AUTHOR ARCHIVES: Kris Oldland

Speaking exclusively to Field Service News ServiceMax COO Scott Berg has discussed the similarities between widely differing industries, the rapid rise of ServiceMax and why the IoT hasn't quite got fully up to speed as yet which we featured in the first part of this interview.

In the second part we saw just why Berg believes the field service software specialists are in pole position to deliver the much promised benefits of Big Data to field service and why their relationship with Salesforce has evolved to a more equal footing.

However, whilst not afraid to identify the strong position ServiceMax have established, of which he is clearly proud. He also goes to great pains not to diminish the respect and thanks he has for Salesforce.

“I can’t say enough about what an enabler it was.” He adds quickly “ For a company like us, and I’ve been there six years, we should be nowhere by now. We should have just blown the first three years just trying to get this thing running and begging to get those first twelve customers.” He says only half joking.

“Here we are getting a hundred and something customers a year. And 40 a quarter so I think it has been a really unique experience because of that.”

Of course whilst things have panned out rather nicely for Berg and the ServiceMax team, with such a close alliance there was always the danger that unless if they didn’t evolve their own IP as swiftly as they have that their rapid rise to prominence could have been stunted, with the company being dismissed as simply an add on for Salesforce.

Was this part of their thinking when they took such an aggressive development path, was it always a case of needing to establish their own clear identity within a specific timeframe?

“I don’t know that we thought about it deliberately that way but I think its sort of ended up that way in hindsight.” Explains Berg

“I think honestly what we were responding to was the demand of the market. Our focus, our mission has really been about that field service engineer, that end user, the guy in the van or on the end of that ladder so that drove us to do some things that Salesforce wouldn’t do like offline data synchronisation, and the kind of configurable process that you could run across a variety of devices and schedule optimisation. Mathematical optimisation is not really a feature of the Salesforce website so I think its really user driven demand”

He pauses a moment before continuing “But then you can look back on it and say wow we built all that stuff because we really needed to. It just so happens that is fairly independent intellectual property value specific to our market.”

This focus on the engineer brings us onto another topical and somewhat controversial topic, namely wearable computing.

“We’ve been working for several months now on a Google Glass prototype, and showed it around a couple of our smaller user groups.” Berg begins when I ask him if the advent of Saleforce Wear has spurred ServiceMax into developing  solutions for wearable devices.

“A lot of customers of ours are in safety conscious environments. Where there are lots of checklists, where the engineers are working in real hands-free, high risk environments. We’ve been looking at Google Glass as a compliment to mobile phone apps, where you can get into a hands free series of procedures, or check off certain standards, action the completion of certain tasks that is required for maintenance in regulated environments and things like that.” He adds.

But is there an interest amongst their client base for wearables at all?

 “We’ve had a few projects around this and we’ve run it by a few customers.” Berg starts. “There is definitely a cool factor. Even looking at the various mobile devices its been kind of eye opening for us to identify what are each customer going to use these devices for? Let’s take Google Glass as an example, battery life is not outstanding, and many of the visual cues still involve tapping your temple to get it to do some things. So whilst the promise of a hands free, see what I see, remote eyes and ears kind of thing is out there, you’ve still got to think of the practical reality of how is somebody going to use this on a job site.”

“It’s been an educational process for us more than anything. How do these gadgets interplay with each other, in a course of a day?”

This of course has been one of the big challenges for the widespread adoption of wearables. Whilst the hyperbole that has surrounded such devices, particularly Glass has focussed on the devices as a replacement mobility tool, this is not how Berg sees it.

“I think it’s definitely a complimentary device, that’s the way that we see it. I don’t know if its going to be right for everybody any more than I could tell you everyone should use an android phone or everyone should use a tablet.”

For ServiceMax it seems that the emergence of wearables just means further ongoing developments for yet more platforms, which is just par for the course.

“I think one of the things we’ve embraced smartly is we’re not going to be able to dictate to every customer how they want to operate, so we’ve got a windows laptop version that works disconnected.” Berg explains

“This is a big deal in medical regulatory environments because they plug in peripherals and download diagnostics and reprogram cancer surgery equipment and things like that.”

