In use for over 15 years: How Handyman supports technical service at LAMBDA

40 service technicians, installations across seven countries and response times as short as two hours: LAMBDA has been organising and documenting its technical service with Handyman for more than 15 years. Before the solution was introduced, service orders were sent to technicians by post – today, the field service software is as much a part of everyday operations as the ERP system.

Technical service for climate protection

LAMBDA Gesellschaft für Klimaschutz und regenerative Energien mbH specialises in capturing, treating and making productive use of climate-damaging gases from landfill sites and other facilities. The company develops, builds, operates and maintains the technical installations needed to handle landfill gas, mine gas and natural gas. It also operates facilities for treating landfill leachate.

Around half of the company’s approximately 100 employees work in service: 40 service technicians and six service coordinators, along with administrative staff. The department is headed by Johann Eschey, Head of Service and an authorised signatory.

The technicians work from various locations and look after installations throughout Germany as well as in Austria, Switzerland, northern Italy, Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands. Three tasks shape their working day: maintenance and operation under individually tailored service contracts, remedial work and repairs, and the assembly and commissioning of new and rental installations.

Nationwide service – fast and around the clock

Almost every installation sold is covered by a tailored maintenance or operating contract. Agreed service intervals range from weekly to annual visits. At the same time, LAMBDA must be ready to respond to faults at any time.

“We have to ensure nationwide service with short response times. For certain installations, our contracts require us to be able to get to the site within two hours,” says Johann Eschey.

The service department therefore works partly in two shifts and provides an on-call service at night and at weekends. This means coordinating scheduled and emergency service visits across many locations – and documenting every job so that it can be invoiced without further clarification.

When service orders arrived by post

LAMBDA has been using Handyman since 2010. Before that, service work was managed in the traditional way with Excel, Word and paper. Service coordinators prepared work schedules, printed service orders and posted them to technicians in the middle of the week. The orders would then be waiting at the technicians’ homes over the weekend, ready to be carried out the following week.

“This meant long processing times, delays in follow-up work and lost documents. Back then, service orders sometimes got lost in the post or simply failed to reach the service technician in time,” recalls Johann Eschey.

There was also the effort involved in tracking orders: Which ones had been returned, and which were still missing? This was managed using lists and took up a lot of the office team’s time. When LAMBDA introduced the Microsoft Dynamics NAV (Navision) ERP system around the same time, a mobile solution was the natural next step – Handyman could be integrated directly with the ERP system.

The introduction initially met with some reservations. Mobile coverage was patchier at the time, and some technicians feared more documentation work or closer monitoring by the service coordinators. “A large proportion of employees were very sceptical at first,” says Eschey. “But that scepticism disappeared very quickly and turned into the opposite.”

How a service job works today

Handyman is software for technical field service: Service coordinators plan and assign jobs in Handyman Office, while technicians carry them out and document them using Handyman Mobile on their mobile devices. At LAMBDA, the process looks like this:

Scheduled jobs: Staff set up maintenance contracts in Handyman Office. Handyman then automatically creates maintenance and operational service jobs for each interval. The service coordinators simply assign them to technicians. Technicians see their orders directly on their devices – sending orders by post has been a thing of the past for 15 years. On site, they work through digital checklists for the individual maintenance tasks and record working time, mileage and spare parts used.

Faults: The installations are equipped with remote monitoring systems that raise an alarm when a fault occurs. The responsible technician attends the site and then documents the job in Handyman, recording the same information as for scheduled maintenance.

Completion: All job reports are collected in Handyman Office and passed on for administrative processing via the ERP integration. Invoicing takes place there – promptly, because the office team no longer has to wait for paperwork.

“Orders are sent electronically and, above all, reported back promptly. This means we can also invoice service orders promptly,” says Eschey.

Two ERP systems, one service tool

LAMBDA has changed considerably over 15 years: Both the installations the company looks after and the associated services have evolved significantly since 2010. Service processes have changed as a result. Handyman has been adapted continuously with support from the Handyman team, which has provided LAMBDA with personal support throughout this period.

“We have received good support over the years and have always had excellent help with the necessary updates and adjustments,” says Johann Eschey.

The biggest adjustment to date is currently underway: LAMBDA is moving from Microsoft Dynamics NAV to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central with support from Microsoft partner Sonapro. As part of the transition, the Handyman integration is being transferred to the new system. Nothing changes for the service department – technicians continue working as usual while the ERP system is replaced in the background.

“As dependent as we are on the ERP system”

When asked what would happen without Handyman, Johann Eschey does not have to think for long. He compares the software to the infrastructure every business relies on today:

“We are as dependent on Handyman as any company is on its ERP system or Microsoft 365. If Handyman went down, the coordination of our service technicians would be significantly affected. Both the transmission of orders and the reporting back would be severely disrupted. That is why Handyman not only has a robust backup solution, but has also delivered almost 100 per cent availability over the past 15 years.”

For him, Handyman is the central service management tool for 40 technicians and six service coordinators. His conclusion after more than 15 years:

“We are satisfied. Today, we really can no longer imagine a world without Handyman.”