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Honeywell Analytics
| Honeywell Analytics is a subsidiary of Honeywell Inc and is a global leader in the design and manufacture of gas detection equipment. The origins of the business go back to 1959 when gas detection pioneer Joshua Sieger founded J&S Sieger and launched the 'Siegistor', which set the benchmark for catalytic bead flammable gas detection technology. In 1979, Zellweger Analytics acquired J&S Sieger, along with Neotronics Technology in 1996. The combined group entered the carbon monoxide (CO) detection market in 2000, before being acquired by Honeywell in 2005 to form Honeywell Analytics. The business employs around 600 people in the UK at Portsmouth and Poole, and has sites in China and USA. Challenge Honeywell Analytics markets residential carbon monoxide and gas detectors under the SF Detection brand name. A key product for the company is a battery powered carbon monoxide detector which provides six years of carbon monoxide (CO) detection - a toxic gas which can form if there is insufficient oxygen to produce carbon dioxide when using a gas burning appliance. It sells millions of these devices across Europe each year and has British Gas as a major customer for it in the UK. These consumer products account for a quarter of Honeywell Analytics' total sales. Safety and reliability is paramount for these products and SF Detection offers a five or six year guarantee for its products under normal usage. To support this guarantee for the millions of consumers owning SF Detection branded units, in 2003 the company established an in-house customer service call centre which today has ten call centre agents handling 1,500 calls per week. During the first year of the call centre's operation, the agents were using ACT! contact and customer management software. The software was effective for capturing basic customer details but was inadequate for collating a service record for the customer's individual unit or linking it to other company IT systems. The company wanted an integrated system which could manage the process from initial customer call through to successful resolution such as the despatch of a replacement or repaired product. Solution Simon Turner works as an IT Manager for Honeywell Analytics and is responsible for IT across the Poole site. He recognised at the time that the ACT system could not provide the end-to-end product support process that was required. Simon was recommended to try Eden by Datadialogs from a fellow colleague. He invited the Eden team to propose a solution, which was scoped and built within four days. Many customer calls were coming in linked to SF Detection's CO detector unit beeping. This sound indicated either that the unit has detected CO or is faulty. The customer then calls the SF Detection customer service team to find out what to do next. The customer service agent then establishes the type and age of customer's unit by checking its serial number and then asks questions to see whether CO has been detected or if it is faulty. If the unit is faulty, such as the battery failing before the end of the guarantee period, the agent asks for the unit to be returned to the SF Detection's offices. All of the customer's details were recorded onto ACT, and if the agent wants to arrange for a return, Eden interacts with ACT and generates a return code, storing the data on an SQL database. Once the unit is returned, the code is keyed in by the customer services team. The unit is refurbished or replaced and then despatched. Eden generates a despatch label and records the job as complete. With the addition of Eden, the whole process is now completely integrated from initial call to final resolution. SF Detection has had a more recent issue with a batch of detectors that needed to have their firmware updated. A high importance was placed on this upgrade as the existing firmware failed to ensure that the unit would meet its five year guarantee. The company pro-actively worked with its distributors and customers to ensure the affected units were returned and replaced. This resulted in thousands of units being returned for refurbishment. This product really required a system that was highly scalable to handle this large increase in product returns. Datadialogs designed an Eden-based process, which was programmed and implemented within four days. Eden works by taking details from the customer database, starting a job file and then generating a return bar code which is placed onto the unit. So when the bar code is scanned in, Eden recognises that the unit is being refurbished. Once the firmware on the unit is updated, the job is marked as complete and Eden generates a return address label including postage paid sticker, which also serves as a seal for the box. Eden also provides management statistics to show the flow of returns and gives information on the numbers of units being received, updated and despatched. Result Through using Datadialogs, Honeywell Analytics has the flexibility and capability it needs to tackle systems integration issues as they arise. It also allows the business to be able to identify and tackle potential integration areas to help save costs and improve efficiency. For the first Eden integration, Datadialogs managed to extend the existing customer service records system which was limited in its functionality. Datadialogs linked the customer records with the product database to produce a process which married records together, provided full traceability and delivered a complete process from initial customer call to despatch of a refurbished product. Using Eden, Honeywell Analytics have a well managed customer services process which is fully accountable and reduces manual workarounds. For the second Eden integration involving a large scale firmware upgrade project, Eden underpinned a robust, end-to-end process which enabled throughput to increase fivefold, from 1,000 to 5,000 units per day. Eden played a crucial role in providing a process which not only increased capacity but also provided full traceability and visible workflows to deliver real-time management information allowing managers to take full control of the process. Simon continues to work with Datadialogs to integrate other business processes together and enable increased innovation and efficiency in other areas of the business. "When we call Datadialogs in, they sit down with myself and our business teams and they interpret our needs and translate them into business processes that bring our IT systems together. It seems to me that nothing is impossible with Eden. No matter what systems we need to link or interrogate, Eden is always able to do it. Eden is now embedded into our company's change process. The Eden team is very professional, they know their product inside out which makes us very confident about their abilities to handle any integration challenges we give them," commented Simon. Honeywell Analytics Hatch Pond House 4 Stinsford Road Nuffield Estate Poole, Dorset BH17 0RZ Reference www.honeywell.com |