“However, Coca-Cola said ‘look I want to take calls and log my work pretty simple work process – iPhone only.” He continues.

“I’ve got other customers that are deploying a number of devices. They’ve got laptops, they’ve got online web-presence and then they’ve deployed our iPad solutions as well. So I think they [wearables] are just another compliment and we need to be ready to make our experience happen across all of those because we won’t be able to dictate to people ‘oh yeah we’re the Google Glass guys and you have to do it this.”

For the time being I don’t think Berg and the team at ServiceMax need to worry about that. Infact I don’t think they need to be worried about being pigeon holed as anything other than ‘Oh yeah ServiceMax, they’re the guys that everyone seems to be talking about’. 

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Whilst technology can play a big part in improving the efficiency of a field service operation, nothing is as important as ensuring your field service managers are fully armed to do their job. With this in mind we have teamed up with specialist field service training organisation SGSA to bring this series that looks at some of the key concepts that make a good field service manager great. 

The topics included in this series, written by SGSA’s Senior Consultant Steve Brand, are based around the content of SGSA’s 4 and half day, university standard training course for field service managers and Field Service News readers are eligible for a discounted attendance. Further details, a discount code and links to registration are all included at the bottom of the page…

In the last article, we highlighted how many field service managers work their way up through the ranks and learn a management style through trial and error or from their managers and their managers’ manager.

In summary, management training is often informal.  And yet, John Maxwell, author of The 5 Levels of Leadership, identified that one of the five key reasons that employees choose to follow a leader is because the leader has helped them to progress their career.

Quite simply, managers should take a more formal approach to discussing career aspirations with field service engineers and to help them gain skills that will move them towards their personal career goals.  In return, employees show appreciation through greater loyalty to the leader and by working harder.

 

Just taking an interest and providing career guidance is a good start because it demonstrates to the engineers that we are interested in their success beyond them meeting our monthly targets.  Empowerment is also a form of career development.

Continuing our series of four articles, here are two more powerful management tips to help Field Service Managers improve working relationships with their engineers and increase productivity.

Concept #5: People Development

A key difference between training and development is who is ultimately responsible for making sure that both of these things happen.  Training is the responsibility of the field service manager.

The manager must provide training to the field service engineer so that the engineer is capable of doing the job that he is being paid for.  If the field service engineer has not been properly trained then he is unlikely to have the skills required to be able to do the job.  Without skill, there can be no performance.  On a side note, having the skills does not guarantee that the field service engineer will perform to his highest level.  For high performance, the field service manager needs to provide training and motivation.

Conversely, development is the responsibility of the field service engineer.  Only the engineer can know how he would like to see his career progress.  Hence, there is little benefit to be gained from a lengthy career discussion with a field service engineer who is content with his job and doesn’t see that it is in his interest to gain new skills.  For the rest of the team, the career development discussion gives the manager the opportunity to understand the aspirations of the field service engineer and to demonstrate his commitment to helping the engineer prepare for his next job.

 

Training and development plans are often updated and agreed by the field service manager and the engineer annually, typically in the final few minutes of the performance review meeting.  The recommendation is that the training and development discussions take place separately and within two weeks of the performance review meeting.

This gives the field service engineer time to consider the job skills that were highlighted in the review as needing improvement and what actions he thinks he could take to help him meet the required standard.

The training and development meeting should be conducted in two stages with the field service engineer clearly understanding the difference in the stages.  The first stage is the training discussion led by the manager.  The second stage is the career development discussion led by the field service engineer.  In some cases a career development discussion is inappropriate, for example, for a new hire who needs a large amount of training or an engineer who is subject to the performance improvement process.  In these cases, the manager will need to say that a discussion on career development should be delayed until the field engineer is competent in his current role or the unsatisfactory performance issues have been resolved.

