Raw

Subject: Recommendation: Extend Fieldbook to North and Islands in Q1, conditional on onboarding and integration fixes

**Situation:** Fieldbook is live in four regions with proven gains in scheduling density, travel efficiency, and cost reduction. Finance confirms reduced overtime and fuel costs, and Central and East achieved payback within two quarters.

**Complication:** Adoption slowed in South and West due to training scheduling gaps, and data defects in the asset register and billing systems force manual rework. The economics of extension depend on replicating the rapid adoption of Central and East and closing these system gaps.

**Answer:** Extend to North and Islands in Q1, provided we restructure onboarding to ensure full technician coverage and configure the pending vendor integrations.

### 1. Extension delivers strong economic returns if adoption pace matches Central and East

*   Operational gains are confirmed across live regions: completed jobs per technician rose from 4.6 to 5.3, average travel time fell 18%, and emergency insertion takes a median of 4 minutes.
*   Finance reports overtime spending down 12% quarter-over-quarter and fuel cost per job down 9%, driven by scheduling improvements.
*   Central and East paid back their share of running costs within the second quarter; South and West are roughly at break-even due to slower adoption.
*   Extension adds £13,500 per month in licences and requires winter travel for training. The economics are favourable only if North and Islands reproduce the Central/East adoption pace; a repeat of the West pattern would put the new regions underwater for at least two quarters.

### 2. Adoption lags in slower regions stem from training access gaps that are solvable without platform changes

*   South and West lagged because the two-day classroom course ran only once per region; technicians hired after the course or absent during it learned second-hand. In West, 34 of 118 technicians never attended any session.
*   Coordinators improvised shadowing arrangements, which improved uptake but pulled experienced technicians off routes, consuming an estimated 380 hours of lost route time.
*   Dispatchers adopted instantly when the old spreadsheet was switched off, confirming platform resistance is not the barrier.
*   The program office notes every negative pattern was visible by week four of the Central go-live but was not converted into a program-level fix; the new rollout must implement the onboarding restructure immediately to avoid replaying these delays.

### 3. Known data defects drive rework and errors, but vendor solutions are available and low-effort

*   Fieldbook does not receive service history from the legacy asset register, hiding warranty state and causing technicians to call the back office or replace parts unnecessarily; audited jobs show a 9% error rate where parts were replaced within warranty.
*   Job-completion codes do not match the invoicing system, forcing the billing team to re-key roughly 300 records per week by hand, introducing transcription errors caught by customers.
*   Search limitations create duplicate customer records, splitting job-history views until merged manually at 70 records per week.
*   The vendor offers a configurable mapping table for billing codes (setup in roughly one day) and supported connectors for the asset register database; IT confirms both are straightforward. No integration work was scoped previously, and no internal owner has been assigned.

**Next step:** Approve Q1 extension to North and Islands and authorize immediate restructuring of the onboarding programme and scoping of the asset-register and billing integrations.

```text
Top: Extend to North and Islands in Q1, provided we restructure onboarding and configure the asset-register and billing integrations.
  1. Extension delivers strong economic returns if adoption pace matches Central and East.
     - Operational gains: jobs up 15%, travel down 18%, emergency insertion 4 minutes.
     - Cost reductions: overtime down 12%, fuel down 9%.
     - Payback: Central/East paid back by Q2; South/West at break-even due to lag.
     - Extension ROI: Favourable only if Central/East pace reproduced; West pattern causes loss.
  2. Adoption lags in slower regions stem from training access gaps that are solvable without platform changes.
     - Cause: Classroom course ran once; late hires learned second-hand; West had 34 untrained techs.
     - Impact: Shadowing consumed 380 hours of lost route time; uptake delayed.
     - Evidence: Dispatchers adopted instantly when spreadsheet cut; no platform resistance.
     - Action: Restructure onboarding to cover late hires; apply fix immediately to avoid replay.
  3. Known data defects drive rework and errors, but vendor solutions are available and low-effort.
     - Asset register gap: Hides warranty history; 9% part-replacement error rate; back-office calls.
     - Billing mismatch: 300 manual re-keys/week; transcription errors on invoices.
     - Duplicate records: Split job histories; 70 merges/week.
     - Solutions: Vendor provides billing mapping table (1-day setup) and asset register connector; IT confirms straightforward.
```