QUALITY
OF TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE: ECONOMIC EVALUATION OF THE QUALITY IN TECHNICAL
ASSISTANCE PROCESSES
Gabriel
da Rocha Campos Politi
Federal
University of Technology - Paraná, Brazil
E-mail: gabriel.rc.politi@hotmail.com
Tiberio
Bruno Rocha Cruz
Federal
University of Technology - Paraná, Brazil
E-mail: cruz.rocha.bruno@gmail.com
Daiane
Maria De Genaro Chiroli
Federal
University of Technology - Paraná, Brazil
E-mail: daianechiroli@utfpr.edu.br
Ligia
Greatti
State
University of Maringá, Brazil
E-mail: lgreatti@uem.br
Submission: 2/14/2020
Revision: 2/27/2020
Accept: 3/19/2020
ABSTRACT
This study aims to analyze the economic feasibility of hiring new technicians in order to meet the existing demand for technical assistance. For this, a sensitivity analysis was performed and the data was collected in a qualitative and quantitative way. After that interviews were carried out and quality tools were applied, such as: brainstorms, cause and effect diagram and also financial and cost data was collected during the process. Thus, it was possible to identify that the main causes of the problem is the unavailability of technicians. Thus, an initial solution was developed to create financial configurations to assess which decision would be most plausible. Finally, the best performance scenario was to hire only one new technician, as it maximizes the company's net profit and the representative percentage of that profit from the generated revenue; it was also considered to what extent the solution could be applied. This research is important not only for the studied company, but also for others that have similar problems and need instructions to create a direction for a solution.
Keywords: Costs; Sensitivity Analysis; Quality in Service; Processes; Technical Assistance.
1.
INTRODUCTION
In recent years, the service sector
has grown significantly in Brazil (Brazilian Institute of Geography and
Statistics - IBGE, 2017), directly contributing to Brazilian economic
production. The PAS (Annual Service Survey), conducted by IBGE, collects
important data to understand the behavior of the Brazilian service offer
market. In 2014, it was estimated that 1,332,260 companies are primarily
engaged in providing services, generating R$ 1.4 trillion in net operating
revenue. The service sector, in 2014, employed 13 million people paying R$
289.7 billion in salaries. (IBGE, 2014).
The country's current economic
situation has caused the service sector to grow, however, the quality of
services are important for customer’s loyalty and, consequently, for the
increase of a company's revenue. The increased participation of the service
area in the economy is an ideal scenario for the development of research in
this area. When the data collection for this research was carried out, it was
found that there was little information related to the technical assistance
area, the costs related to it, as well as to its studies. The problem in
service provision is inserted in several areas and in different sectors.
Understanding the need to apply and
invest in service quality is extremely important for the organization to make
continuous improvements in management and in the offered services. Companies
always aim to generate revenue and this increase in profitability often comes from
the implementation of new technologies, each time more efficient and cheaper.
However, specialized labor and quality programs to reduce defects (which will
always be intrinsic to production) generate costs for the company.
In this study, the analyzed company
reported having problems in the execution of technical assistance, due to the
inability to provide services, which could compromise quality and,
consequently, its costs. With the reported problem, the following research
question was reached: do hiring new technicians in the assistance sector
improve the service efficiency level of a multinational company while
maintaining financial viability? From this point on, two lines of research that
could serve as possible ways to solve the problem emerged. One is related to
the analysis of whether it is economically viable to expand the technical
support team. The other is related to the analysis of whether the company has a
gain in productive efficiency by expanding the current technical assistance
team.
The present study focused mainly on
analyzing the existing costs of large technical assistance company. Carrying
out sensitivity analysis by developing a four year economic scenario study,
proposing solutions to the problems presented. The objective was to conduct a
sensitivity analysis on the hiring of new technicians in the technical
assistance sector of a multinational company, aiming to improve the sector's
efficiency.
For this, our study sought to
identify the company’s inherent technical assistance problems and its main
causes, as well as to list the existing costs in technical assistance.
Therefore, generating financial scenarios and performing a sensitivity analysis
in order to discover the best scenario as a possible solution for the reported
problems by the company. Finally, the referred study is important not only for
the analyzed company, but also for others that have similar problems and seek
to understand and create a solution for them.
2.
THEORY
This section presents definitions
and tools that support the development on the following subjects: Costs;
Sensitivity analysis; Quality of Service and Technical Assistance.
