Service Strategy

The response and capability of our Service Department is one of the key INFORS HT successes, especially in terms of the breadth and scope of our after sales service. INFORS HT has been developing and extending the role of the in-house department specifically dedicated to Service support for a number a years now.

In addition to the help and support available from our headquarters, we have also developed additional layers of high quality service and support throughout the world in the following ways:

• Our subsidiaries have their own dedicated and trained after sales specialists, many having years of experience in mechanical and electrical systems.
• Our colleagues in associated companies all over the world have their own service departments and INFORS HT regularly supplies dedicated, in-house training courses to ensure their engineers skills are appropriate and up to date.
• We have a number of plans in progress for further improvements and monitoring of our Service capabilities over time

Strategy

Our philosophy is to develop a world-wide service network organisation with the following key imperatives:

• Proximity
• Competence
• Efficiency

Proximity

This technically refers to the optimum density of our worldwide Service network but in reality it means having help and support close to our customers when it matters. Of course, a highly trained and skilled engineer is of no use without the necessary parts and technical information to complete a repair on site. Local stocks of common spares and disposable parts, coupled with the rapid supply of less commonly used parts from Infors AG and a 24 hours source of technical data are also critical for success. Our associates and colleagues world-wide take service seriously and provide a high level of local assistance with service, peripheral items and upgrades.

Competence

This is concerned with the quality of the person who provides the support. It can be:

• An Infors specialist with training, knowledge and practical experience gained from both in-house and on-site work.
• A local Engineer from our associates, who will have received on-going training and support from Infors AG.

Our training courses are validated in the following ways:

• Certification of the participants based on both a practical assessment of their abilities and testing of the knowledge gained from the course.
• The courses are qualified in-house to assess their performance and suitability.

The final part of competence is related to the scope of the help on offer. As well as vital repairs and contract servicing, Infors can offer support on a range of other topics such as the supply and fitting of peripheral equipment, upgrading existing units and revamping of older units. Application help and support is also available from in-house specialists and training can be provided beyond the initial course which follows installation and commissioning of new equipment. This comprehensive range of services complements and enhances the concept of “Swiss Quality”.

Efficiency

This is in part the obvious requirement to ensure the right personnel and parts are available to our customers when required. Clearly, the points related to proximity and competence make this last objective possible. The less visible part of the process relates to aspects of the work process such as after-sales personnel also taking responsibility for the packing and dispatch of parts to ensure everything goes smoothly at the receiving end.

The ability to customise installation and testing work to meet specific user requirements is also vital to providing an efficient service to our customers. Often, this can involve additional work in-house or on-site to ensure simple but critical things such as the newly-delivered unit actually being able to go through doors, into lifts etc. More technical aspects would include linking a new installation to existing peripherals, analysers and specific service supply systems eg. for chilled water.

The Future

Service in general is a priority for Infors AG, so it’s natural that we would plan to make further enhancements over time: The key areas we are concentrating on are:

• Enhanced proximity to improve customer satisfaction
• More precise, targeted improvements in competence
• Increased efficiency using the latest communication and logistics tools along with a continuing increase in the breadth of in-house expertise