AUTHOR ARCHIVES: Kris Oldland

Near Field Communications (NFC) as a technology has been around for a fair while yet hasn’t quite got the traction that it could have. However, with Apple introducing NFC albeit in a restricted capacity into the latest iteration of the iPhone the technology could potentially come back in vogue.

This is a good thing as it has the potential to streamline workflow for field service engineers, and NFC tags are a low cost addition to field service technology toolkit.

Here are three quick ways NFC could speed up a field engineers workflow that could easily be written via an android smart device without any need for complex coding.

In the field engineers vehicle.

A tag placed into the dashboard of your field engineer’s vehicle could be written to activate a number of functions on their smart phone. For example it both log the journey start in your dedicated field service apps solution and simultaneously open a routing app.

Combining these two has a double benefit of saving time for the engineer plus by combing the start of your field engineer’s journey with a process that is required for him to make that journey (i.e. routing software), you can ensure logging in won’t be overlooked.

At your clients reception

If you have a regular maintenance contract at a specific client where you know your engineers will be making regular visits you could send that client a tag for them to place on their reception desk.

This way when your engineer arrives and is signing into your clients premises they can tap the NFC tag and automatically log their arrival on site within any dedicated field service management app you may have implemented.

On the device

When your engineer arrives at a device a well placed NFC tag could contain offer access to some key insight into the device he is there to fix.

This could be a link to the most recent maintenance notes and that devices specific history, a web page that holds manuals for the device or even opening up a parts ordering page specific to that device so the engineer can easily access the right parts for that specific device.

 

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The internet of things (IoT) is fast becoming a field service priority as the revelation that IoT can drastically increase customer satisfaction while reducing costs comes to fruition. IoT has the potential to eliminate unplanned downtime, more accurately meet SLAs, inform product development, and improve business decisions and forecasts when it comes to field service processes. IFS's Tom Bowe takes a look at the challenges being faced by companies looking to embrace this brave new world... 

Adopting IoT technology can change the dynamic of how your service organisation is run and provide vision into future possibilities and opportunities.  None of this is disputed; clearly the benefits of IoT are huge.  But field service organisations still face a myriad of challenges, particularly when it comes to meeting growing customer expectations with new market technology that disrupts internal processes, transfer of knowledge, and more.  How can field service organisations take the challenges of adopting IoT head-on, and achieve an infallible competitive edge?  Here are some suggestions.

Challenge: Lack of a Shared Infrastructure and Common Standards

IoT is actually a complex combination of hardware and software that constitutes a platform for developers and organisations, and the vertical nature of this platform contributes to the fragmentation of its infrastructure (Rachel Kalmar, Forbes 2014). With limited open source platforms, IoT devices are currently installed in their own platforms and ecosystems, which can run up costs and make IoT projects more technically complicated. Additionally the industry has yet to be standardised, including communication protocols and methods.  This makes integrations challenging and can hinder scalability as well.

Solution:

Implement technology that has developed IoT functionality but preferably has not tied itself to a specific platform or IoT vendor.  Solutions with open APIs will allow easy integration with sensors, etc. and will allow you to grow as the industry changes and develops.

Challenge: Data Control and Data Sharing

Large scale adoption of IOT technology is hindered by issues with data control. Decisions around who can access data, especially private data, must be made.  This can be a slippery slope which has yet to be addressed effectively.  With remote sensors and monitoring, there is a need for heightened sensitivity to data control.  This goes for data sharing as well. Since there are currently little to no compliance frameworks to address IoT’s unique issues, partner vetting needs to be even more critical and details about use of transmitted data will need to be clearly laid out.

Solution:

Don’t wait for standards to be fully defined and approved.  Develop your own “standard-inspired” approach by working with your technology vendors on a flexible, OS agnostic pattern and protocol that meets your most important (rev 1) requirements.  Make sure that data auditing is part of your software functionality, and align your IoT with existing company security and privacy demands.  Consider using the AllJoyn framework which is a developing open-source device agnostic IoT standard with the strongest community and downloadable SDK’s. And keep a watchful eye on the top IoT standard competitors including OIC, IIC, Thread (Google) and IEEE (P2413) for ideas, patterns and best practices.