2.1.
Cost analysis
Megliorini (2012) specifies two main
types of services in service companies, namely repetitive and specific
services. Repetitive service involves the same tasks to be performed
continuously. The specific services will depend on the task required by the
customer and this is the type of service that the technical assistance in
question fits into. Therefore it is essential to study all the intrinsic costs
of assistance so that you can further analyze and develop them later. One of
the main cost segregations is to separate them into direct and indirect costs.
Still, another fundamental cost for this study is the labor cost, which can be
direct or indirect depending on who is performing this service.
In order to perform the analysis of
the costs of technical assistance and thus better use the data in the following
steps of the study, it will be necessary to divide the costs into Direct Costs
and Indirect Costs. For Bruni and Famá (2011), direct costs are those that are
easy to identify where and how much of the costs are being appropriated to the
product.
In a manufacturing environment, an
example of direct cost would be the raw material used to manufacture the
product, as there is a notion of the quantity and to which product it is being
directed. In a service company, such as the technical assistance for this work,
one of the direct costs will be the labor of the technicians who are
responsible for performing the assistance. This is because technicians are
solely responsible for performing the service and are in the field almost all the time.
Therefore, all available
technicians' time will be aligned as a direct labor cost. Indirect costs, on
the other hand, are the costs that are often more complicated to appropriate to
products, because it is not clear how much and where this cost was appropriated
to products. These costs are more difficult when tracking the exact proportion
that was appropriated in the different end products, unless each machine has
its own water and electrical register, as in the case of electricity and water
(Bruni & Famá, 2011).
Similarly to industries, in the
service providers there are direct and indirect labor costs. Direct labor
refers to the costs of employees who work in the execution of the service
provided. However, if there are any inconveniences such as the service car
being in maintenance, power outages, or lack of material to be used to perform
tasks, these costs are not included as direct production cost and indirect
cost. This happens because it refers to the time that the technicians ceased to
perform their activities and therefore did not work for the execution and
delivery of the requested service (Hirschfeld, 2007).
Direct cost has as one of its
calculation bases the hourly wage of employees, however, the social and labor
charges are disregarded. These charges include employee salaries on Sundays,
holidays and absences that may be paid if warranted. It also includes vacation,
13th salary and contributions to INSS and FGTS. The direct cost of labor
corresponds to the actual working hours, including overtime and hazardous and
unhealthy work hours, plus the mentioned charges. The technicians of the
company under analysis are paid monthly; however there are no hiring outsourced
or per hour technicians (Mergliorini, 2012).
Charges are expenses that the
company has in relation to the employee in addition to the employee's salary.
These costs must be dissolved over the twelve months of the year and not only
during the nine months that the employee actually worked, excluding holidays,
vacations, weekends and justified absences.
2.2.
Financial Analysis and Sensitivity
For Rojo (2006) scenario simulation
is an important tool and constitutes a previous step to the act of planning. If
simulations and scenarios are always up to date, they serve during
implementation as a source of information that will facilitate control. The
scenarios also serve as a starting point for decision making.
However, scenario simulation alone
is not enough to evaluate and make a decision about a context. It is essential
to understand other items that will help to study possible decision making,
such as: income statement, income and net income.
The Income Statement is an
accounting document that aims to detail the formation of the net income of a
year by the comparison of revenues, costs and expenses of a company. It is a
financial summary of a company's operating and non-operating results (Carvalho,
Decotelli & Elia, 2009).
For Carpinetti (2012), the term
quality within a company is very subjective, proving that, there are around
four distinct but connected concepts. The first concept is that many believe
quality is aligned with a product's characteristics, such as its efficiency and
life cycle. Another point of view is the association of quality with the
relative value of the product or service, so there must be a price considered
fair for the efficiency of the product. In the third definition the quality
corresponds to the fulfillment of the characteristics proposed by the product,
that is, the quality level depends on how appropriate the product is in
relation to the project characteristics. Finally, the most consistent with the
present is quality being associated with consumer satisfaction, that is, with
the degree of satisfaction that the product or service meets customer needs
(Carpinetti, 2012).
According to Chiroli (2016) and
Chiroli et al., (2016), quality can be defined as philosophies, methodologies
and practices that have the purpose of excellence in business, individuals and
company issues. Understanding these concepts is essential for understanding
quality in an organization.
