AUTHOR ARCHIVES: Kris Oldland

Kris Oldland reflects on whether a two speed approach to staff development is the way to deal with the transitory nature of millennials...

In the endless talk about the shift from the retiring baby-boomer workforce and the incoming Millennials, I as a representative of that overlooked, unforgotten middle child, poor old Generation X, would like to just take a moment to point out that we often tend to get left out of the conversation. Now, don’t worry, this isn’t going to be an article of self-pity - that’s just not the way us Gen-X folk roll.

Nope, we are the generation that just rolls our sleeves up and gets on with it.

Unlike our Baby Boomer parents and elder siblings, who were able to indulge in free love whilst turning on, tuning in and dropping out, that greatest consumer generation of them all, who spent every dollar they earned as they lived solely in the now, those of us in Gen X, got up off our backsides and went and got a McJob to see us through college before generally fixing the ‘Boomers mess and creating the easy gig that the Millennials got to inherit.

You know sometimes history can be a cruel mother to the middle child.

The Millennials are the first generation to exist in a time of huge technological advancement (and it’s subsequent impact on society) since the industrial revolution. Therefore, quite rightly, we should factor in such significant change when considering how we attract, develop and retain them within the workforce. All I ask, is just occasionally, spare a thought for us poor oft overlooked Gen Xers who have been quietly making things tick over for a long time now.

I mean, OK they might be the first google native generation, and the internet as we know it today may have been invented by a ‘Boomer, but it was us who terraformed the world wide web from the frontier town of the early nineties to the sprawling global metropolis it is today. You’re very welcome.

All of the above is of course said firmly with my tongue in cheek. Crikey, technically, I’m actually dangerously close to being a Millennial myself having been born in ‘80 - technically I think that makes me a Xennial - meaning I’m more down with the kids than my elder Gen X brethren, but still remember the sheer agony of pre-app dating, and the terrifying wait on the phone to see if it was your intended date who picked up, or her rather more hostile father.

And whilst, it is of course fun to pick on both ‘Boomers and Millennials alike from my lofty Gen X pedestal, there is a actually a serious point to be considered here.

Sure, there are plenty of things that we should be considering when the difference from one outgoing generation to the incoming generation within a workforce is so pronounced. I know, I’ve certainly spent plenty of time writing and talking about the topic in the past.

For example, ‘Boomers wear the knowledge they have earned through study and experience like armour. The deeper the knowledge, the stronger the armour - as the more invaluable they become to an organisation.

Millennials on the other hand, see knowledge as an easily accessible resource, always readily available and on demand through a couple of taps and swipes on the phone in their pocket.

"They are the first generation to exist in a time of technological advancement since the industrial revolution..."

‘Boomers viewed career paths as fairly straightforward, linear progressions. A ladder to be climbed, with progress being in steady increments, one rung at a time. Millennials, are as inclined to move sideways, often into a different industry entirely, and research by Deloitte showed the average time a millennial intends to stay in a job is just two years.

Another huge difference is that whilst financial remuneration always played a key role in ‘Boomers career aspirations, Millennials value the societal impact of a company and will look at soft factors like company policies on diversity, inclusion and flexibility, equally if not more so, than just money itself.

So yes, there undoubted differences between the two. And yes to reiterate such changes should be considered when talking about talent recruitment, retention and development. However, it feels to me that if we reassess things to radically within our internal procedures, we may be at risk of losing what I believe is the utmost important thing for any business to maintain if they want to be successful. An Inside-Out perspective.

Remember, as much as Millennials are our new/future workforce, they are also our new/future customer base.

It is obviously thus, highly important to acknowledge what makes this generation on the whole, buy into a brand - green carbon neutral policies for example carry as much wait in this age, as a cheesy celebratory endorsement would have back in the 80s. In doing so, and by being a company whose values Millennials can buy into, you will enhance your recruitment success. But one caveat here is it needs to be led from the top and be genuine.

Millenials have an inate ability to smell BS from distance.

The other issue I see with sweeping generalisations of a generation, is that by treating Millennials as a monolith, we may be at risk of overlooking the individual - and in field service in particular, the individual is often the star of the show.