Challenge: Security

The more devices that IoT connects, the greater the risk of malware and breaches.  Devices and sensors are also at risk of being physically comprised.  The latest debate of cloud security also applies here.

Solution:

Work with software vendors that have addressed IoT and cloud security.  Prepare your IT department to keep up with safety and security measures and explore your platform options before implementing.

Challenge: Implementation and Training

Another challenge that field service organisations potentially face in adopting IoT is in the implementation of sensors or other IoT technology.  Will this be a responsibility of your field technicians, or a third party?  Either way, re-education and new training will likely be needed.  This may lead to more upfront costs and internal adoption challenges.

Solution:

Use forecasting and planning software to predict the change in service demand before, during, and after the roll-out of an IoT initiative.  Explore what-if scenarios to see if your current field force can manage an IoT implementation effectively.

According to GE’s Global Innovation Barometer report, 67% of organisations agree that agility and speed in adapting and implementing emerging technologies into their organisation is essential to innovation (Ray Wang, 2014).  Being an early adopter of IoT, especially in field service, opens a world of opportunity in regards to new value creation, business models, and revenue streams.  It will allow your organisation to create new value for customers, bringing the concept of delighting them to a whole other level.

Face newcomer challenges head on, work with vendors that take an open and scalable approach to new technology, and work to make your field service technology nimble.  By doing this, and avoiding a rip and replace mindset, your organisation will be able to reap the intrinsic value of this new technology.

 

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A new industry body is aiming to improve standards across British business fleets by establishing best practice in the use of fleet data.

Fleet Data Insight brings together thought leaders from across the fleet industry, including both operators and suppliers, to share practical advice about using data to achieve operational excellence in fleet performance.

Founded by TomTom Telematics, alongside partners Zurich, the FTA and the Energy Saving Trust, Fleet Data Insight will meet twice a year, using the collective knowledge and experience of its participants to create a series of free best practice advice guides.

Each forum will be independently led by Real World Strategy and the guides will aim to provide practical information in a multimedia format. The community will also be invited to continue the discussion online via Twitter and the Fleet Data Insight LinkedIn discussion group.

The first forum meeting focused on using data to manage risk and brought together fleet professionals from a number of prominent organisations, including Skanska, Sainsbury's, Iron Mountain, Fife Council, BT Fleet, Waitrose.

"The core ethos of Fleet Data Insight is to co-create value and best practice for the industry, by the industry and to promote excellence in data-driven fleet management" said Peter Button, Chairman, Fleet Data Insight.

 

"A vast amount of data is now available to fleet managers, so it is essential they are provided with the right guidance and advice to enable them to get the most out of it," said Irvin Gray, Senior Marketing Manager, TomTom Telematics (founding partner). "We are confident that with the gold mine of experience and best practice our partners and contributors bring, we can give fleet operators the tools they need to become more efficient, safe and profitable."

"Identifying the right data and using it properly is essential in today’s fleet. The Fleet Data Insight group addresses this need in a new way – co-creating valuable best practice and sharing this with the industry through developing a community."

Operators are invited to join the conversation in the Fleet Data Insight LinkedIn discussion group. More information can be found at www.fleetdatainsight.com where you can apply to join the next event, join the community and download the best practice guide. The forum's first free guide on managing fleet risk together with some best practice videos from the forum are available now.

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In the first part of this feature we looked at why medical device manufacturer Elekta felt it was necessary to establish a global knowledge sharing platform, now in this the concluding part of this feature we look at how they managed the task...

In terms of logistics, Elekta took a broad approach initially with a couple of duplicated platforms to ensure that everyone had access to the knowledge. The main plan was to integrate the knowledge base within the deployment of their new CRM system, which would provide automated access to relevant articles dynamically, based on customer, service desk or field engineer requirements.

However, they also placed the articles from the knowledge base onto a searchable database as a secondary system whilst the CRM was being rolled out, leaving no stone unturned and meaning full global access to the program was achieved from the start.

The content itself was then tailored dependent on its use, with the knowledge base comprising of a mix of mediums including text, images and videos with links to e-learning snippets also embedded within many knowledge article.