Companies that can keep their customers
loyal do so by lowering overheads, lowering operating costs, and thus
increasing their profits. A 5% reduction in customer numbers can lead to a
decrease in profits of up to 50% (or more). The 5% increase in the number of
its clients can increase the company's income from 25% to 75% (Copacino, 1997).
Keeping existing customers loyal is
less expensive than getting new ones. Expenses with acquiring new customers can
cost up to five times more than the necessary to maintain current ones.
Therefore, consumer loyalty contributes to an improvement in the company's
revenue (Wills, 2009). Loyalty can be seen as a result of the excellence of the
service offered, therefore, the better the service offered, the better the
advertising and the increase in loyalty (Reichheld & Teal, 1996).
One of the most decisive factors in
hiring a customer service after technical qualification is the price
(Brazilian Central of Service Sector
[CEBRASSE], 2017). Table 1 shows the main factors of hiring a service.
Table 1: Decisive factors for buying
services in Brazil
Source: Cebrasse (2017)
Technical qualification is the most
decisive factor for purchasing services in Brazil, followed by price. This
means that if the service does not have quality in its service hardly a customer
will make the purchase of the product.
Quality management in service
requires investments known as quality costs in order to reduce the costs of
non-quality, that is, the costs from the lack of proper and necessary
management. For this, there are analyzes that must be done on quality costs
aligned with continuous improvement. This analysis is fundamental in technical
assistance, purpose of this study, to survey the costs included in the current
management, as well as their classifications; thus highlighting possible
process improvements (Mergliorini, 2012).
Based on the considerations of
Megliorini (2012), the quality cost classifications are:
a) Costs due to internal failures:
associated with nonconformities detected before the service is provided. In the
case of technical assistance, these costs are aligned with the lack of
perception of poor quality assistance and provision;
b) Costs due to external failures:
defects found after the service has been performed.
These costs include:
I.
Additional
technical assistance costs;
II.
Costs
of contract breach;
III.
Costs
of lawsuits;
IV.
Costs
for quality assessment;
V.
Prevention
Costs.
2.3.
Quality Tools
The attributes of quality are very
specific, depending on the area of operation and varying with the
type of market, product, service, life cycle, and customers who are willing to
pay (and how much to pay) for quality (Paladini, 2007). Carpinetti (2012)
emphasizes that, to conquer the market and remain competitive, it is essential
to understand the needs of customers, as well as the product or service to be
offered.
To maintain and improve the quality
of a service, a continuous improvement process is required. Carpinetti (2012,
p. 40) describes the continuous improvement steps as:
a) Identification of priority problems;
b) Observation and data collection;
c) Analysis and search for root causes;
d) Planning and implementation of
actions;
e) Verification of results.
However, quality tools have been
developed to support these actions. Each tool has its own resolution for
specific problems in producing products or services. There are several quality
tools. However, this study will present only two quality tools that will be the
flowchart and the cause and effect diagram.
It is a widely used tool to
schematically represent a process. They are created in the form of graphs
illustrating in an uncomplicated way the flow of information between the
elements. Through the flowchart it is possible to characterize the work being
performed, the time required to perform the process, as well as who is performing
and who is responsible for the activity. Even more, the flowchart is created
with the support of standardized geometric figures and arrows, joining these
figures, facilitating the understanding of the information flow and process
steps, allowing later the optimization of processes in the organization
(Fitzsimmons & Fitzsimmons, 2014).
The
cause-and-effect diagram, also known as the Ishikawa diagram or the fishbone
diagram, was another quality tool selected to be used. The tool proposes to
represent the problems of a process by aligning them with its cause, that is,
it highlights the roots of existing problems. This method of inquiry is very
important because once the cause of the problem is identified and solved, and
not only the resolution of the problem itself; the chances of other problems
arising decreased considerably (Montgomery, 2004).
3.
METHODOLOGY
This study sought to carry out a
scenario analysis on the economic viability of a company in hiring new
technicians, in order to meet the existing demand for technical assistance. The
research could be characterized as qualitative-quantitative, and the data used
for this study were collected in two ways:
a) Formal interview with employees;
b) Provision of qualitative and
quantitative data by the company.
