IAC Boosts Field Service Efficiency

Industrial Air Centers empowers its field technicians with Airwave to support business expansion

Industrial Air Centers has been servicing industrial air compressor equipment for over 30 years. The company has always approached compressed air as one of the most critical resources for many industries, and it’s that approach that has made Industrial Air Centers the leading provider of equipment, service, piping, and energy management systems throughout Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana and Florida.

Building on the success of the last three decades, Industrial Air Centers is continuing to expand its operations and grow its business. As the company widens its scope and brings on additional talent, it’s investing in new processes and technology that will help scale the business.

This is how Industrial Air Centers came to bring Airwave into the compressed air industry.

Saving time across the board

As Industrial Air Centers’ business expanded regionally, the company needed to think through options to efficiently share knowledge and best practices between their field technicians across dispersed geographic locations. Coupled with an increasing shortage of experienced technicians entering the industry, Industrial Air Centers also needed to find ways to leverage their existing team's expertise.

“I’m always thinking how can I add a force multiplier to my field team,” said Michael Roszkowski, Vice President of Operations at Industrial Air Centers. “I want to reduce the overall amount of time it takes a field technician to be proficient, confident, and eventually an expert at what they do.”

According to Roszkowski that generally comes down to how well they can share information and knowledge, and leverage the best of the team.

"Airwave lets us level communications and provide access to information,” said Roszkowski. “I can take product manuals and other bits of information that we use as a reference on a regular basis, plug it into Airwave, and our field technicians can call it up on demand with a simple voice question."

Airwave’s voice functionality becomes particularly game changing when technicians are out in the field in front of a machine and all they have is a smartphone or tablet. Industrial Air Centers’ technicians no longer have to try to log in to a shared website or folder, search for a specific document, or find a specific section of a document.

“Airwave takes our field technicians straight to the information they need every time,” added Roszkowski.

Channeling your experts for the good of the team

Industrial Air Centers began rolling out Airwave to its field teams by starting with a select few of its most experienced technicians. By doing so it ensured that the employees with the most institutional knowledge would also be some of its most advanced users of Airwave. When new technicians started using Airwave and would ask questions in specific channels organized by topic or region, the experienced technicians from the first trial wave would quickly engage with an answer or help.

“Sometimes you won’t know who to call with a specific question or problem, so in Airwave we created channels that allow our technicians to ask questions about a specific type of machine, for instance, and we have subject matter experts that act as the moderators in these channels,” said Roszkowski.

“I don’t have technicians trying to pull up manuals. They’re asking the people who know directly without having to keep a directory with each person’s skills listed,” he added.

Prior to implementing Airwave, Roszkowski estimated that Industrial Air Centers’ most experienced technicians could sometimes spend nearly half of one workday on the phone trying to help another technician troubleshoot an issue on their job.

"Technicians can now ask questions, share solutions, and reference technical documentation simply by speaking into the Airwave app."

“I'd pay for Airwave just to have access to its voice command functionality,” emphasized Roszkowski.

With Airwave, Industrial Air Centers can leverage the entire team's expertise regardless of location. Technicians feel more connected, training time is reduced, and experts can spend their time more efficiently.

For industrial organizations looking to improve technician productivity and collaboration, Airwave provides a powerful solution.