Expanding on this further Gilday explained

“If the article was talking about a particular part of the machine, and one of the procedures was something that often caused a difficulty for the engineer, we would just embed a link into an e-learning module that was only a few minutes long that would demonstrate to the engineer how to do a particular procedure.”

 

“For our engineers in China or Japan or many of the other evolving countries these were really valuable because it didn’t require any translation or any language issues, they could simply look at what was done.”

Of course the global scope of this project was one of it’s key drivers in the first place and whilst gaining adoption of the program on a global basis sounds like a huge task, in reality, for Elekta at least it actually wasn’t that big a hurdle.

“The adoption around the world wasn’t particularly difficult because there was a pull from the field service engineers in the first place.” Gilday states.

“There really is quite a bit of internal competition in that the engineer that has provided the most knowledge articles or the engineer that has provided the article that is used by the most engineers round the rest of the world holds an awful lot of kudos.”

Indeed it is perhaps a phenomena of the connected world we live in where public ranking has become ingrained within our thinking.

 

As Gilday elaborated “There is a lot of pride of being a very competent technician and being able to share your knowledge. I think many years ago the approach was knowledge is power and people were less inclined to share it but today its the other way around and people are keen to be seen as experts in their area.”

Indeed Elekta play on this mentality by publishing internal league tables with 1,000 users generating on average 60 new knowledge features a month the approach is certainly working at present. It was simply a case of getting the ball rolling.

To do so they made good use of the knowledge that they had locked up in siloes across the organisation and harvested close to 4,000 articles which were put into the knowledge base initially.

They also created some video material captured at a global summit and established a training and awareness program through targeted webinars across the team.

“We did a lot of training and awareness around the whole program to say that this is everybody’s collective responsibility once it started its actually fairly self perpetuating, you just need to clean up every now and then, to focus on the areas that get a lot of attention, take out the articles that are never used.” Confirmed Gilday

“Everybody has responsibility for it and the constant peer review means you can improve the quality of the content as you go.”

Linking the knowledge directly to support

The other advantage Elekta were able to utilise by aligning the knowledge base to their new CRM system was that they could now connect this into their service desk function.

Previously Elekta had been a very product driven company, which had largely grown as a result of continuous product innovation. In such an environment often service is a secondary consideration and so it was for Elekta in the past. However, by Gilday’s own admission that is rapidly changing.

So the benefit of setting up a service desk environment where upon receiving a call from a customer and as the service desk agent is typing up a problem, a keyword search on the knowledge base which pulls up the articles that are most related to this problem, is even more widely felt.

 

By clever design the system is also continuously refining itself making it ever more efficient.

“We implemented a scoring system so as the engineers close the service call they are encouraged to identify whether a knowledge article helped them and to link it to the particular problem” Gilday illustrated “So the system essentially self learns. This further qualifies that list of knowledge articles to be able to present it in a very dynamic form at the help desk.”

So with Elekta having established what from the outside seems a very slick and effective means of sharing knowledge across their global network the ultimate question is has it had any impact on the levels of service they are delivering?

It is of course impossible to establish a true value contribution of a new service initiative unless you undertake them really do them one at a time. And to do so severely limits the speed at which potential progress that can be made. In this instance the implementation of Elekta’s knowledge base program has coincided with them up-skilling their service desk staff and also driving forward with remote support connectivity.

However, across these three initiatives Elekta have seen more than a 20% visit avoidance, which will result in quite a dramatic effect on their efficiency on service to the customer.

Looking specifically at the Knowledge Base they are getting over 2000 knowledge articles views each day, nearly half of the articles are used with service cases attached.

 

There are also over five and a half thousand knowledge articles published now. And whilst they started with a large amount of features, they are undertaking more and more clean ups, removing any articles not being used regularly or related to old products.

There is also a lot of potential value in the product base for those customers who maintain their own equipment. Generally Elekta will offer a second level support to customers in those situations, and the value of the knowledge base could potentially be leverage further amongst these clients, either as a value added proposition or even on a transactional basis.

Finally there is the benefit that bringing the knowledge to the fore can have on future product refinement, which is a real benefit for the team working in R&D.