First, a formal interview was
conducted with technicians and professionals responsible for technical
assistance, with the aim of better understanding the process and problems from
the point of view of those who need to face them daily, thus seeking to understand
the reasons and origins of difficulties in offering assistance, as well as the
benefits and their quality.The company's financial statements for the year 2017
were also granted so that a survey of costs in the sector could be carried out.
The method aligned with this type of
work is the hypothetical-deductive method, since an existing problem
encountered and the lack of knowledge about it, was the starting point for this
study. Thus, two fronts of analysis were made based on deductions from the
process, analyzing both the economic viability of the expansion of the
technical support team, as well as the analysis of the gain in productive
efficiency when expanding the current technical assistance team by the company.
For Kasanen (1993), the study method
can be considered constructive, as it defined a problem and then created
possible solutions to real problems. This study also aimed to try to implement
the solution in this case to see if there would be improvements in the system,
in the process and in the overall performance.
For Oyegoke (2011), there are six
essential phases for the development of a constructive process:
1) Discover a problem with the
potential to be investigated;
2) Understand the subject;
3) Develop an initial solution;
4) Demonstrate that the solution can
work;
5) Validate the theory about the
theories existing in the organization;
6) Assess the extent to which the
solution can be applied.
These are the six steps that this
work has taken in the next sections to provide a quality service solution.
Qualitative and quantitative data
were provided by the company and served as study variables for the simulation
of the scenarios. Thus, the study variables used were information related to
the year 2017 on: the process performed in technical assistance, the number of
existing employees in this sector, direct and indirect costs related to
technical assistance that were extracted from the financial statements of the
company of the year of 2017, main complaints made to the company, as well as
the number of assistance provided, materials and equipment used in the
processes. 34 simulations were carried out, that is, 34 scenarios were
designed, carrying out an economic sensitivity analysis for a horizon of 4
years.
It was decided to use symbols to
better identify what is happening each year. The symbols and their meanings are
detailed in Table 2.
Table 2: Meaning of the symbols used
in the elaboration of contexts
Source: Author (2017)
The scenarios were created using all
possible combinations, taking into account some considerations. Every Year 1
should not start with costs from previous years, that is, every Year 1 will
start with Original, ☻ou ☻☻. This happens, because as the
scenario will be a recommendation of what assistance should do in the next four
years, the company needs to be free to make the decision from the first year
on, without depending on past years, which in this case, they cannot be
recovered. Adopting this methodology, the possible scenarios are shown in Table
3.
Table 3: Fifteen possible scenarios
Source: Author (2017)
After simulating each scenario with
their respective costs, an analysis on the income statement, net income and the
representative percentage of profit on revenue will be done to decide which
scenario is the most profitable for assistance and then, suggest the adoption
of the plan.
3.1.
Company characterization
The company where the study was
conducted refers to a French multinational that has been operating in Brazil
for 70 years. It is a leader in power distribution management and the
manufacture of electrical components such as inverters and circuit breakers. The
unit under study is located in Cajamar, São Paulo countryside. It has around
580 employees, and technical assistance is responsible for 16 of them. Of
these, 10 are field technicians and the rest are assistants, analysts, interns
and a manager who remain in attendance.
One of the company's activities is
to provide services through technical assistance - the focus area of
this study, of the Start-Up type, this means that it only
installs or maintains the products sold by the company, inside or outside the
period of customer quality assurance. Company technical assistance is required
for the following two reasons:
a) The company's products are very
specific and complex, it is unlikely that an electrical technician from another
company or even self-employed would know how to install and/or perform repairs.
b) If customers call for outsourced
technical assistance, the product warranty will be forfeited.
The products sold by the company are
of high monetary value and usually large, making it difficult and impossible to
move for maintenance or repair in the technical assistance within the company.
Thus, technicians need to travel to the customer base.
The main products that the company
sells and provide assistance service are: low (around 690v) and medium (up to
36000v) voltage circuit breakers and inverters; meters; programmable logic
controllers (PLC), human machine interface (HMI), servo motors and servo
drives.
In order to understand the processes
performed by the technical assistance, a flow chart was made, as shown in
Figure 1.
Figure 1: Technical Assistance Flowchart
As can be seen in Figure 1, it is
possible to understand the whole operation of the process. Initially the
customer calls for assistance, informs the problem and whether or not the
product is under warranty. If the product is under warranty, service directs a
responsible technician and schedules a date. If the product is out of warranty
it is necessary to create a proposal with the possible inherent costs. Suppose
the customer accepts the proposal, the assistance schedules a date and directs
the technician.