This creates something of a duality that we must overcome and I suggest doing so by adopting a two pronged approach to our workforce. On one hand we need to acknowledge and embrace that many of the Millennials that come through the workforce may be just ‘passing through’ and invest in the technologies such as AR and knowledge banks, technologies which can make them as productive as possible, as quickly as possible. Here, we want a workforce with a shallow but broad skill set that can then be supplemented via remote assistance by experts with deeper knowledge when neccessary.

Simultaneously, we need to identify a number of career paths that enable those individuals who buck the trend of being part of a transitory workforce (and beyond the hyperbole there are many out there believe me) to grow within your company. Tap into the gamification instincts that are almost embedded in the root directory of Millennials by attaching gravitas, kudos and continual learning to roles where deep experience is built upon.

Ideally, such a two-tiered structure will ultimately allow you to utilise the emerging gig economy or contingent labour sectors - giving you flexibility within your staffing that could potentially be a major benefit to your P&L. A win-win all round. Alternatively, you could just ride it all out until the Gen Z cavalry arrives to quietly save the day just like us Gen Xers did for the ‘Boomers.

For a long time we’ve been focused on getting the right engineer, to the right place, at the right time - but without the right parts getting there as well it all becomes a moot point. It is time we turn our efforts to parts management writes Kris Oldland...

OK, so when it comes to your Field Service Technicians, you’ve reduced their time on the road between jobs, helped them to grow into a role of true trusted advisors and empowered them with access to all the knowledge they could need at the tap of a screen.

In fact, your already exploring how augmented reality could help you bridge the gap between experience and demand as well. Yet, a seemingly perennial problem still haunts you and your KPIs.

A problem that frustrates your customers, your technicians and you as a manager. You know where I’m going here right? The technician is on time, highly knowledgeable and determined to help, but it all falls down when he realizes he isn’t stocked with the part he needs to complete the job.

So the front line of your business, the key brand ambassadors within your company are all too often left sinking in unsatisfactory excuses as disgruntled customers lose faith in your ability to deliver on the service you promised when they signed up.

Suddenly all of that value you’d created through field service management technology investments and extensive training processes is being lost due to insufficient part availability. It’s an all too familiar challenge and one that can seriously damage a companies reputation in the short-term and it’s revenues in the long-term.

But the good news is that resolving these types of customer issues and experiences is perfectly feasible. In fact, technologies exist for this very purpose – service parts management and scheduling solutions interacting together to ensure that when your technician arrives to the right place at the right time, they have the right part to keep your customers happy and encourage repeat business.

Solutions specifically built for the service business, with all of its challenges around low-volume, ‘justin- case,’ intermittent availability, rather than for high volume, predictable, ‘just-in-time’ throughput. Service part inventory networks are complex – a part may go through central warehouses, distribution centers, regional stocking locations and secure local collection boxes along its journey to a technician’s vehicle.

Oftentimes, technicians will end up being over-stocked, causing unnecessary restocking at the warehouse. Standard parts inventory solutions are simply not designed to handle such complexity and in an area that can have such a dramatic impact on the success of your service operation, it is prudent to opt for a solution designed to be fit for purpose. In addition to this, many organizations have followed a trend initially driven by brick-and-mortar retailers, who took the brunt of the shift we’ve made as a society at large towards online shopping, which is to provide spare part stocking locations to bridge the physical gap between technicians and end customers.

In one study, The Service Council identified that over half of all service attempts fail because of not having the right part, and even when the right part is available companies are not maximizing the revenue correctly because they are not pricing correctly due to a fundamental lack of visibility into their inventory across the whole service supply chain.

"Technicians will end up being over-stocked, causing unnecessary restocking at the warehouse..."

 

 

 

But remember, the greater the complexity, the greater the potential for improvements in efficiency. This is particularly true of the highly complex nature of the service part supply chain. Once routing and scheduling have been optimized, further benefits can only come from other processes within the service ecosystem, and service part inventory management, with its potential to reduce costs across multiple echelons within the supply chain, can deliver quick gains. The fundamental question is ‘Why should you accept failure in your service supply chain?’. Or perhaps more crucially, ‘How much longer can you continue to do so?’ 


But remember, the greater the complexity, the greater the potential for improvements in efficiency. This is particularly true of the highly complex nature of the service part supply chain. Once routing and scheduling have been optimized, further benefits can only come from other processes within the service ecosystem, and service part inventory management, with its potential to reduce costs across multiple echelons within the supply chain, can deliver quick gains.