As Gilday outlined “A lot of this knowledge goes straight back into product updates. This product intelligence form the field says if we can eliminate this particular problem this will have an x percent benefit.”

So whilst the initial project may have seemed daunting, it appears that knowledge really is power, and by bringing it to the fore, we can truly harness it a number of different ways to push our organisation forwards to ever greater heights.

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In part one of this exclusive interview with ServiceMax COO Scott Berg we looked at the 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.

Here in this second section of the interview we begin with the another key significant technology trend, Big Data and why it was the at the heart of the headlines coming out of the ServiceMax CIO summit a few months earlier.

As our conversation turns to this Berg begins nodding agreement.

“We think we are in quite a unique position to make Data actionable.” he says. A pretty bold claim.

He begins to expand further “These Data lakes and all the other terminology around Big Data, all this predictive stuff and data science is all great but somebodies got get it into the hands on a technician in order to benefit from it. To maybe direct their next step or predict their next move. There will always be people involved in the chain, so we think its really our unique place to play as we make Big Data actionable.”

 

“We have a configurable process, we have the mobile device, so if there is going to be any directing or leading or sharing and tapping into knowledge its probably going to be done on a disconnected mobile device under ground at the top of a scaffolding or something like. So our interest in it is trying to connect data science and Big Data into that actionable footprint that you can put in front of the technician.”

This focus on the end user leads us to another current topic of conversation in software circles – is customisation the root of all ills or an acceptable process to refine off the shelf solutions?

 

“I think the whole nature of customisation has changed” answers Berg as I put the question to him “As you know we are on the Salesforce.com platform, and I don’t think that customisation is necessarily a bad word because its so controlled and its such a configurable and extendable experience anyway.”

“We certainly do stress configuration to the extent that this year we’ve really tried to repackage our implementation and delivery offerings. For small businesses we have something called Express, which is an out of the box ‘trust me this is what you need’ solution. If you work with us in three weeks you’ll be live and it’ll look just like the demonstration.” He says

“So we’ve tried to get certainly more prescriptive about it but I do think that peoples notions of customisation are ERP. So obliterated unrecognisable sets of code that drop you off at the road map and that quite frankly it’s a large part of our success I think. Because there is so much of that in Siebel today, one of our big customers has three versions of Siebel all of them deprecated so their off support and they’re faced with this problem its unrecognisable, its un-upgradeable they may as well just go buy another solution.”

“I think that the Salesforce platform has really changed everything. The way that we have to operate in that platform as an independent software company on someone else’s cloud means everything has to go through vulnerability, security and compatibility automated checking. So anything your customer would do on top of that, or anything we would do for a customer, basically inherits that stability. I think that’s just a radically different technological model than traditional ERP”

 

Of course Salesforce.com ended up proving a lot of their far bigger competitors wrong and now it seems that this is a rush to catch them up. It’ll be interesting to see if in the future all companies will follow their route.

As Berg himself outlines “ I think you’ll see a lot of the vendors out their trying to follow Salesforce’s lead and trying to follow some of Salesforce’s approach and try to become that platform as a service provider. You see them all launching market places and trying to attract people. Microsoft have been making a lot of noise around this and trying to launch the Dynamics platform. “

“But as somebody who jumped into the Salesforce.com bandwagon early on and as someone who every year we periodically reassess our situation I can say that nobody has really built the breadth and depth of a business application platform that those guys have.”

It is obvious to all that the connection between Salesforce.com and ServiceMax is particularly close. But is it too close? How reliant is the continuing success of ServiceMax on the Saleforce platform I ask.

“Having been involved with several start-ups in the past I think that they [Salesforce] were extremely critical for us especially in the early days.” Responds Berg.

 

“If you think of what it would have taken for us to launch a data centre and secure it, to build all the platform capabilities and redundancy, also that some of our first 12 customers were in the Middle East and Europe and there we were with two founders selling everything themselves out of northern California… how could that be right?” he pauses leaving the question hang for just a second before continuing.

“All because of the global reach and the global acceptance level of the Salesforce.com platform. So yes it was very important early on.” He concludes.

However as Berg explains the relationship has changed overtime as ServiceMAx themselves have grown to stand on more of an equal footing.