However, if the client does not
accept this proposal another is formulated. After the technician has been in
field, it is checked whether the problem has been resolved. If not resolved, another
date is scheduled for the technician to return. If the problem has been
resolved the assistance creates a cost memo, a document with all the details of
the costs incurred during the assistance. Finally, the invoice is generated and
sent to the customer.
4.
METHODOLOGY APPLICATION
In order to achieve the objectives
proposed in this study, the first step to be taken was, from the constructivist
approach, to discover a problem that has the potential to be investigated and
to understand the subject, as described in the following topic. In this regard,
due to significant complaints in the company's technical assistance area, the
focus was on this area.
4.1.
Discover and understand the
company's technical assistance issue
To better understand the company's technical
assistance problem, an interview was conducted with the manager responsible for
the sector and technicians working in the company. During the interview, it was
reported that the company currently has about three thousand customers. The
technical assistance covers an average of 35 customers per month, noting that
the current demand for this service is around 41 customers per month. From this
information could be noticed a clear a problem in the sector, which does not
have an adequate staff for its demand. Thus, customers who were not serviceable
within the month, the dates are rescheduled for subsequent months. This occurs
with an average of 6 customers per month.
Taking into account the 10
technicians on the technical support staff, each technician covers about 3.5
customers per month. To meet the real demand, it would be necessary at least 2
new technicians to improve the company's service level and reduce customer
complaints. Technical visits are carried out by scheduling priority and
priority is also given to customers who purchase products of higher monetary
value and/or more frequently.
It has also been reported by
industry professionals that the main complaint from customers is the delay in
getting a technical visit, and often when the visit is finally scheduled, it is
canceled or postponed. On the company’s side, both the technicians and those
responsible are aware of the problem, and the reason for these inconveniences
is that they do not have enough technicians to perform all the required services.
From the information, a cause and
effect diagram was created, which aims to identify the main causes of a main
problem, as shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2: Cause and effect diagram
to analyze technician shortages
Source: Own
Authorship, 2018
Based on this key problem, another
brainstorming was performed to define the possible causes of the four main
basic strands that can occur within a company: politics; technician; method and
instruments. Another interesting objective of the diagram is to identify the
causes that can be easily quantified.
To better understand the problem of
the company's technical assistance, an analysis of its costs was made, in order
to identify and quantify the costs of non-quality, which will come from the
costs of unproductive labor by technicians.
4.2.
Cost analysis and calculation
In order to carry out cost analyzes
of the company, it was necessary to collect all costs of technical assistance
with the management. During the brainstorming meeting for the development of
the Ishikawa diagram, managers realized that cost and training were largely
responsible for the technician unavailability problem. To understand this
problem, the costs related to 2017 were analyzed, as shown in Table 2.
Table 2: Costs of technical
assistance
All of these costs were made
available in a spreadsheet from January to December of 2017. Rent, electricity
and water costs were apportioned in proportion to the technical assistance
provided by the area it represents in the company. Since the company has
20,000m2 and the assistance has 600m2, which corresponds
to 3% of the total area, these three costs were apportioned to a proportion of
3% of the total cost. Therefore, the rental cost that the assistance has is R$
21,000.00 (3% of the total rent paid by the company for the 20,000m2).
The same reasoning was made for electricity and water.
The cost of training deserves
attention in the data analysis, because during the meeting with the assistance
management, it was informed that when a new technician is hired they need to
undergo a series of training. On average, it takes two years for the technician
to be able to go alone to the field. When asked about the value of this
training, it was reported that six trainings take place during these two year
period to develop a new technician. Each training costs R$1,800.00 for the
sector. As there are six, the total training cost was R$10,800.00. Diluting
this value in twenty-four months, which is the time to condition a technician,
the value is R$ 450.00 per month. So when simulating hiring a technician you
should add the amount of R$ 450.00 per month for two years to the costs of
assistance. If in the year there is no technician hiring, the value will be
zero.
4.2.1. Direct Labor Costs
After this identification, it was time
to work on labor cost data to divide it into direct and indirect labor cost,
because the data provided came with a single labor cost account. Firstly, it is
noteworthy that labor costs include salaries and social and labor charges of
employees. According to Megliorini (2011), the charges and salaries are the
costs with the employee in addition to the salary itself. These are
achievements ensured by law that came from union agreements or negotiations
with the company.