 

The fundamental question is ‘Why should you accept failure in your service supply chain?’. Or perhaps more crucially, ‘How much longer can you continue to do so?’ Oftentimes however, the current systems in place across the after sales service supply chain are not fit for purpose. If this is an accurate description of your own organization, I turn and say that the time for change is upon us all to make this a key area of focus within our sector. There will of course be resistance from those who believe the traditionalist approach works, those who see good enough as acceptable. If it ain’t broke, why fix it, right? But accepting mediocre service standards, is rapidly becoming a fading standard of the previous century.

 

Mediocre in today’s world of increasing customer expectations is, frankly, failure. And of course, failure within business is ultimately intolerable and should not be accepted by neither business leaders or their customers - and increasingly it isn’t. Indeed, there finally seems to have been a quite perceptible shift in the number of companies beginning to pay attention to the importance of good parts and inventory management.

 

Manufacturers around the world are waking up to the fact that the market has changed - from the volatility in the orders of durable goods, to millennials taking over the workforce, to the movement of ‘power by the hour’, there is great opportunity to be had and many organizations have identified that, in the area of parts and inventory management, there is actually a huge amount of low-hanging fruit that can see some big wins, delivered fairly quickly and painlessly.

 

This is changing the way businesses approach the value of parts and indeed service. It is one heck of an exciting time to be in the field service business because all of these economic, social and political changes are driving the attention onto the new era of service-centric business which has emerged across the last decade, as we embrace the emergence of the various new technologies pushing us forwards. 
We are seeing futuristic concepts such as Drones, 3D Printing, Augmented Reality and Autonomous Vehicles enter the wold of field service. And whilst each of these have admittedly been on the horizon for what seems like a very, very long time as we talk of their potential and the promise of industry revolution, the fact is that these technologies are all now beginning to come to some form of maturation.
For while, talk of revolution and rapid change may sell products, conference tickets and dare I say it, even magazines - the truth is that in the world of business at least, real meaningful change always comes across a long period of smaller, incremental iterations. The fact is now that we are approaching the point where various technological, administrative and logistical kinks have been worked through and ironed out in small test cases and viability studies and most of the technologies I’ve listed are sufficiently robust that they are becoming established conversations in the mainstream of our industry.
However, the changes we are seeing in our sector are not just driven by technology alone. Sweeping demographic change within the workforce, accelerated by the aging workforce crisis being faced by companies across the globe and being exacerbated by the unprecedented differences between the incoming Millennial generation and the outgoing Baby Boomers, is of course another factor driving industry evolution forwards.
These changes are leading us into a world where we are making a shift to a much more service and outcome orientated society as a whole - something I would suggest is the result of this generational shift in tandem with the technical advances referenced above and is at the heart of why we are seeing companies turn their entire business models on their head in favor of a more customer-centric, service focused revenue models.
Servitization has gone from fringe concept to buzzword across the last few years as talk of ever decreasing SLAs and increasing First-Time- Fix rates has morphed into discussions around guarantees of uptime and the financial impact of unplanned downtime. At such a point of great industry evolution, it is essential we have our core foundations that we are to build service excellence upon, firmly in place. As an industry we seem to have our heads firmly in place when it comes to the old mantra of the getting the ‘right engineer, to the right place, at the right time.’
But without being able to get the right parts there as well it all becomes something of a moot point. Quite simply if field service organizations are going to be able to embrace the brave new world of servitization and preventative maintenance, then parts management needs to be given the same emphasis as mobile workforce management. Once we have that sorted then in terms of pushing service to the fore of industry, it’s game on.

 

The promise of IoT has been vast and they hyperbole around it’s impact on field service delivery are massive – but is it actually living up to the hype and what more should we expect? Kris Oldland discusses...


The early hype and industry trends

The story of IoT’s rapid rise and how it went from the top of the hype cycle straight to a standard part of industry is now well documented. Indeed, across the last two years, I don’t think I can recall a single service executive I’ve met whose organization isn’t at least seeking to implement some layer of IoT connectivity into their field service operation - many are already far down the path.