“Overtime I think that the value of the relationship has shifted a bit.” Berg concedes “Salesforce has become much more of a platform, and we don’t tend to get as many outright business referrals from them as before.”

“And it is certainly a big credibility statement to pass our EU safe harbour framework certifications and things because we’re in it but we’ve expanded so much in our own intellectual property investments around the mobile devices, iPad, and frameworks for our configurable workflow that I think when you stack up all the functionality in our product today, its heavily tipped to us now.” He admits.

Look out for the final part of this exclusive interview coming next week... 

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Kwik Fit has achieved accreditation to the Freight Transport Association’s Van Excellence scheme after introducing a series of safe driving initiatives capped by the installation of telematics devices in its entire 200-strong fleet of mobile vans.

Following telematics implementation in the fleet six months ago, Kwik Fit has recorded an 8% saving on fuel bills as a result of technicians adopting a smoother and safer style of driving when at the wheel of the Mobile units.

Additionally, average fuel economy across the Mobile fleet has increased from 22mpg to 25mpg - a 13% improvement partly as a result of safer driving, but also due a reduction in vehicle idling, which is also monitored.

The saving builds on improvements made in the preceding two years when economy increased from 17mpg to 22mpg after Kwik Fit started to publish fuel consumption data on a van-by-van basis following introduction of ‘track and trace’ vehicle technology.

Introduction of the Telogis telematics technology has initially focused on using data recorded by the in-vehicle systems to influence driver behaviour and reduce fleet operating costs.

Kwik Fit fleet operations director Simon Lucas said: “We have witnessed a dramatic reduction in speeding, harsh braking and acceleration by technicians who have improved their driving style as a consequence of being monitored.

More than 100 fleets are now “accredited operators” to Van Excellence and Mr Lucas said: “It demonstrates clearly Kwik Fit’s commitment to duty of care and corporate responsibility and highlights that our fleet of Mobile vans is professionally managed.”

In congratulating Kwik Fit on its accreditation, Mark Cartwright, head of vans at the Freight Transport Association, said: “Van Excellence represents what good looks like in terms of van operations. We are delighted to recognise the excellent compliance standard demonstrated by Kwik Fit’s mobile service and have therefore awarded it Van Excellence accreditation.”

Kwik Fit is among a host of high-profile businesses that have gained Van Excellence accreditation for their fleets since the initiative was launched in 2010.

Van Excellence was created in order to promote high standards of van operation and driving by accrediting operators against an industry code of good practice. Operators register their interest and receive details of the Van Excellence Code, then present themselves for audit when they are ready.

 

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The digital issue of the latest issue of Field Service News is now available to download here

This issue is focussed around what connections can mean in field service as Kris Oldland explains in his Editor's leader...

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Connections are everything...

I firmly believe the above statement. Connections are everything.

But what are connections? It’s such a broad term isn’t it? I mean connections of some form or another are all around us each and every second of our lives. From the tiny electric sparks connecting the neurons in our body through to the gigantic gravitational pull that connects the planets of our Solar System together all revolving around the sun.

And then everything in between.

OK so perhaps a little bit melodramatic, a definitely a touch off piste but the thing is that when I was pulling this issue together all could think about were connections, and how important it is for the field service industries to make sure they get there connections working, and also keep there connections happy.

Of course perhaps the most important connection of all is the connection between your company and your customers. I’ve said it once and I’m sure I’ll say it a few more times in my lifetime - the customer is the heartbeat of every organisation. Look after you customers, ensure that connection is a good one and you can be fairly comfortable that your business is on a decent path. A sentiment echoed in two of our expert view features this month as Bill Pollock explores the difference between customers’ wants and needs, whilst Paul White extols the virtues of putting the customers back in control.

Of course the other heartbeat of field service (OK for the sake of the metaphor lets just assume field service like Doctor Who has two hearts) is of course the mobile workforce. Again there are vital connections that need to be maintained across our the relationship between field worker and company.

How do we connect to the worker to tell them where their next job is? How are they connected to HQ when they are out in the field with access to all that lovely rich data that can helps us further enhance our connections with our customers?

