As machine learning, artificial learning and the Internet of Things play a more prominent role in service is there a danger the human will no longer be needed? Mark Glover spoke to Paul Joesbury at Homeserve, someone who believes it’s only a matter of time before robots will be fixing our boilers...


Will the asset eventually become more important than the engineer? It’s a question I put to most of the guests when I’m hosting The Field Service Podcast. As a journalist, I get a thrill of throwing a curve ball into interviews, and while it is often patted back with a straight bat by most; Paul Joesbury, Operations Director at utilities firm Homeserve is firmly on the side of technology. In fact, Paul is fought technology’s corner as part of a very juicy debate at Field Service Connect in May entitled, Today’s field service workforce will soon be redundant: The future lies in embracing technology to replace the need for human intervention when he went head-to-head with Anita Tadayon, Optimisation Director at British Gas, who argued for the engineer and technician. 

Leading up to the event, I was fortunate enough to record a podcast with Paul where we discussed his views (It must be said at this point – and in the interest of journalistic impartiality – that Anita at British Gas was approached to also record a podcast, but her busy schedule meant it was not a possible) on the role of the human in future service. Straight away, I asked him if indeed, he felt there really would never be a case for human intervention in any area of service. “Certainly, from my perspective I can definitely concur,” he says confidently. “I do believe the asset will be more important than the engineer. I think assets are becoming smarter, I think we’re also seeing associated technologies, whether that be bots or something that’s aligned to the actual asset itself learning from each other.”

As a utilities company, Homeserve has the potential to lead the way in this type of service. “We’re doing a lot in water and boiler technology which I can definitely see it will tell us more about what the problems and faults are and will be less reliant on a human to come and do the diagnosis.” Paul explains.

He continues: “We’ve been having debates with our suppliers around use of drones to deliver parts, boiler diagnoses itself or what the problem is, then actually all we need is that part to be delivered and someone to fit it. It doesn’t need that highly skilled technician. Now obviously there may be certain appliances which do require a certain level of technical ability, however you could take it even further, when assets start fixing them themselves. Now that’s a really experimental concept,” he admits. “but there are things out there, nanobot technology for example, which is very, very clever.” When does he see this fundamental shift taking; where the human ceases to have a place in service? “I definitely think in five years’ time that there will still be humans in service but I think we’ll be doing different roles,” he predicts. “I think the important aspect over the next five years is to learn to trust the technology and equally for the technology to work.

But can the human ever truly be replaced? Surely face to face interaction is just as, if not more important? “Clearly there’s always the human empathy piece, that’s the bit that I haven’t yet seen any of this technology yet replicate to a high standard,” Paul admits. “I think there is still that human interaction. It’s different if you’re a lone worker fitting a part but certainly in our industry, the one I work in which is around going into customers’ homes, there is that empathy and there’s still a human approach to that, and I haven’t seen empathy replicated anywhere particularly well yet.

And perhaps this is where the rub lies and I’m in danger of opening up a bigger debate here beyond service; but nothing will ever truly replace the emotion of a human. That said, with self-driving cars around the corner nothing would really surprise me.