Running a field service business is all about logistics. While HQ handles hiring and training expert teams and lining up work orders, every day your teams load up into the fleet vehicles and set out for customer homes and businesses. Whether you're installing satellite dishes or providing a cleaning service, the way you pack your vehicles can determine a lot about how smoothly each service goes.
Simply being able to carry all the right gear in with you easily can make sure you don't lose time making trips back to the truck or, worse, head back to HQ for something you missed. The trick to keeping everything packed together and always having the right equipment is packing vehicle-ready kits.
Choose Your Kitbag
The first step is to decide the kind of kitbag you're going to use and how it will be secured in your vehicles. Making this a uniform decision will help you ensure that every single vehicle is capable of securing one or more kits and that your team can learn their kits inside and out.
Every field service industry has a special set of equipment it will need to provide a complete service. Whether this is a toolbox for tools and parts, a compartmented bag for supplies, or a more complex specialty kitbag for your specific industry, choose something sturdy that will last years of being hauled around in vehicles and by hand.
Also look for a bag or box that can be easily fastened tightly to the inside of a vehicle with the right infrastructure. This could be sturdy fabric loops, bolt holes, or even clips for mounting.
Deck Out the Fleet with Docking Stations
Once you know the kind of kit you want to use, it's time to prepare your vehicles. Every vehicle should have room and a way to secure at least one kit, if not more than one if your service requires several unique sets of tools or supplies based on the customer's needs. Depending on your service and the contents of your kit.
A docking station for a kit might be as simple as a strap or as complex as a custom locking cubby. Many field service vehicles use elastic-topped nets to hold supplies and this might work well for you if these are already installed in all of your vehicles. Try to make sure the location and method of access for kit storage in each vehicle is also uniform.
Build Uniform and Alternate Kits
Now that your infrastructure is chosen and in place you'll want to build the kits themselves. Most field services will have at least one 'standard' style of kit that every vehicle should have at least one of.
This will contain all or most of what you need for an entire normal service with a customer. If you offer specialty services or a variety of services, you may also need additional alternate kitbags packed as well.
Cleaning services, for example, might have alternate supplies kits for customers with special cleaning product requests. You may have a 'heavy duty' kit for serious messes, an 'organic' kit for all-natural customers, and a 'hypo-allergenic' kit with no fragrances or common irritants for sensitive customers.
We highly suggest color-coding your alternate kits for quick and easy identification when moving fast on the job.
Pack Each Vehicle for Daily Services
Having a comprehensive kitbag plan can help you to streamline services in a way that unmanaged tools and supplies never could. But those kits won't do you any good if they don't get restocked and loaded into the correct vehicles.
Every morning or the evening before, depending on how your business runs, inventory each kit bag, replace anything that was used, and load the correct kits into your fleet based on who you'll be serving the next day. Each vehicle can be equipped with the right gear for the route it will be taking and the services it's passenger technicians will be performing.
Managing a field service fleet is a lot more complicated than most people give it credit for. Not only do you have to keep the vehicles in top condition from headlights to tailpipe, you may also be responsible for everything that happens in the garage including tools stored in each vehicle.
By building practical kits for every service and uniform ways to load them into vehicles, you can simplify inventory and service for yourself and the teams out in the field. For more fleet management tips, techniques, and services to make it easier, contact us today!
