Check
Service leaders need accurate, up-to-date service history records at their fingertips to quickly and cost-effectively respond to regulatory audits, product recalls, and litigation. Relevant service history information is stored and accessible for any particular product, customer, site, technician, or tool.
Interested in learning more? Join us for a webinar on May 14, 2019, to learn how life sciences firm MilliporeSigma handles regulatory compliance as part of its service execution management strategy using ServiceMax.
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