Concept #6: Empowerment

Micro-management is widespread because many managers do not realise that they are micro-managing their employees.  Assigning tasks, giving directions on how things should be done and unnecessary checking of what has been done are common forms of micro-management.

With the exception of new hires and less experienced members of staff, field service managers should take the approach of setting the goals and letting the field service engineers decide for themselves on how best to achieve those goals.  Also, given that the engineers have more knowledge about the customer, machine, situation, etc., they are often in the best position to make the decisions.  The alternative is for the engineers to try and transfer their knowledge to the manager so that he can make the same decision as they would have done anyway!  The latter approach wastes time for the manager, engineer and customer.

 

It is important that managers understand the difference between delegation and empowerment and use language that reinforces a culture of empowerment.  Consider these statements: ‘Please call the customer, tell him the part is out of stock, apologise and re-schedule the appointment’, versus ‘Do what you have to do to make the customer satisfied and let me know if you need me to help’.

The first statement is an example of delegation, i.e., these are the tasks that I want you to do.  The second statement is an example of empowerment, i.e., I am giving you authority to take whatever actions you think are necessary.  Managers are often surprised as to how field service engineers rise to the occasion when they are trusted to get on with the job by themselves.

Some caution is required before empowering field services engineers and it is not necessary to give all engineers the same level of authority at the same time.  Managers need to consider the return on investment of empowerment in terms of time saved, customer satisfaction, employee motivation and so on, versus the cost of a poor decision.

A frequently made decision that if made badly once per year would cost the company £100 is worthy of empowerment.  A decision with a business cost of £10,000 in a worst case scenario is not.

A ‘top four’ factor of employee motivation is the level of responsibility that they are given and empowering field service engineers is equivalent to saying ‘I trust you’.  As mentioned in the previous article, as trust goes up, productivity increases and costs come down.  Hence, empowering employees is a win-win situation for the field service manager and the engineers in many ways.

 

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Could you or your colleagues benefit from attending the next SGSA Field Service Manager Course?

The Field Service Manager program is dynamic and interactive, with students frequently working in small groups, presenting findings and working on the course case study.

The program is four and a half days of course content and university-level instruction and learning that is focused on managing a field service operation.

If you want to see more information or register for the course you can do so by clicking here

PLUS! Field Service News subscribers receive a 10% discount on the course fee when quoting reference FSN0317

 

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Enterprise collaboration tool Intellinote recently announced its new Field Service Management Solution, developed to help field service companies lower costs, increase revenues and provide a significantly enhanced customer experience.

Delivered as a user-friendly cloud-based tool, Intellinote for Field Service Management lets users capture, document and collaborate around service requests and other fieldwork using iPads, iPhones and desktops. Built for the field & the office, Intellinote for Field Service Management is easy to deploy and no IT is required.

The solution provides customers with the ability to:

• Document fieldwork with fillable PDF forms, notes, pictures and geo-tagging.
• Share, in real-time, details of completed fieldwork with key stakeholders including customers, supervisors and accounting departments.
• Provide field workers with real-time access to Policies, Service Catalogs, Form Libraries and Training/Reference Materials
• Integrate with Billing Systems, Work Order Databases and other in-house developed/3^rd party applications
• Work in both offline and online modes[/unordered_list]

“The old way of managing field work required a chain of events that wasted time and money as each service request, work order or job went through many manual and often error-prone touch points,” explained Intellinote CEO, Tony Lopresti. “As the field service management space continues to demand cloud-based solutions, we’re excited to provide companies with a solution that helps them collaborate better between field and non-field employees, and ultimately deliver a superior customer experience. Intellinote for Field Service Management is a powerful, competitive differentiator with clear advantages for users.”

Intellinote for Field Service Management eliminates the many inefficiencies that have plagued services companies: paper forms, incomplete task information, lack of clarity, lack of visibility into the real-time status of a service request and manual handoffs between field workers, supervisors and customers.