As in the technical assistance there
are the employees who work only in the technical assistance sector and the
technicians who perform in the field assistance, it was decided that the field
technicians will be the direct labor, since it is possible to measure all their
available time that is being applied in the accomplishment of the assistances.
Managers, interns and assistants will be identified as indirect labor.
4.2.2. Calculation of productive and
unproductive hours
During the interview with one of
those responsible for technical assistance it was reported that on average 2
technicians per month are missing two days each. To calculate the productive
and unproductive hours, the method described by Megliorini (2011) was used.
4.2.3. Labor Cost Calculation
To calculate the cost of direct
labor it is necessary to find out the cost/hour of each employee. For this, the
cost of direct labor of each technician was divided by the number of hours of
work per month. As employees work from Monday to Friday, 8.4 hours a day, it
adds to 168 hours a month. So the calculation to find out the cost/hour was to
divide each technician's labor cost by 168 (hours).
4.2.4. Calculation of Salary and Charges
Labor costs are composed of salary
plus social and labor charges. To be calculated it depends on numerous
variables such as salary, vacation, FGTS, notice and paid absences. To
facilitate the calculation of these charges, Megliorini (2011) suggests the
elaboration of a table to calculate the percentage that should be applied on
top of the employee's salary, according to Table 3.
Table 3: Charges for monthly
employees
Source:
Adapted from Megliorini, 2011
After considering all the cost
elements to better understand the highlighted problem which is the lack of
professionals in technical assistance, an initial solution to this problem was
developed, so it was decided to create scenarios for the sector each with a 4
year horizon. The hiring of new technicians, therefore, will evaluate the
feasibility of hiring one, two or no new technicians.
4.3.
Developing the Initial Solution
From the analysis of the problems,
and the unfolding of the costs inherent to the technical assistance process in
the company, the proposed solution will be based on the construction of
scenarios, where each scenario will present a proposal for hiring technicians,
where it will be possible to evaluate the viability.
Fifteen scenarios were developed,
each with a 4-year horizon. To meet the demand of 41 clients per month, it was
certain that 2 more technicians will be able to meet this demand, as each technician
covers 3.5 clients per month, and at the moment with 10 technicians there are
35 clients per month. The purpose of each scenario will be to simulate how
assistance costs, including annual adjustments and other expenses will behave
if the company hires one, two, or no technicians in the year.
After simulating each scenario with
its respective costs, an analysis will be made of the income statement, net
income and the representative percentage of income over revenue, to decide
which scenario is the most profitable for the assistance and thus suggest the
adoption of the plan.
4.4.
Income Statement
For Megliorini (2011), the Income
Statement for the Year is a calculation performed at every closing of a period,
usually annual, to determine how much revenue, costs and net income there was
in that period. Tables 4 (a) and 4 (b) exemplify how the Income Statement will
be calculated for the end of each simulated year.
Table 4: Calculation of Revenue (a)
and Income Statement (b)
(a)
(b)
To calculate the revenue, the
productive hours in the year were multiplied by the amount charged per hour of
service of each technician, corresponding to R$ 100.00. This value was reported
by the management at the same meeting that the Ishikawa Diagram was discussed.
From revenue it is deducted the fixed cost, resulting in partial profit.
Finally, to determine net income it is necessary to subtract from partial
profit the indirect cost.
The following percentages correspond
to the percentage representing the partial and net income from revenue. The
representative percentage of net income over revenue is an important variable
as it needs to be as large as possible. It would not be possible to decide
which scenario is ideal considering only the revenue and net profit generated.
If revenue increases, then net profit is likely to increase also, and this fact
alone cannot be related to the false impression that the scenario is doing
well.
Therefore, the analysis of the
percentage share of net and partial income over revenue (which are the
percentages in Table 9 (b)) will show us whether the share of net or partial
income is increasing regardless of the increase in revenue. Since each scenario
will have its net profit, and ,the percentage that this profit represents from
revenue; it will be through these two variables that it will be able to
determine which scenario was most profitable and thus suggest what should be
done about when and how many technicians to hire.
5.
DEMONSTRATION THAT THE SOLUTION CAN
WORK - SCENARIO RESULTS
From the 15 possible scenarios, each
with a 4 year horizon, there were a total of 60 combinations (scenario x year).