 

Of course, as I alluded to in my grandiose opening of neurons and planets, not all connections involve people. In fact some of the most important connections that are at the forefront of our minds right now are digital connections. The Internet of Things, remote diagnostics and machine to machine communication are all trends that have moved from interesting concepts that could shape the future of field service to ground-breaking developments that are being adopted and implemented today. The market for IoT may appear slow and appetite is not quite as advanced as it should be, something ServiceMax CIO Scott Berg agrees with and refers to in our interview in this issue, but it is there and some companies are already embracing it fully.

One of those companies happens to be Elekta, who as well as being thoroughly set for remote diagnostics and the Internet of Things have also successfully implemented an excellent means of sharing the knowledge stored amongst their engineers across their entire global network. Yet another example of connections being of the utmost value. This knowledge sharing program not only has the benefit of improving engineers efficiency, it is also a powerful tool for the Service Desk who are able to in turn improve the leves of service they are giving to Elekta’s customers.

Whilst Elekta’s focus has been on knowledge sharing across their network, Pitney Bowes focus has been on connecting their disparate working processes across Europe. An equally daunting task and one where yet again the objective is to attain maximum connectivity between divisions, locations, and countries. Such a task is always going to be a significant challenge, but when some of your countries are operating on manual processes and others are using a whole plethora of different systems that cannot connect ot each other, it really requires a methodical approach, and a team with the vision to see the whole operation holistically.

The way Pitney Bowes approached their task was a blueprint to success and there are many key learnings that could be applied to companies of all sizes.

 

And in these two features we find yet even more connections, and deep lying ones too...

For both of these examples were presented at recent Service Community events and whilst that connects the two in one way, it also leads us to The Service Community which is a perfect example of the power of connections. After the sad loss of founder Steve Downton, The Service Community’s future was far from certain, but the mantle has been picked up by fellow members of the community (expertly marshaled by Chris Farnarth) and through the exchange of ideas from one set of connections to another the community continues and it continues to be something very special. A community run by service executives for the service industry. You’ll find no sales pitches and advertisements at a Service Community event, just excellent presentations and the opportunity to widen your network of connections amongst your peers.

And the Service Community connects me neatly to the final part of this leader, where I wish to focus on this months special report, The #FSN20 - The twenty most influential people in field service.

For there are a few of the prominent members of The Service Community sat amongst this elite band of 20. The response we had from you our readers on building this list was fantastic, so thanks to each and everyone of you who made nominations. Of course we had to whittle the list down and we have tried to take a fair minded approach that was reflective of the many different corners of the field service industries. The good thing is even if you don’t agree with our final twenty it means you are thinking about who should be in there.

Which means we have acheived our objective - to get people thinking about all the good things going on in our industry today. We’ve also included twitter handles for each of the #fsn20 so you can follow them and further your connections yet another way!

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According to a Juniper Research report published in the latter half of 2014 in-vehicle apps are anticipated to reach almost 270 million within the next four five years. This increase, more than five fold on last year’s figures – is a clear indication that the hotly anticipated arrival of connected vehicles is here.

With smartphone major players Apple and Android both launched their vehicle specific version of their OS in the first quarter of last year, (CarPlay and AndroidAuto respectively) the report predicts uptake will be fairly rapid with report author commentating 

 

However, whilst in the consumer realm the usual suspects were sharing the headlines in the world of enterprise telematics there was one company that were storming ahead of the pack when it cames to integrating their technology into commercial vehicles. That company was Telogis.

Across the summer of last year Telogis were busy confirming and announcing a raft of key strategic partnerships including Hino Trucks, Volvo and Ford.

The Hino partnership resulted the HINO INSIGHT 2.0 which was developed as part of Hino’s ongoing strategy of building an offering that gives their customers a much improved total cost of ownership (TCO), including better vehicle uptime and user experiences and will be a standard fit on 2015MY Hino 195h and 195h-DC hybrid models, and as an option on the 195 and 195-DC models and the full conventional truck product line-up.

Indeed Telogis seemed to be on a mission to establish themselves as a part of the furniture in the road haulage industry, with the US based organisation now also bringing built-in compliance, telematics and navigation services to Volvo Trucks customers in North America.