 

With Intellinote for Field Service Management, the entire process is greatly simplified. Customers realize ROI from handling more work orders every day, eliminating form errors, avoiding the 2nd or repeat service call, avoiding overtime pay, reducing customer disputes and by arming field workers with service catalogs and other tools on their mobile devices to upsell customers. For a mid-sized company, these could add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars of savings and additional revenue every year.

“We choose Intellinote to help us do three things. One: Help our field workforce document each job - from initial requirements to installation. Two: Help management monitor progress and collaborate in real-time with our on-site team. Three: Keep our customers informed on the status and progress of their jobs," said Chris Newsome of A Place For Everything Closets. "Intellinote is delivering on these fronts. Our team is more productive and we are able to serve our large and growing customer base better with it," Newsome added.

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There were some big claims at the start of 2014 around the impact that wearables would have both in business and in the mainstream and with this weeks announcement of the now imminent AppleWatch launch similar noises are being made as fashion and technology come ever closer.

But Apple has a mountain to climb if they are to be the brand that finally cracks the consumer smartwatch market.

Rewind back a year and we were being told this was the year of the wearable. Just one year  later and there is a distinctly different attitude doing the rounds, one that not only lacks the optimism of last year but also has a defiant hint of those pessimistic ‘I told you it wouldn’t work’ types.

Add to this the lingering hint of failure that followed Google's recent announcement that they were ending their Glass Explorer program, effectively stopping the sale of Glass to the general public until the next iteration of the product (which will be ‘when they’re ready’ apparently) and the general air of smugness of the naysayers has become that much more tangible.

 

Yet Glass isn’t dead, far from it and we’ll come back to that in a moment.

But first, let’s look at the wider question around wearables and why 2014 didn’t live up to the hyperbole as being the ‘Year of the Wearable”.

With high profile wearable launches from Samsung, Apple and of course Google being widely anticipated for 2014 it was with much anticipation that Wearables which had been touted as the next big thing from as early as 2008 would finally breakthrough and gain mass appeal in the consumer market.

Yet the fact is that we as consumers just weren’t ready.

In fact research from digital research firm L2 recently confirmed what we pretty much new in that whilst 75% of consumers are aware of wearable technology, just 9% actually had any desire to purchase and a measly 2% confirmed they actually owned a wearable device.

 

However, whilst there is a clear lack of desire to be dubbed a ‘Glasshole’ by adorning a wearable device, this doesn’t equate to why there has also been little adoption in the world of enterprise. Lets be honest hi-vis jackets aren’t exactly high-fashion (well not since the early nineties for those ex-ravers out there) but I highly doubt that has halted their sales in the various industries they are required.

Personally, I think there are two key reasons why we have not seen wearables become popular in a working environment as yet.

Firstly in all the excitement and hyperbole surrounding wearable computing we’ve perhaps overstated the impact and the sheer power of a wearable device. One common misconception I hear around smart watches in particular is what is the point when I can do everything that the watch offers on my smartphone?

This is a fundamental flaw in the thinking around smartwatches and wearables in general. Whilst they offer much of the same functionality they are not devices to replace your phone or tablet, they are companion devices to enhance the productivity of the your phone. And in field service in particular such enhancements can be particularly powerful.

In an environment where working hands free is of a huge benefit, then the ability to have a phone conversation without having to have one hand restrained holding your phone can be very advantageous.

‘Well that could be done using a bluetooth headset’ some might say. Yes it could. However, dialling a number isn’t, whereas it is via a smart watch (often via voice activation). Another good example of smartwatches being put to good use in field service would be to take photos of any issues or fixes etc.

So again we here the cries of ‘well I can do that on my phone – is it so hard to take out my phone out from my pocket to take a photo’.

Of course the answer is no it’s not hard, it’s just quicker to do it on a smart watch – which is just a handier extension of your phone anyway. And when we come down to it isn’t that the point of technology to make things quicker and easier? If not then why the hell did we move away from pen and paper in the first place?

 

However, if we are talking about using wearables as a true companion device then perhaps a better example would be using the two devices in tandem.

For example lets say an engineer believes that the problem lies at the back of a piece of equipment that is inaccessible. The only solution would be to move the equipment to check.

