Service Gets A BoostService Gets A Boost

Bobcat Inc. Executives hope that determining the best method to fix an ailing skid-steer loader or hydraulic excavator will soon get easier and faster. The maker of heavy machinery is giving service technicians at dealerships free access to a product encyclopedia consisting of service parts and diagnostic information via the Web and DVD.

Service technicians at Bobcat's 550 U.S. and Canadian and 100 Asia-Pacific and Latin American dealerships will get access to data on more than 100,000 parts numbers. This first of a two-phase process is scheduled for completion in August. European dealerships will come online by year's end in phase two. The online catalog's platform is Enigma Inc.'s 3C version 8, release 2, built on a Java 2 Enterprise Edition architecture to support Web applications that, if required, can tie into customers' back-office systems to manage workflow.

For Bobcat, making service technicians at dealerships more productive is a top priority. Though Enigma's platform requires users to manually download product information as required, Bobcat says the platform is faster, easier, and less expensive to use than the system it previously ran. The tool has eliminated a $50 per-license fee dealerships paid to the previous catalog-and-parts service provider, while keeping service technicians knowledgeable on parts updates and new products, says Troy Underhill, Bobcat's technical communications support manager. Bobcat introduced 17 products last year and expects to add 20 more this year.

The company's goal is to move to automatic catalog downloads and installations, eliminating semimanual processes where users must check a File Transfer Protocol site and download the content. "I'd like to see automatic updates, so when you logged in to the system, it would identify new information and automatically update the catalog," Underhill says, emphasizing the importance of cutting time from the maintenance process.

Analysts estimate service technicians spend 20% to 40% of their time searching for service-related information. So Bobcat integrated service-bay technicians' computer systems with the Enigma platform, adding Web hyperlinks to let technicians click from maintenance information or service bulletins to technical revisions, warranty data, and recall notices. This gives technicians instant access to information, Underhill says, and helps them make quicker decisions.