Volvo customers are able to access Telogis’ services via smartphones and tablets, leveraging Volvo’s integrated connected vehicle hardware, standard on new Volvo-powered Volvo trucks.

In commercial trucking’s evolving legislative and regulatory landscape, Telogis’ offerings for Volvo Trucks help drivers and back office teams manage FMCSA compliance and keep drivers safer by delivering electronic log tools and routing information that is specifically designed commercial drivers.

“We’re pleased to collaborate with Telogis to deliver tremendous value to motor carriers seeking flexibility and the robust information needed to fine-tune their operations,” said Göran Nyberg, president, Volvo Trucks North American Sales & Marketing.

“Leveraging the connectivity of our vehicles to facilitate fleet management services represents a breakthrough for fleet managers, who are no longer captive to hardware. As part of our long-term strategic focus, we’ll look toward further integration of our vehicles with best-in-class fleet management solutions.”

 

And it is not just in the HGV arena that Telogis have been working, their agreement with Ford is related to their transit vans – the vehicle of choice for many a mobile worker.

Telogis are the exclusive technology provider behind Ford Crew Chief, the light-duty commercial telematics solution that comes factory-fit in Ford’s lineup of 2015 Transit vans as well as its complete line of commercial light-duty trucks.

As the agreement was announced Bill Frykman, manager, business and product development at Ford Motor Company commented

“Ford Crew Chief, another example of Transit’s smart features, complements the Transit line by helping customers save money through fuel management, and more effective route and work planning; keep their drivers safer by understanding and coaching driver behavior; and improving overall operations by getting a big-picture view of maintenance, location and productivity.” 

With many other manufacturers also implementing similar agreements to incorporate the latest technology into their vehicles in 2015 (Audi are including Android Auto whilst Mercedes and Volvo are committed to working with both Android Auto and CarPlay) it seems that the connected car is definitely on its way.

What may take a little longer but is continuing to develop along a steady path, is the driverless vehicle.

 

With Google having already demonstrated their prototype of a self-driving car which the technology giants described as ‘a vehicle without a steering wheel, gas or brake pedal - because they don’t need them’ the futuristic concept of robot cars is on it’s way.

While the current prototype can only go as fast as 25 mph, the promise for the future of fleet management could include better route and fuel efficiency, safer driving, and giving field service engineers the ability to answer email and work while on the road.

For urban fleets, the vehicle could even drop the field tech off at the service location, go find parking for itself and then be summoned to pick the tech up once the call is finished.

And to further speed up the development the University of Michigan is teaming up with top carmakers and tech companies to create the first closed test track in the United States for connected vehicle technology.

Dubbed "M City," the 32-acre testing facility is being built in Ann Arbor, Mich. to "test vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communications in safe, realistic scenarios”

That's the first step in an ambitious plan by the university to "blanket all of Ann Arbor with a V2v and V2I network, including autonomous control,"

Whilst connecting the college town with enough infrastructure to allow self-driving cars to dominate the streets and roadways will take several years. The university and its partners are aiming to complete the transformation by 2021.

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Upgrading a service management system can be a challenge, but unifying and upgrading multiple systems across a continent? Here’s how Pitney Bowes approached the task…

Service management software has evolved and the benefits of moving to a modern next generation system are well documented. But what are the considerations that need to be factored in when changing systems? And what about companies that have evolved multiple systems across various regions?

One company who recently went through this process was Global Franking Machine giant Pitney Bowes as they sought to both standardise and upgrade their systems across the whole of Europe.

"We started with different service systems across Europe that had become built up across the years which that didn’t talk to each other” Andy Beer, Director of Service & Postal Market Development explained at a recent Service Community event.

Of course this is an issue for any organisation that operates across multiple divisions, with differing centres of operations. And whilst it may not be impossible, it certainly makes it harder to identify company wide trends, swiftly enough to act on them with any great effect.

“We had six or seven different systems that we had built up across Europe and in fact in the Nordics we were still using a paper based model similar to when I started with Pitney Bowes in the 80’s” continued Beer before describing the Nordic system “whereby our engineers would come into the office in the morning, go to a big rolodex and pull out their cards for the day, come back and write it all up.”

With such disparity it was clear for Pitney Bowes the direction they needed to take.

