Co-operative ticket management system for European engineering Arising from international competition and the demand for customer fair service products, a German organisation has designed a Service Ticket Management system for the European Mechanical Engineering industry. Industrial Technologies © PhotoDisc The project realised that small to medium sized companies can be at a disadvantage because of the wide range of services that they have to offer in addition to the sales of their machinery. Thus the distributed services project sought to create a European wide service network centred around four EU machine-trading companies, with assistance from a mechanical engineering company and a consultancy. Unlike standard ticket service management systems that track products from one point to another, this system provides personnel with the ability to record, process and follow up machine service enquiries. Such enquiries may be received either by email, websites or by telephone and are automatically directed to the respective employee responsible for each specific enquiry. Through its communications network, the Ticket Management system is able to solve customer problems efficiently and effectively, and can do so in a multitude of ways. For example, it can prompt responses to machine enquiries, transfer knowledge, record customer enquires, assign job files, produce meaningful statistical data and wholly integrate telephone, email and web enquiries. The resultant benefits of this system will enable the participating companies to transit from pure trading companies, to trading and service companies. This increase in trading capacity will lead to increased competitiveness in the international market, and provide greater levels of service and stability for all of the project participants.
