Blue Crystal has been developing the RFM system for over 15 years, working with its customers to produce comprehensive, user-friendly software packages for the commercial vehicle industry. CVW finds out more about what it can offer.
RFM started as a workshop and rental system with two modules known as Workshop Pro and Rental
Pro. Being fully integrated, the software allowed rental companies to send service reminders to their customers and, through Workshop Pro, connected the workshop to the rental office, providing accurate data for servicing and due dates.
Since then it has continued to develop to meet new user requirements, such as clocking on and off site and measuring technician productivity and efficiency, until recently when the commercial industry has
really started to adapt to the digital age.
Workshop Pro
Workshop Pro is the main software package Blue Crystal offers to the CV industry. It is suitable for most operations; whether a rental company, commercial workshop, internal workshop or a fleet operator.
Features include a service calendar, lane planner, vehicle section, customer section, estimate generation, defects processing, walkarounds, job cards, employees, parts and stock, supplier section, purchase orders, fuel, invoicing and a full report suite.
Workshop Pro is said to allow users to easily store a vast amount of data. It can control vehicle data from the basics, through to more advanced subjects like tyre tread depths and history, cost and income analysis, parts history and maintenance history. Defects are also another large part of Workshop Pro; having a good audit trail is always a good thing and with multiple ways of reporting defects, it has never been so clear.
With the addition of the Driver-I walkaround app, drivers can now report defects directly to the operator, eliminating defect books and getting notified immediately of the issue instead of
waiting until the end of the week. From the commercial workshop’s view, customers can report defects online straight to the workshop, allowing the workshop to book the work in and consequently improving
business retention and customer service.
RFM GO
RFM GO is the technician app for job cards and inspect ions. It is a fully paperless system – any jobs that have been completed will be sent back as soon as a data connection is available. Blue Crystal says that this has had a big effect on workshops using it, removing the chance of job cards being lost, damaged or illegible. From a commercial workshop point of view, because the inspection sheets are being returned quicker, it also means the inspection can be signed off faster and a copy can be sent automatically to the customer if required.
Something the company noticed is the urgency in which customers are requesting the inspection sheet from workshops; having the utility to send them automatically is keeping a lot of workshop customers happy.
In addition, because it is an app the technician can still work without a data connection. This means if a technician is mobile and does not have data they can still create a job card from a tablet, which will bring up the correct inspection sheet for that type of vehicle (if required). The app will save all the data and send it back to the main system when a data connection is available, improving the efficiency of the technician, and as a result, generating invoices more quickly.