However, an engineer with a smartwatch may be able to position the watch around the device whilst viewing the footage on their smartphones screen. A quick visual check using this combination of technology could confirm whether or not this is where the issue lies, saving the hassle of unnecessarily moving the equipment, speeding up the engineers workflow.

There are already a number of apps developed that allow this functionality.

However, none are designed with this specific application in mind and herein lies what I believe to be the second reason we’ve yet to see smartwatches make an impact in industry. Simply a lack of developers designing apps specifically for specific business niches.

There have been some attempts, most notably ClickSoftware’s Shift Expert release on Saleforce Wear, but for wider adoption we need more apps.

And this is where we return to Glass being still very much alive. Whilst in some corners Google’s removal of Glass from public sales is seen as an acknowledgement of failure, the truth I believe is very much different.

Whilst there have been reports that developers for consumer apps are losing interest in creating apps the list of Glass Certified Partners has increased with apps being developed for a wide variety of industries.

One of those Glass Certified Partners is Pristine.io who despite only coming up to their second year have already grown from start up to a $5.5M venture financing backed company with 20 staff in their very short lifetime.

For them the opportunity to make Glass and other similar smartglasses work in a field service environment is not only a very desirable goal but a very achievable one also.

 

Commenting on the future potential of Glass Kyle Samani, Founder of Pristine.io said.

“Google have publicly said they are actively investing in the enterprise version of Glass and we are one of the very few certified Glass Enterprise Partners, we work with Google very closely both with engineering and business process around Glass, Enterprise and the future of the Glass product and we are very excited by where it’s going”

“Google is supporting us with hardware, software with engineering support and business support where we need and that’s been great.” He added

So it seems business is where Google’s core focus is, which makes sense as the benefits of smartglasses for Field Service is potentially massive, particularly with companies such as Pristine.io developing applications designed for purpose.

It may take a little longer than at first expected but Glass is far from dead, and as more apps are developed for wearables devices the more wearables will become integrated into our working lives. I firmly believe it will happen, we just all got a little too excited too early.

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Some really interesting statistics around CRM put together in this infographic created by Salesforce...

Smith Construction Group, a civil engineering and groundwork provider, has cut its yearly fuel bill by 15% after implementing a telematics system from Masternaut, one of Europe’s leading telematics provider.

The Group, which includes the skip hire arm Smith Recycling, has implemented telematics into its 60 strong fleet of heavy duty commercial vehicles, including tippers and skip lorries.

Masternaut’s technology has provided Smith Construction Group with detailed reports on every job done by a vehicle, detailing MPG readings, carbon emissions and idling.

This information has helped to reduce vehicle idling by 87%, whilst overall the technology has saved Smith Construction Group an estimated 15% off of its yearly fuel bill. Reducing carbon emissions and fuel is helping Smith Construction Group reduce its impact on the environment, in line with its sustainability ethos.

 

The technology has been used on a number of occasions in insurance claims from third parties, to prove that the vehicle in question was nowhere near the area for the alleged incidents.

The tracking technology has been beneficial in keeping customers up to date about when a vehicle will arrive, as well as providing Smith Construction Group with proof if a customer claims a driver hasn’t arrived. The technology has helped to improve vehicle utilisation by cutting down on wasted journeys (e.g. customers not on site to take delivery), through introducing a wasted journey charge backed up by telematics data.

At Smith Recycling, the recycling arm within Smith Construction Group, the system is used for communicating with customer’s to provide information on when a job can be done, using Masternaut data to see which driver can get to a job first. This has allowed Smith Recycling to ensure it meets customer timescales and helps guarantee fast delivery and pick up.

Smith Construction Group’s commented,"It’s important for us to have complete control over project schedules, so having the Masternaut system available has enabled us to give customer accurate details on arrival times for skip jobs, which has made a real difference. Not only can we give customers much more information on when a job can be done, but we’ve got the added security if there’s ever a dispute.”

