How Pidpa Boosted Efficiency with Agentforce Field Service

Pidpa delivers drinking water and manages wastewater solutions for over 600,000 residents in the Antwerp region. As a dedicated utility with around 750 employees, Pidpa works daily to safeguard our most precious resource—water—while advancing sustainable operations and modern service for communities and industries alike.

Before Salesforce, Pidpa’s growing operations relied on a mix of scheduling tools and manual workflows across teams. This led to inefficiencies, lack of visibility, and increased administrative effort. Planners struggled to coordinate customer-facing tasks such as water meter replacements, while long-cycle preventive maintenance jobs ran separately in SAP.

With customer expectations rising for precise appointments and rapid service, Pidpa needed a unified solution that could balance company efficiency, employee satisfaction, and customer convenience—a harmony they call “the service triangle.”

One Connected Platform for Field Service Management

Pidpa selected Agentforce Field Service as the backbone of its scheduling and optimization strategy. Working with trusted partner BlueHike, they implemented a hybrid solution that connects Salesforce and SAP through the BlueHike SAP-SFS Adapter.

SAP remains the system of record for assets and maintenance planning, while Salesforce orchestrates scheduling, optimization, and appointment booking. This integration enables real-time data exchange and a unified view across planners, dispatchers, and technicians.

The implementation—completed in just five months—followed a hybrid “waterfall-meets-agile” approach: clear long-term goals with the flexibility to adapt based on user feedback.

Smarter Scheduling and Route Optimization

Through Salesforce’s intelligent scheduling, Pidpa now handles both short customer visits (like stop valve repairs) and complex, crew-based maintenance work. The system dynamically evaluates technician skills, equipment needs, and travel time to optimize daily plans.

Customers booking through MyPidpa, the company’s online portal, instantly see the most efficient time slots. A green leaf icon signals the most eco-friendly options—helping reduce travel and CO₂ emissions while giving customers control over appointments. By shifting from manual scheduling to real-time visibility, Pidpa gave planners the clarity they need to plan with confidence.

Empowering Teams Through Low-Code Automation

Salesforce’s low-code tools simplified repetitive planning tasks. Automated workflows manage absences, assign shifts, and re-balance routes when changes occur—freeing planners to focus on exceptions and customer service.

For technicians, Salesforce enabled a fairer distribution of work and more transparent scheduling. Optional “fill-in jobs” let technicians use spare time effectively, increasing hands-on-tool time and overall productivity.

While field execution remains on SAP’s mobile app, all scheduling visibility and analytics come from Salesforce—giving planners the control they previously lacked.

Driving Sustainable and Data-Driven Innovation

Sustainability is central to Pidpa’s mission. Using Salesforce’s flexible routing, the company piloted electric bicycles for city-center jobs, marking a small but meaningful step toward greener operations.

Pidpa also collaborates with BlueHike and Salesforce to explore AI-driven slot optimization—reducing travel time by predicting and guiding customer choices toward efficient appointments. These innovations reinforce Pidpa’s vision to “shape the future of our natural wealth: water.”

When Pidpa began its search for a new field service management system, they weren’t just looking for software. They wanted a partner that could bring their teams together, simplify planning, and grow with them for the long term. That’s where Salesforce stood out.

Unlike other systems that required heavy customization, Agentforce Field Service offered flexibility right out of the box. It could handle both automatic and semi-automatic scheduling — a must for Pidpa’s mix of short, quick customer visits and complex, crew-based maintenance work. For the first time, planners could manage “large quantities of orders where a lot of limitations and options are involved” without juggling multiple tools or spreadsheets.

Salesforce also gave Pidpa what they had been missing for years: a single, integrated view of all their operations. Each department had different levels of planning maturity, but Agentforce Field Service could easily adapt to those differences without forcing a one-size-fits-all process. This balance between structure and flexibility became a turning point for the company. As Business Process Manager Ief De Peuter explained, the hybrid setup BlueHike built “managed data flow seamlessly between SAP and Salesforce,” which he called “a nice setup.”

Another major differentiator was Salesforce’s focus on people and sustainability. The platform didn’t just make scheduling smarter—it helped Pidpa strengthen the “service triangle” between the company, its employees, and its customers. With built-in logic that offered the “best time slot” based on travel time, technician skills, and CO₂ impact, Salesforce helped reduce unnecessary driving and supported Pidpa’s environmental goals.

The combination of Salesforce technology and the expertise of implementation partner BlueHike gave Pidpa confidence in their future. “The choice for Agentforce Field Service in combination with BlueHike is one that is future-proof in terms of further Field Service Optimization,” said Bram Celis, Service Manager at Pidpa. Together, Salesforce and BlueHike provided something no other competitor could: a platform that connected people, optimized work, and supported a sustainable vision for the next 50 years.

By connecting people, data, and operations through Agentforce Field Service, Pidpa turned complexity into clarity. With Agentforce Field Service in place, Pidpa’s planners, technicians, and customers all saw the difference.

• Flexible self-service booking lets customers manage appointments easily, saving time and reducing effort.
• Enhanced sustainability, encouraging CO₂-efficient customer appointments via green-leaf slots.
• Improved planner productivity, with reduced manual effort and unified visibility across departments.
• 1 week efficiency gain per month in waste water treatment maintenance teams through optimized scheduling for scheduled maintenance.
• Higher employee engagement, as technicians regained flexibility.

While customer-selected appointment flexibility increased travel time temporarily, Pidpa is now using Salesforce analytics to refine slot rules for optimal balance between service and sustainability.

Pidpa’s journey offers clear lessons for any organization pursuing digital transformation in field service management:

• Break down silos before you digitize: Standardize processes and align teams before introducing new technology.
• Start fresh: Don’t copy old logic into a new system—simplify and rebuild for modern efficiency.
• Stay agile: Define clear goals, but remain flexible to user feedback during rollout.
• Communicate what the system will—and won’t—do: Managing expectations is as vital as managing data.
• Involve users early: Planners and technicians must shape the solution to ensure adoption and success.