 

On the surface, it certainly seems that IoT is living up to its billing as “the most over-hyped technology in development today” a moniker which heavyweight analysts Gartner applied to it not too long ago.

 

Back in the misty past of 2014, the official line from Gartner was that IoT was ‘five to 10 years from actual productivity.’ Back then IoT was riding the crest of the “peak of inflated expectations” within the analyst’s much loved, if slightly overly poetic, hype cycle.

 

So as we hit the closest limits of that prediction perhaps now is a good time to establish if IoT is still on track to revolutionize the world, and in particular field service, as Gartner and others - including myself, so boldly predicted.

 

Back in 2014, it was a lack of standardization in the area, as well as the changing nature of the technology itself, which Gartner identified as part of the reason why widespread adoption was further away than its promoters at the time may have thought.

 

“Standardization (data standards, wireless protocols, technologies) is still a challenge to morerapid adoption of the IoT,” wrote Gartner’s Hung LeHong.

 

“A wide number of consortiums, standards bodies, associations and government/region policies around the globe are tackling the standards issues. Ironically, with so many entities each working on their own interests, we expect the lack of standards to remain a problem over the next three to five years.”

 

Indeed, within field service this has become something over a common theme as we have seen the technology move from an embryonic to fledgling state.

 

It was interesting to note for example IFS’s approach in the area was not to develop a specific propitiatory IoT solution as some of their peers in the field service management arena, such as PTC and ServiceMax had veered towards, but instead opted to bring to market an IoT connector, that was able to plug the gap between whichever IoT protocol an organization favored and their field service platform.

 

This type of approach, of providing some form of sorting house for various data formats has since been impressively taken up by the like of Microsoft and others also - and may well point to the where the future lies for field service companies leveraging IoT in the future.

How IoT is being adopted and outlining connected field service
Before, we can assess if IoT is as yet hitting its potential as a fundamental bedrock for twenty first century field service, perhaps we should take a moment to look at some of the key areas in which it will be applied.

As with almost any technology that makes it at the corporate grade, the first thing that everyone gets excited is the financials.

For a long time the dual challenge for field service operations has been the seemingly incompatible tasks of improving CSAT levels and reducing costs. For those service directors trying to manage this impossible equilibrium, early talk of the magic bullet of IoT would have sounded like a divine panacea, with talk about how IoT could improve both profitability and customer relationships, being at first whispered in hushed tones, before being shouted loudly from the roof tops when the first few actual cases studies started to emerge.

Within these case studies there were invariably four key areas of success:

Automation
Rather than the customer having to report problems, IoT-enabled devices can automatically contact the technician directly with specific details of the issue. The technician can then arrive with knowledge and parts to immediately solve the problem.

Reduced Inspections
Devices capable of self-diagnosing issues and reporting on performance, not only reduce the need for customers to contact technicians, they also cut down on the amount of inspections required to solve an issue.

Inventory Management
IoT-enabled devices that require servicing or new parts, now automatically flag these issues to technicians for attention. Alongside this, technicians can also connect directly to the warehouse for instant, real-time inventory data to check whether the parts needed are in stock.

Redefine ‘Service’
Rather than simply fixing devices that already have maintenance issues, IoT is enabling serviceproviders to see and solve customer problems before they even occur. This is thanks to real-time performance data that can signal when parts are on the verge of needing replacement or interpret the signs of potential maintenance issues. A case could be made for how each of the first three of these developments could be considered something of a revolution within the field service sector. Machines that can self diagnose their faults, order the parts they need to remedy the problem and arrange for a human co-worker to come out and make the necessary repairs all sound like something from the future - and even better it is a nice happy Jetson-eque vision of the future, rather than the bleaker dystopian version that sells Hollywood movies. However, it is the fourth of these points, i.e. Redefining Service, where perhaps the true potential of IoT is uncovered.


The fundamental role IoT is playing in servitization.
In a world of exaggerated hyperbole, it is perhaps only natural to dismiss the talk of a fourth industrial paradigm that accompanies the discussion around Servitization as overegging the pudding somewhat.

At the risk of sounding like a bad pastiche of industry journalist though, I think that such talk is actually pretty much on the money. I do however, think there is there is a long way to go before we get there - and for me IoT is the fundamental technology that is required for a company to fully move into a servitized business strategy.

