Service Magazine Fall 2017

@Service Magazine Summer 2017 | 25 Also new is the role of Clinical Service Technician (CST), trained to service biomedical devices as well as imaging equipment; hospitals usually have such people in their in- house departments. “Suppose an X-ray FE gets a call to a customer site but is three hours away,” Brian says. “If a CST at that hospital has the ability to do a first look, that gives the customer a timelier response. It’s a force multiplier.” Aligning structures Brian says Service Forward gives leaders more possibilities for training and deploying their teams. For example, training people to be more versatile can help leaders take the best advantage of teammembers’ skill sets and address the coming wave of retirements among senior field personnel. Meanwhile, a more flexible and responsive field force can help deepen customer relationships. To complete the Service Forward picture, teams have worked in recent months to align back office systems to the new field service model. This includes creating combined scorecards and metrics and creating new field leadership and onboarding classes that incorporate both biomedical and imaging with Service Forward in mind. “In the long run, we’re going to get operational efficiencies because we will have fewer redundant systems,” Brian says. “By bringing them together, we can create synergies among tools and processes. Service Forward teams are better aligned to systems than before. We’re setting the foundation to run our business more effectively.” Next steps include working with the finance team to set up financial reporting from automated combined dashboards and supporting implementation of the Nuvolo enterprise asset management platform. Journey continues “Our imaging and clinical service businesses were not broken,” Brian says. “It’s a question of optimizing what we have and being more responsive to our customers. At the end of the day, it’s all about people, our greatest asset. Our FEs and BMETs now have more opportunities to learn from each other and more options for planning their careers. Service Forward is helping us establish the next generation of service delivery. “Our finance, zone operations, technology and IT teams have done tremendous work in making these changes happen. We still have much to do, but we are moving along on our Service Forward journey.” What is Service Forward? Service Forward is an initiative that brings clinical (biomedical) and imaging service together as a single business, so that we can deliver service more efficiently and in the way our customers prefer. It is one of our Big Three strategies, along with improvements to the Customer Service Center and the mapping of career paths for service teammembers. “We’ve been operating under the same service delivery model for quite some time,” says Brian Cellilli , Service Forward Program Manager. “Meanwhile, our customers’ needs have changed, and so we need to change as well.” Customers told us they need: • One point of contact for support and assistance • Service that works around patient care schedules and brings less complexity and disruption • More information and data to help make decisions • Faster response times • Timely and accurate communication Service Forward is designed to respond to those needs while making our business more flexible and profitable. To that end, we will continue to hire, retain and develop the best people, provide best-in-class training, and deploy effective technology and tools.