 

He continued, “The system has helped us to make a saving on our annual fuel costs, which means that the system pays for itself through the savings we’re making. We’re working with Masternaut to see what else we can do with the technology and hope to implement the data into HR systems in the future."

Steve Towe, Chief Commercial Officer and UK Managing Director added: “In the construction industry, it’s especially important to keep tight control over project schedules, so being able to accurately predict arrival times for skip and tipper hire can make a real difference to operational efficiencies. Masternaut’s telematics system provides 100% accurate readings via patented CAN Bus technology rather than GPS-based readings, which gives Smith Construction Group access to reliable and accurate figures on mileage, fuel consumption and vitally gives them complete control over their fleet and project schedules.”

 

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Servitization has been talked about for many years but all of a sudden it seems to be a key topic on the agenda of many manufacturing companies and also amongst may service based organisations as well. For those companies that tread the path being dubbed the fourth paradigm it will mean a complete rethinking of how they view field service. 

At the recent AfterMarket conference in Amsterdam Field Service News Editor, Kris Oldland hosted a panel debate with three speakers key to servitization; Professor Tim Baines, Aston University a leading proponent of the movement, Brendan Viggers, Product and Sales Support for IFS Aerospace & Defence division who has worked closely with a number of companies such as Emirates on moving towards a servitization model and Koen D’Haeyer, Global Manager Service Development & Technical Services Lely who had been through the journey himself with Dutch Farm Technology company.

Kris Oldland: The case studies we hear around servitization to date all seem to involve large organisations with quite complex or evolved business models already. Is it the case that servitization only applies to companies that have the size to make it work?

Tim Baines: I’ve worked with quite a few smaller companies which has been quite interesting first of all to break away from the myth that servitization is just about large companies. By this time next year we will have got around 70 companies within our region of the UK the west midlands engaged in servitization.

One company which helps us breakaway from this idea that it is all about delivering complex products is a company that actually delivering pallets, regular wooden pallets and these pallets are used in the automotive industry to move windscreens and cars and things like this. There business model before we got involved was they would make a pallet, sell the pallets.

 

But what they are doing now is slowly but surely getting into the space where they are making the pallets, they are designing the pallets for the application, they are working with the customer to make sure the pallets are well suited, they are actually putting the pallet in the system, they’re tracking the pallets, they are taking care of stock control and slowly and surely they are moving to a position where they are becoming the business process outsourcing partner for the customers own material handling system.

Whilst this may not be a perfectly clinical example of servitization by some definitions, but nevertheless it is a good example of a small company that has adopted the principles of servitization and then put them into practice.

Koen Dyaeyer: I couldn’t agree me that smaller companies companies servitization can work. I have a history in smaller to medium sized companies, and we went drastically through servitization aspects even by a make and buy proposition through to quality assurance etc so it’s applicable for sure in all industries.

What I would say is that technology there is an extra opportunity as in complexity it is very much possible to create the value of your expertise which is also holds true of course.

Audience Question: Whenever we decide to do any transformation a big chunk of it is behavioural change, besides the software and the hardware how to you trigger the behavioural change within a company?

Brendan Viggers: For us its understanding the processes, being able to model those processes and work as a team to fully understand what the different functions and responsibilities you have within that team. But its also being able to drive down to having a piece of data that will ultimately help you deliver that new change.

Koen Dyaeyer: My experience is set directions clearly for each individual so people understand what is needed from them to achieve the goal. Also motivate people, there is a study that says people only get a message when it is [quote float="right"]There is a study that says people only get a message when it is repeated twenty three times. That’s often a slogan that I use, just repeat it and to be honest sometimes it may need to be repeated forty six times

repeated twenty three times. That’s often a slogan that I use, just repeat it and to be honest sometimes it may need to be repeated forty six times but energise it, make it engaging.

 

Tim Baines: The companies that I studied when we wrote made to serve, were all companies that were pulled into the delivery of advanced service by their customers. In some instances companies they were pulled into this space kicking and screaming, they were product based companies and they were given no option.

