Cold Link Africa CLA_June_2023 | Page 23

INCORPORATING COLD CHAIN

BUSINESS AND TRAINING will get caught out post-event . The employer then has no right to claim everything was done right . An employer in that position will not want to be trying to prove their innocence , he cautions .

For instance , in 2022 , dangerous contact with electricity resulted in 34 accidents on South African construction sites , leading to the death of one person and four being permanently disabled . Dickson emphasises the importance of ensuring earth leakage devices are installed and the consequences for non-compliance with health and safety standards .

“ Even one death is one too many . Companies need to ensure that their staff are protected from potentially lethal shocks by ensuring that earth leakage devices are installed . These products are designed to limit the amount of electrical current entering the human body to under 30 milliamps as anything above this could be fatal .”

He points out that many electrical or electrocution accidents on construction sites occur as a result of employees bypassing the earth leakage . “ Workers often run extension cords to power their tools from a single point of supply . But these sites are quite rugged and dusty , and tools are often damaged . Consequently , there are many opportunities for the earth leakage to trip , causing irritation and delays . While the protective device has performed its function correctly , this is not always fully appreciated and so a conscious decision may be made to bypass the earth leakage . This could create a dangerous and potentially lethal electrical supply as contact by any person on site to the electrical network or to a connected power tool or machinery could result in a significant or even fatal shock .

The fines imposed are significant enough that employers will now need to perform physical checks and verify that their systems are in accordance with the standards – not just assume they are . The liability has been pushed up to the employer .

“ Though the penalty is imposed on the company , it is often the employee without the knowledge of their superior that bypasses the protection , thus resulting in a death that could have been avoided . Employees don ' t realise the value of an earth leakage device until tragedy strikes . South African businesses must therefore educate their staff members about the pitfalls of bypassing the earth leakage . Not only does this help to uphold the employee ’ s right to a safe and healthy working environment at work , but doing so could save lives ,” concludes Dickson . CLA

Case study : Sanden Intercool Kenya improves efficiency

Aggregates are the foundation of every construction project and require the sourcing of legally compliant suppliers of sand and stone to be at the very heart of planning for green building developments .

Sanden Intercool Kenya is the East African arm of the global-leading Sanden Intercool brand of commercial refrigeration solutions . They predominantly supply and maintain chillers and coolers to the Pharmaceutical , Food and Beverage industries in Kenya and surrounding countries , with major customers , including well known international brands .

THE CHALLENGE Aftersales service , including maintenance and troubleshooting , originally required technicians to write out job cards by hand in the field . This was causing a few problems . Firstly , serial numbers were frequently mismatched or incorrectly captured , which led to stock issues , with units showing as being still in the warehouse when they were in fact installed at a customer . This meant that records of services and maintenance were inaccurate , and there was a lack of accuracy and visibility into the process .

Assigning technicians to troubleshoot issues was also challenging , as there was no visibility into their current location , so the closest person may not have been assigned to attend to a problem . Technicians in the field also do not come into head office every day , meaning that over the course of two weeks they collected multiple job cards which then needed to be manually captured in batches . This was an inefficient process that left much room for human error .

THE SOLUTION “ We had a significant problem with data quality that was making it difficult for us to effectively service customers . We needed a solution that would eliminate these laborious manual processes and give us greater visibility into our maintenance and troubleshooting process and give clear guidance to the back-end customer support team and tech team ,” says Harish Nargundkar , business development manager at Sanden Intercool Kenya .

FIELDForce from MACmobile offered the ideal solution . Sanden Intercool Kenya now has a platform that enables technicians to scan the barcode of the refrigeration unit to ensure the serial number is accurately captured and allows job cards to be filled digitally in the field , eliminating manual processes and reducing the risk of error .

Sanden Intercool

FIELDForce SFA App with fridges reduced .

“ Although FIELDForce is traditionally used as a sales enablement tool in the fast-moving consumer goods space , it lends itself perfectly to this scenario as well . As a technician tracking and stock management tool , it gives Sanden Intercool Kenya end-to-end visibility and line of sight into their after-sales service and equipment maintenance processes ,” says Muhoro Gathii , country sales manager for Kenya at MACmobile .

THE BENEFITS

Now that Sanden Intercool Kenya ’ s master data has been cleaned , they benefit from a 100 % accurate master list of stock in the warehouse and in the field . They are able to schedule preventative maintenance more effectively and assign service calls accurately based on the current location of technicians , thanks to GPS tracking in the FIELDForce app . This optimises logistics and reduces service costs , while improving efficiency and reducing turnaround time on repairs .

Digitally captured job cards in the field reduce human error as well as the workload for customer services teams , in addition to reducing the time to report back to customers on their maintenance jobs . Job cards are all online and can easily be downloaded and sent right after maintenance or repairs have been completed , improving customer satisfaction .

In addition , MACmobile has also assisted us on the spare parts management effectively . Moving away from manual stock sheets , Sanden Intercool Kenya now has line of sight of their stocks in hand on a click of a button . Capturing spare parts movement is much easier , allowing for the smother assigning of spare parts to technicians and accounting on them is more effective .

LOOKING TO THE FUTURE Sanden Intercool Kenya will continue to use FIELDForce as a digital data capturing service and maintenance planning tool , leveraging the benefits of enhanced visibility and greater accuracy of data . They are also looking at using the call centre capabilities within the solution as a complete end-to-end platform for taking and fulfilling orders , scheduling maintenance and logging service requests .

“ The FIELDForce solution has improved our efficiency , given us improved accuracy of data and enhanced customer service . We are exploring other ways that it can be used to reduce our manual processes and give us a competitive edge while enhancing our customer service capabilities ,” Nargundkar concludes . CLA

FIELDForce

Digitally captured job cards in the field reduce human error as well as the workload for customer services teams .

COLD LINK AFRICA • June 2023 www . coldlinkafrica . co . za 23