Field service engineers

Field service engineers
are the backbone of any mobile service industry. They are a sought after commodity in this market .But the job comes with its own downside. Long working hours and constant relocation from one service site to another, takes its toll on the mental and physical health of field service engineers. On the other side, great pay packets, commissions and bonus compensate for a high pressure work environment.

Field service engineers have to be properly trained to perform their duties. Quality and preventive maintenance, documentation with Quality assurance, filling up of field data forms are part of the training syllabus. But more than the ability to be systematic, it is the firefighting abilities of the field service engineers that is rated highly. Time bound fault rectification to ensure smooth functioning of the mobile network is their primary duty. This quality cannot be acquired overnight. It requires extensive field experience and supervision by other senior staff at the initial stage of apprenticeship. It will be seen often that, a group of field service engineers work better in tandem.

It is sometimes argued that modern field equipment has made the life of field service engineers rather easy. Handheld computers and other sophisticated instruments have made the job of field engineers redundant. To these armchair experts, my only suggestion would be to witness an emergency field situation. They would soon realize that there is no substitute for trained field service engineers. It would take another decade for artificial intelligence and expert systems to replace field engineers by gadgets and instruments.

At the same time the usefulness of advanced instruments in fault detection and repair cannot be understated. But it has to be understood that the tools are only as good as the field service engineers. Unless they know how to use them effectively, they are useless.