“Our number one goal was to give us one platform across Europe so we could then report on our key performance metrics, whatever that may be and do it on an international level.” Beer explained

“We looked at our existing systems and to upgrade us from the platform we were on and to add in other companies we needed, would have required and investment in a little over a million dollars, so it wasn’t a decision that we were going to take lightly.  We weren’t going to just say give us the upgrade, give us version 2. We wanted something more for that.”

Quite rightly so as at level of cost whilst the right solution could lead to significant added insight into the operation of the company and ultimately large potential savings, get it wrong and it would be a costly mistake. As it turned out even this level of investment would have failed to deliver the requirements that Pitney Bowes had identified as key to their needs.

As Beer explained further “even with that investment we still wouldn’t have a web front end, which we were looking for, and we would still be beholden on either the suppliers of that system or our own internal IT department to help us write reports.”

“We felt we were looking in our rear view mirror an awful lot and it wasn’t just what was immediately behind us that we were looking for, it was sometimes looking months behind us before we could actually start to get reasonable reporting, so we definitely needed to change”

With field service experts from all quarters exalting the importance of data this was another area that Pitney Bowes were acutely aware that their current system wasn’t empowering them as much as it should be.

“Data is important but when you have tons of it and you can’t sift through it, when you can’t find an easy way to get meaning from the data, then you’re just hamstrung by it.” Beer outlined before adding further

“When I say about looking in the rear view mirror, visibility of particular production or productivity metrics were very low and it was then very difficult to manage either individual engineers, based on their metrics, or build that up into a team of engineers, or into a country, let alone build that up across a European view.”

“The pain we went through to change reports, even just to tweak things slightly” Beer recalls before pausing a moment with a wry smile.  “ When your running the operation, you want to be able to see everything at a whim, you don’t want to have to be beholden to an IT group or a vendor to be able to give you something you think you might need. “

This is perhaps the fundamental difference between, the last generation of service management software and current systems. In this data driven age non-technical people are used to accessing highly customised reports with ease, and often depend on this ability to do their job.

As Beer points out “The thing is, as operational people we think we need to see an awful lot of stuff but then may stop and look at it and think ‘Do I really need that after all?’ but we need to see it first to make that call.”

Other considerations that were key for Pitney Bowes were that their new solution had to be able to integrate with Salesforce, as this was their chosen CRM and also that it to be Cloud based.

Outlining their thought process Beer added “Our existing systems wasn’t cloud based and we absolutely knew that our prime need was to move to the cloud, we didn’t want to have the hassle of owning the system, we wanted instant upgrades where available and instant fixes where available. “

“Essentially we wanted to future proof our investment.”

With the plethora of service management solutions on the market selecting finding a solution to meet their needs was always going to be possible, although dependent on a robust evaluation process. However, selecting a solution to meet these needs was one thing, implementing a solution across such a complex mix of territories another.

The approach required needed to involve all of the key stakeholders.

“We knew we were beholden to IT in our previous systems, we didn’t want to be in that position now but we also knew that they couldn’t not be involved.” Beer explains

“So we had two phases of the project, the first one was business and operations led. We picked a team of people from across Europe that came together and then spent five or six months getting really deep into what we had and what we thought we needed moving forward, and putting together a plan to get to from one to the other. Once we had that we engaged with IT”

“We wanted to the establish how we could integrate what we had into other systems, interfacing with the vendor and outlining what we saw as our business and operational requirements and then asked how readily available those were.

“We took this approach knowing that the more you fiddle around the edges of what your vendor can offer you the harder it comes to manage going forward”

Beer further expands on the practical and pragmatic approach by adding

“Nirvana is to take something off the shelf in PC World, type your code in and bang the following morning you’ve got a system, real life is not quite as beautiful as that, we know that, but the more you can avoid trying to tweak the edges of a vendors system and what it does to try and make it fit with your processes the better.”

It is through taking such a measured approach of understanding not only needs and goals but also limitations, and building the flexibility to overcome any limitations through adapting processes, that Pitney Bowes have been achieve the massive challenge of unifying disparate systems across a continent, and it is an approach worth considering for any company considering upgrading their existing system.

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