Lifting their game

In Australia’s highly competitive access equipment market, a product range renowned for its quality, performance and innovation is merely a good start. That’s why the management of JLG Industries Australia set out to back it with the best possible support systems - including Baseplan Software.

In 2007, with a successful 25-year track record in Australia behind it, JLG’s management initiated a drive to upgrade every aspect of the service and support it provides for owners of its vertical mast lifts, scissor lifts, boom lifts, lighting towers, telehandlers and stock pickers.

The strength, carrying capacity, versatility and safety of JLG equipment had helped make it the first choice of hire and rental companies and contractors. The company wanted to build on that advantage by providing even better after-sales support for customers in cities, regional areas and resources sites while at the same time improving its own efficiency and profitability.

Simone Klingberg, IT manager at JLG Industries, describes the software environment changes which took place to support this major upgrade of the company’s customer support services.

“JLG had outgrown our previous operating system and set out to find other options. In 2008, we contracted Baseplan Software to implement a total operating system, which included CRM for our sales team, IVT for our field service and administration staff, all the way through to full financial integration. Pilots began in 2008 covering CRM, IVT and the financial modules, and the full Baseplan package went live in 2009, which covers parts, service, sales and finance.

“With Baseplan’s help, we are also able to implement processes to feed the local accounting data back to our American parent company’s accounting system in a format it can use,” Klingberg said. “We’re sending back our month-end and year-end financials at the touch of a button.”

Just as important for the company was the rollout of the IVT module, which allowed JLG’s service division to deliver major speed and efficiency improvements for customers. Advanced In Van Terminal (IVT) units fitted to JLG field service vans and linked to its Baseplan system are helping to provide even quicker response times and improved first-time fix rates.

Field service technicians use simple touch-screen menus on the IVTs to display, navigate and manage job-related information while communicating with the JLG Baseplan system and updating records.The terminals work with wireless barcode scanners and compact thermal printers. The barcode scanners provides an error-proof method for entering parts information to update equipment service histories and for accurate invoicing.

By using the printer the technician can produce job dockets and time sheets to leave with the customer. Service jobs flagged as complete by technicians through the IVT are invoiced within 24 hours, making it easier for customers to administer their own equipment records.

Baseplan software and the IVTs provide a system which gives the real-time status of every service job booked with JLG. In turn that allows the company’s service administrators to respond rapidly to changing priorities with improved scheduling of technicians.

Baseplan software modules are used by virtually all of JLG’s 250 staff, including administrative staff who use a fleet module to track and record the service history of every piece of equipment sold by the company.

“Even though full service histories are available through the Baseplan system, we don’t rely on our field service technicians to go back through historical data about a particular machine,” Klingberg said. “We have branch administration staff who can access that and then pass it on to our field service technicians. That avoids wasting time and allows the technicians to concentrate on getting through their allotted jobs and minimises our response time to customer calls.”

With the Baseplan IVT function bedded down, JLG turned its attention to improving the efficiency of its branch service workshops around Australia by introducing In-Workshop Terminals (IWTs).

“We wanted to do away with paperwork, such as work orders, in our workshops,” Klingberg said. “The terminals sit in our branch workshops and, like the IVTs, they are linked to software which is very easy to use. That’s been another area in which we’ve been able to use Baseplan to improve our efficiency.”