From notepad to real time: how a Münsterland service company reinvented its service operation

Cold metal, warm baked goods, fresh food – in the food industry every machine has to work reliably. When a line goes down, production often comes to a standstill. For companies like Leineweber und Sulzbacher GmbH that means reacting quickly, planning efficiently and keeping track at all times. But it was precisely these demands that increasingly pushed the company’s existing processes to their limits.

Growth brings new challenges

Leineweber und Sulzbacher GmbH, based in Lüdinghausen, is an official partner of JBT Marel for the MAJA and TREIF product lines and serves customers in Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. The company supplies and services machines for the meat, fish and bakery industries as well as refrigeration and ice-making technology. With five service technicians and nine employees in total, it handles around 1,200 service assignments a year for roughly 1,000 active customers.

As order volumes grew, however, the established way of working reached its limits. Scheduling was handled in a self-built Excel spreadsheet, while communication with the technicians largely ran through WhatsApp. Information was stored in different places, coordination was manual, and transparency for everyone involved was limited.

Maiquel Sulzbacher recalls:

“Getting an overview of the schedule was very difficult – not just for me as the planner in the office, but for the technicians too. They had no overview of the overall schedule, so that they could also plan their private lives.”

The lack of transparency in particular created a high coordination effort between the office and the field. Follow-up questions were part of daily business, and predictability for the service technicians was only possible to a limited extent.

Paper-based processes slowed efficiency down

Documentation and the follow-up of service assignments also showed room for improvement. Every technician carried a physical service report pad. Once a job was finished, the reports were filled in by hand and signed by the customer. Only when the staff were back in the workshop could the paperwork be processed further.

“Once the technician was back in the workshop – that often took a week, two weeks.”

The reports had to be scanned, checked and then transferred manually into invoicing. The entire process was time-consuming, error-prone and caused unnecessary delays in billing.

The company therefore looked for a solution that would map all service processes digitally, improve the flow of information and at the same time enable intelligent scheduling and route planning.

Choosing Handyman

With Handyman, Leineweber & Sulzbacher opted for a central service platform that brings together every step from scheduling and documentation through to the handover to the ERP system. Today all jobs are recorded and processed centrally in Handyman Office. Documents, contacts, photos and checklists are available digitally at any time.

Maiquel Sulzbacher was particularly impressed by the integrated route and job planning:

“It lets me combine different customers who are close to each other, combine the jobs, save costs, so that you don’t have to drive back and forth to each customer separately or criss-cross Europe.”

For a company with customers in four countries, this means considerably shorter travel times and better utilisation of the technicians. Emergency call-outs can be prioritised at short notice, while maintenance work is planned well in advance and bundled optimally.

Digital documentation in real time

Today the service technicians work with tablets and capture all information directly at the customer’s site. Photos, checklists, working hours and notes for follow-up jobs are documented digitally on the spot and synchronised automatically.

“It’s error-free, because the data is simply transferred. Nobody has to type or write anything. It’s much, much better.”

Automatic data transfer eliminates media discontinuities entirely. Information is available to the office team immediately after a job is completed and can be processed straight away. Waiting times of days or weeks have become a matter of minutes.

Faster processes from service delivery to invoice

One key benefit shows in invoicing. After a service assignment is completed, the data is checked, approved and transferred automatically to the ERP system. Invoicing is significantly faster and involves far less administrative effort.

Manual entry of service reports is a thing of the past. At the same time the error rate is falling, because information no longer has to be transferred or reworked several times.

More transparency for technicians and the office

Alongside the process benefits, collaboration within the company has improved as well. Everyone involved works from the same data and has up-to-date information at all times. The technicians can plan their assignments further ahead and get a complete overview of their appointments.

“I think it’s important that the technicians have a full overview so they can plan their private lives better.”

The rollout was straightforward too. Employees accepted the new solution quickly and found their way around the system without extensive training.

“Everyone manages fine. They’re already very happy with it.”

The next step: more service for customers

Digital development is not finished at Leineweber & Sulzbacher. The next stage is the introduction of the Handyman Portal with the Event module. The aim is to give customers even more transparency about their jobs and service activities in future.

“I hope this will give our customers transparent access to all relevant information at any time and make it even easier for them to follow their service processes.”

The goal is to reduce follow-up questions and free up additional capacity for the core business: first-class service and fast support when it is needed.

Conclusion

With Handyman, Leineweber & Sulzbacher GmbH has consistently digitalised its service organisation and prepared it for future growth. Central scheduling, mobile documentation and the automated handover to downstream systems now deliver more transparency, faster processes and considerably higher efficiency. At the same time, technicians and customers alike benefit from better predictability and higher service quality.

Maiquel Sulzbacher sums up the result:

“We’re very happy with the partnership. It just works.”