What’s interesting to me now is this second wave of organisations where in some instances you are not being pulled into this space by your customers, rather your looking at the benefits that organisations such as Rolls Royce and Caterpillar have got from servitization and you want a piece of that action. But you have a different set of challenges. Some of the challenges remain the same but some are very different.

For example you have to educate your customers, about the opportunity, this is the theory here, an innovation theory showing us the difference between market pull and technology push. You’ve now got to educate your customers. You’ve got to get the buy in of the whole organisation to the servitization approach. Some of the processes and tools that are out there are great once you’ve started down the path but really to start to get the traction in the first instance, to really get people at board level to buy-in to the idea is one of the biggest issues.

 

How to inspire the senior management, how to get the messaging about what it is that servitization is about both internally and externally, how to frame servitization so they know what you are talking about. Going to customers and stimulating a customer demand which then pulls everything together.

Look out for more from this debate coming soon... 

Logistics companies and field service engineers are being urged to pay special attention to diesel particulate filters (DPFs) on their vehicles, as the cost of having a unit off the road at the height of a nationwide skills shortage could be detrimental.

The advice comes from national automotive parts reconditioning specialist DPF Clean Team, which is advising drivers to have a filter cleaned rather than replaced when clogged, in order to return drivers to the road quickly, and at a lower cost than a full replacement.

DPF Clean Team Director Cameron Bryce explained: “At a time when logistics companies are updating their fleets with the latest Euro-6 trucks in order to benefit from reduced emissions, sustainability, and lower fuel costs, they need to make sure that they are making the most of this investment. For field service engineers too, having a van or small unit on the road whenever possible is the difference between completing, and passing up work, and money.

“The cost benefits and efficiencies that these vehicles deliver can be wasted if operators need to take vehicles off the road for days to purchase and fit a replacement DPF, in the event of them becoming blocked. With an industry-wide driver shortage, every day a driver is not in a cab means lost capacity, unhappy customers, and lost business.”

Should HGV and van drivers be alerted to the DPF warning light, the advice from DPF Clean Team is to have a filter cleaned rather than replaced. A DPF clean can be completed and a vehicle returned to the road in a matter of days, which is considerably faster than the time associated with sourcing a new DPF, ordering and receiving the part, and then having it fitted. And the cost of a clean is also significantly lower than a full replacement; potentially saving haulage and service companies tens of thousands of pounds per year for multiple vehicles in their fleet. DPF Clean Team states that the average price of a new DPF unit for MAN, Volvo and Iveko trucks is up to £5,000.

 

DPF Clean Team itself has recently increased the number of DPF units it can clean, up to 1,000 a month, following a five-figure investment in state-of-the-art cleaning equipment which is capable of cleaning DPFs and Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) units. The investment has been made following an increase in demand from the logistics industry for this service. And for a short time, the company has slashed the price of DPF cleaning from £450 to £250 for any logistics operators looking to have their DPFs cleaned for the first time.

Cameron Bryce continued: “With logistics companies and service engineers being overstretched in order to keep up with demand, more and more operators and fleet managers are paying closer attention to the maintenance and performance of their vehicles. They rightly recognise that the consequences of having a vehicle off the road can be costly at a time when resources are tight and demand high. Regular DPF cleaning can not only ensure that vehicle operators are seeing a return in new fleet investment, but it can also reduce the risk of unscheduled downtime, keeping vehicles on the road, and deliveries arriving on time.”

DPF Clean Team already works with many of the UK’s car supermarkets, Leicestershire and Metropolitan Police Force, Avis and Europcar. The company’s new equipment not only cleans DPFs, but the dry-cleaning process is also used for a host of different automotive components which can be expensive to replace if they become worn.

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Servitization is a key trend in that is rapidly on the rise in manufacturing realm and it's impact on Field Service could be game changing. But what exactly is servitization, how can it change the way we work and will it live up to the hype?

To find out more Field Service News Editor, Kris Oldland spoke to Professor Tim Baines one of the leading proponents of the servitization movement

 

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