Why Fieldwork Service Management solution?
I’ve been working in the telco industry for more than 20 years.
While responsible for building networks across Europe, the Middle East, and the US, we used plenty of software solutions for project management, service management, and workflow management related to network rollout.
They were focused on and had functionalities covering: project planning, milestones tracking, resources planning, time management, order management, process management, and profitability analysis but…
None of those software solutions covered fieldwork service management – a decade-long burning issue in the telco industry.
Why a burning issue?
Because improper quality management of fieldwork is a major reason for:
- Health and safety incidents
- Unclear deliverables expectations
- Multiple returns to the sites
- Costs rising
- Deliverables inefficiency
- And reputation degradation.
Even today, a very small number of solutions are touching upon fieldwork service management, and just a few of them are partially doing what they are saying they’re doing.
Having faced the same challenges as thousands of other companies across the world when it comes to the management of the quality of work of field crews, I decided to do something about it.
I created a separate team of strong software developers from our software development company and another with fieldwork experts in radio and fiber networks rollout from our general contractor company.
Together, we created a cloud-based software that will – based on experience and knowledge – provide a comprehensive solution for Fieldwork Service Management (further FSM) in the telco industry.
Our goal was to create a solution that will become a standard for FQM for companies in the telco industry across the world.
And today – this is our oath to the telco industry.
What is Fieldwork Service Management?
Fieldwork Service Management covers a wide area related to controlling any fieldwork activities subjected to inspection – based on procedures and guidelines defined for the particular industry’s vertical and particular project.
It covers end-to-end quality management, including:
- Health and safety procedures and compliance checks
- Site survey services quality checks
- Build/installation/integration services quality checks
- Site hygiene and hazard prevention compliance checks
- As-build documentation creation compliance checks
- Staff-planning compliance checks
- …and any additional checks that should be defined for management quality standards on a particular project.
What in CloseOut have we done differently?
Besides covering Field Quality Management, we avoided major mistakes we saw in the industry – around the world.
For example, telco engineers design the software and interfere with developers’ work during its development; Software developers design functionalities of the software, without telco experience.
We made no compromise on that!
In CloseOut, we intentionally organized the development so that everyone on the project does what they are best at.
Subject matter experts, together with the product owner, were responsible for functional design and user experience testing and feedback;
UI/UX experts for the look and feel of the application;
software developers for technologies selection and software architecture;
the program manager was there to make sure this orchestra plays in harmony.
From the CloseOut software perspective, one of the key requirements was that it had to be simple to use, especially by the field crews.
Where are we today?
We have a market-ready SaaS product for Fieldwork Service Management that was tested and improved through usage on hundreds of global projects.
Many functionalities and modules in the software came from the requirements that came as feedback from the field.
CloseOut has a clear roadmap for further development and improvements based on the regular feedback we are receiving from our existing and trial customers around the globe.
Artificial Intelligence and automation are in the DNA of CloseOut as it is essential in simplifying the work of quality managers.
Based on our understanding of the market and our FQM product, we strongly believe that we are on the right path to having a product that will become a standard for FQM in the telco industry, all over the world.
What do our customers say about CloseOut today?
On the first meeting with a new potential customer, our presentation lasts literary 5 minutes, and the rest is the demo based on real projects.
Everything we demonstrate is real cases and examples. We can hardly be surprised by something we haven’t seen many times before.
In a nutshell, a general comment is that this is the first solution they see on the market which comprehensively covers Fieldwork Service Management.
And, at the end of the day, we wholeheartedly believe that it is just that.
CloseOut Cloud Founder
Rade Vujovic
