Palfinger UK revolutionises maintenance scheduling with Microsoft Business Central and Servotion from Node4

It offers in-house assembly and body build capabilities, as well as maintenance and servicing throughout each vehicle’s life. Palfinger UK provides lorry cranes to local authorities and various industries, including construction, recycling and waste management, timber processing, and machinery transportation.

Several years ago, Node4 installed NAV 2017 at Palfinger UK, providing an integrated IT platform that assisted with vehicle maintenance scheduling, coordinated engineer site visits, and managed warehouse restocks. However, Microsoft recently ended support for NAV 2017, so Jason Cannon, Group Head of Information Systems at T H WHITE , got back in touch with Node4 to deploy Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central.

Developer-friendly customisation on our integrated IT platform

When Jason joined Palfinger UK, he brought advanced NAV and Business Central developer skills with him. As such, he and the company are uniquely positioned to take advantage of Business Central’s developer-friendly customisation and configuration capabilities.

“Most businesses in our sector - and certainly those of a similar size - buy Business Central off the shelf and commission Microsoft experts like Node4 to make any modifications,” Jason notes. “Node4 is well placed to do this, providing guidance, insight and advice based on best practice, plus code-writing training and support where required. However, our collective IT team skills base means, for the most part, we can introduce new features to help streamline operations and improve customer experience ourselves—including improved access for smartphones and other web-enabled devices.

He continues: “We had to develop bespoke functionality within NAV 2017’s core, which could get complicated - even for experts. But Business Central is far more intuitive. It’s much easier to adapt our environment and introduce new services as the business evolves. In the long term, this will help us better manage dev requests and reduce technical debt. It will also make it easier to roll out across other group companies.”

Centralised vehicle telemetry and easy-to-book engineer appointments

Apps developed by Jason and his team pull data from Business Central to give customers and engineers advanced notice of service due dates. Then, when customers book an engineer visit, it’s scheduled behind the scenes using Dime.Scheduler.

Dime.Scheduler fully integrates with Business Central to improve engineer efficiency and create a seamless customer experience. All service-related data is then pushed back into Business Central and made available to contact centre staff should customers have follow-up questions or concerns.

“Data pulled from Business Central also provides customers and engineers with core vehicle telemetry, helping them spot potential problems before they become major issues. This makes for faster and more efficient repairs and keeps customer operations running smoothly,” Jason confirms. “Access to this data enables us to select the correct vehicle parts for each job before our engineers even visit a site. Our systems can also automatically reorder parts used on a job and restock them in our warehouse.”

 “By harnessing data within Business Central, we’ve improved the likelihood of a first-time fix, helped engineers assist more customers each day and facilitated a better customer experience. Our competitors can’t access and leverage this granularity of data or maintain the same exceptional levels of engineer efficiency, so it’s a real differentiator.”

Servotion enhances engineer safety and improves efficiency

With Business Central in place, Jason and his team turned their attention to implementing Servotion—a real-time mobile interface with a direct connection into Business Central.

“We use Servotion to guide engineers through a daily safety checklist for their own vehicles. This ensures there are no problems—such as faulty headlights or flat tyres—before they start their site visits. On arrival, Servotion guides engineers through a site safety check. This is important because they could be on the side of a motorway, a train track or a building site—and they need to make sure they’re following the relevant safety advice in every scenario. Once the work is completed, the system generates an official service certificate or repair record. It also creates the corresponding invoice. All in all, it’s a very slick process,” Jason explains.

He continues: “Our electronic forms have made safety checks and reporting much easier for engineers. They’re working with heavy vehicles, off-site, on their own, often with oily hands. It’s not always practical to fill in paper-based sheets and checklists.”

Knowledge, Courtesy and Continuity—The Node4 difference

Summing up, Jason and his team continue to be extremely impressed with Node4’s Business Central and Servotion knowledge—as well as the company’s commitment to exceptional client service.

“Our account manager, project manager, consultant and developer are all really knowledgeable in their fields and understood the project objectives,” he notes. “In fact, our project manager was involved in the original NAV 2017 implementation. She was assigned to our Business Central upgrade and Servotion projects to provide continuity and ensure her specialist knowledge and deep understanding of our company’s systems could be utilised.”

He concludes: “Details like this make Node4 stand out—it’s not just their technical expertise, but their customer-first focus. If something is possible, Node4 will do it for us. If something isn’t feasible or right for our organisation, they’ll tell us too—they’re transparent, honest, trustworthy. Everything an IT partner should be.”