When asked about a typical day in the life of an IMS Service Technician, my first response is, “It depends on the day and the task at hand.” An IMS Service Technician’s schedule is one week on the road, one week in the office. This allows them to be home at least every other week with their families so as to promote a work/life balance. Let’s begin by talking about a typical office week for an IMS Service Technician.
Since IMS supports almost 350 different customers with a variety of systems and products that include Patient Security Systems, Real Time Locating Systems, and Mobile Cart Workstations 24/7, there may be an open service order/ticket that came in the night before that needs additional work and needs to be addressed first thing in the morning. Or there are some more complicated tickets that will take a bit more troubleshooting, these are often how a tech begins their day.
When they receive a call from a Customer asking for Support, they document what the reported problem is and what was done to resolve the issue. We track our calls in our business system on what we call Service Orders, which is very similar to a “ticket system” used by hospital IT departments. There are times when a reported problem cannot be corrected right away and may require additional follow up or maybe we need to monitor the system after adjustments to verify we made improvements. We open Service Orders if we identify problems during our monthly system checks and continue to follow up until we feel we have optimized the system. Once we are satisfied that the problem or reported issue has been resolved we will then finish the Service Order.
When a technician returns from an installation project or scheduled maintenance trip, it will usually take a day or two to update all our documentation. This level of detail and documentation is one aspect that sets our Service Team apart from other companies. We are often told that the level of detail we apply to our projects is incredible. The entire Service Department depends on having the latest information about each site so maintaining accurate records about each system is vital.
All service technicians share the responsibility of taking support calls from customers documenting each call with what was done to resolve the reported problem and laying out the next steps. In addition to taking support calls, they also constantly monitor each system that is under warranty or on an IMS Support Agreement to look for any problems based off the business intelligence insight we get from each system on a monthly schedule.
For example, with patient security systems, if we see an increase in alarms we investigate what the cause might be and take steps to correct the problem. Sometimes the fix is simply training a new staff member.
The level of detail we put into a project makes IMS a great choice for manufacturers we represent to test and troubleshoot new software releases and products. These manufacturers often rely on IMS for unbiased feedback and suggestions on how to make the product better.
When they are not in the office, they are traveling to sites for system installations, scheduled maintenance, and system modifications. When on the road, they log many working hours to ensure everything is working properly.
