Service Parts Databases

Two Database Types in One

Service databases are two things in one. First they are a comprehensive listing of the parts which are used for repair and refurbishment. This takes into account the part specifications and details of the essential part attributes. The second part is the service management part of the database. This is where the combined intelligence which is gathered during troubleshooting from service calls is aggregated and organized. The collective database has some essential requirements.

1. It must be secure so that portions that need to be shared with consumers can be, while other posts are only available to company personnel
2. Have the capacity to manage the service parts database
3. Strong search function
4. Update-able from many locations ( which allows service representatives to constantly update and enhance the database)
5. The ability to store multiple media types such as technical drawings and product pictures as well as PDF and Office Documents
6. In some cases the ability to allow customers to comment. The logic being that some customers have valuable additions to make to the database

Service Parts Databases in Practice

What needs to be done to optimize service parts and service management databases is often not done. There are many reasons for this, everything from weak content management skills on projects to software issues. After a brief period where service parts databases were lauded as a future emerging software area, less successful implementations lead to the area being de-emphasized by companies in preference for other types of IT projects.

Future Service Management Databases

With the rise of distributed software such as Drupal and Wordpress among many others, there has become a strong capability manage content with blog tools. However, many firms are unaware of the overlap between blogging software and more traditional CMSs. Therefore, there is a segmentation in the market between younger small companies that prefer to use blogging software for content management and the large companies that tend to use specialized content management software. One very specialized area within content management is digital asset management.