Some are identical to others and did not need to be simulated more than once,
so there were 34 simulations, as shown in Table 5.
Table 5: Simulations and their
respective scenarios and years
Some simulations will represent more
than one combination (scenario x year). This means that these combinations have
the same costs. After simulating and verifying the results, it was found that
scenario 2 is ideal. In this scenario occurs hiring only one new technician in
the first year. Therefore, the following calculations and results will only
belong to this scenario.
5.1.
Discussion of Scenario 2 Results
After presenting the results of the
ideal scenario, it is necessary to discuss the presented values
in a more comparative way. Although scenario 2 has the best
performance, there are other scenarios just as good, however, with a cumulative
net profit and slightly lower margin over revenue. Therefore, the second best
scenario is 12, which hires two new technicians, one in the first year and the
other in the last, thus meeting the demand of the 41 monthly clients that the
service has. The accumulated net income for the four years of scenario 12 was
R$ 2.121.057.11, not too far from that of scenario 2 (R $ 2,174,930.18). The
cumulative values of all fifteen scenarios are shown in Table 6.
Table 6: Net profit and net profit
margin over accumulated revenue
According to Table 7, both direct
and indirect labor costs have only increased over the years.
Table 7: Comparison of direct and
indirect labor cost values from scenario 2
Finally, it was possible to
demonstrate that the presented solution can work and be applied in the
assistance. It was also clarified that there is more than one efficient
decision that it can be adopted. Assistance may also choose a scenario that
meets demand but nevertheless lowers its net profit. This relationship and the
final technical assistance decision take the company's policy very much into
account, that is, its principles for making profit.
6.
CONCLUSION
Having carried out studies with the
data provided by the company, the corresponding cost analyzes were carried out
and possible scenarios were generated, considering that: considering the
current resources for that moment, the best result is presented in scenario 2,
that is, the hiring a new technician. Scenario 2 shows higher net income in the
proposed 4 years.
Other
scenarios were analyzed, including hiring the necessary number of technicians
to meet the demand for services, without causing a significant reduction in the
net profit of the technical assistance sector compared to scenario 2.
Thus, on the issues raised at the
beginning of this article, it can be concluded that it may be economically
viable for the company to expand its technical support team. This premise was
accepted, as the best scenarios determined that the best way to expand the net
result is to hire one or even two new technicians. It was also concluded that there
may be a gain in productive efficiency by expanding the current technical
assistance team.
This aspect was verified, as it was
verified that if the company increases its team with the hiring of two more
technicians it will be sufficient to meet the current demand for services, as
well as there will be a reserve of workforce to meet a possible increase in the
demand for services.
The present study tried to cover the
largest amount of available data, analyzing and relating them. However, some
data could not be included in this analysis, such as the correct deduction of
ISS = service tax. This index varies from municipality to municipality and it
is worth mentioning that technical assistance covers the entire country. Thus,
the ideal would be to track the exact location and the amount of assistance
provided in each municipality, in order to bring a result closer to reality,
and may even find a different result from that presented in this study.
This ISS problem was raised with the
company, however, the company preferred not to disclose these figures. Finally,
the final limitation is in the subjectivity of the individual who leads the
study to what is considered direct and indirect cost.
In this sense, it is suggested that,
in future studies, a greater number of visits to technical assistance be
carried out, and also that the technician be supervised more frequently, in
order to better understand the routine and all existing processes, during
execution procedures, thereby helping to determine exactly what the direct
costs are.
However, the present study managed
to achieve its objective by carrying out the analyzes proposed at the beginning
of this study and also by selecting a decision that aims to obtain greater net
profit, without causing loss of quality and efficiency. Although, it is known
that for most of the current companies, the main focus is to obtain the highest
possible profit, even if to obtain this highest profit it is necessary to put
aside environmental care, compromise the legality and even compromise the
quality of the service offered customers.
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Appendix A
A formal interview was
conducted with technicians and those responsible for technical assistance in
order to better understand the problems from the point of view: those who face
daily, trying to understand how the reasons and origins of the setbacks of the
offer of assistance and its quality. The questions asked during an interview
were:
a) How many customers does the service
have?
b) What is the customer demand per
month?
c) How many employees does the
assistance have?
d) Is there priority in the projects?
e) Are there customer complaints?
f) Is there a lot of waiver of customer
service?