Wait! I here you cry, Rolls Royce, MAN UK, Caterpillar - they were all doing servitization before the IoT was even an apple in its developer’s eyes.

This is of course, very true, but at its essence all IoT has simply done is make the bespoke telematics of true innovative giants such as those listed above (and the other handful of pioneering poster boys of servitization) available on mass scale. Power by the Hour is all about the data, as is the IoT.

A simplification perhaps, but one that is founded in truth and whilst the move towards preventative maintenance, that is commonly mentioned in the same breath as IoT, isn’t servitization, it is a fundamental step towards the strategy - which is one that is becoming more and more prevalent in almost all vertical sectors. 
Great Expectations:
So to answer the question in the title of this article - yes, I believe that IoT is so far living up to its potential as a revolutionary game changer within our sector. That said, I don’t think it is greedy to expect even more. As ServiceMax CEO Scott Berg discussed in a recent interview with Field Service News, there is certainly more to come from IoT in terms of the way field service companies are leveraging it.  
“I think what needs to happen now, and where the real value will come from IoT, is when input from a machine can be fed into more predictive models using Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning. Only then we will get truly predictive services, and only then will you get a learning model rather than an alert system.”
He commented. Essentially, I think Gartner got their 2014 timeframe pretty much spot on. Five years on from that prediction and we are now generally seeing fully functioning IoT systems in place quite commonly amongst field service organizations, but I think it will be at least a further five years before those systems mature to become close to their full potential.
The analogy of PCs in the workplace comes to mind. For those companies who embraced early DOS systems, they gained an important head-start on their peers who stubbornly ignored that particular wave of technological innovation. Yet, by the time Windows 95 had emerged the technology was not only pretty much universal but had become ingrained into the fabric of industry at all levels.
Expect the same of IoT in 2025.

 

 

Serial tech entrepeneur Elon Musk, who has been central in a number of innovations that have reshaped human civilisation such as PayPal and Tesla has entered the world of field service...

However, as with anything Musk appears to turn his hand to he is not just entering the market as also rans but with the aim of being true industry disruptors. His new organisation FixET is incredibly set to become the first extraterrestrial third party maintenance provider from the planet Earth. 

Musk, who revealed his latest venture, on a surprise appearance on the Joe Rogan podcast late last night, has often expressed his belief that humans will soon grow beyond the Earth and via his SpaceX organisation is playing a pivotal role in making that happen. But whilst Musk often positions himself as something of a loveable, mad genius, this outward persona often belies a business man who has an uncanny knack of seeing market opportunities years before his peers - and it appears this is very much behind the thinking of his latest venture, basically to dominate a market of 'space maintenance' whilst it is in its very, very embryonic stages. 

"Well, if you think about it, it makes perfect sense" Musk commented on the Rogan's show, the most popular podcast in the world, which Musk had also appeared on previously. 

"Whilst it might not be the most headline grabbing sector, field service and third party maintenance is actually what keeps everything else working. Without field service, all other industries would fail. Now, the thing is, I have a vested interest in the burgeoning space industry because of Space X, and I also have a good understanding of service via both Tesla as a provider but also The Boring Co as a recipient of field service in a really heavy industry environment." 

"So, the space industry will invariably need an ancillary field service sector as it grows, to provide that essential layer of support, and right now there was no-one better placed to do it, so I thought, yeah why not."  

It also emerged during the discussion that Musk's new business is already at a deep level of negotiation with the US Defence Department to provide ongoing maintenance support for not only NASA (who Musk's SpaceX already have a close working relationship with) but also the newly formed US Space Core, which President Trump announced last year alongside the creation of a new division of Space Marines. Our sources at the White House were unable to give an official confirmation on this, but an unnamed source commented "This could be the biggest field service contract in the entire galaxy". 

 

 

 

In the first of a four-part series of excerpts from an exclusive fieldservicenews.com video presentation Kris Oldland, Editor-In-Chief, Field Service News, is joined by John Hunt, Managing Director, EMEA, Astea discuss the findings of a recent research project Astea worked together with WBR to produce looking at the key trends amongst service-centric manufacturers.

In this initial episode, the two discuss that whilst 37% of companies are mostly or entirely product sales driven, in fact, 45% are seeing product revenue decline, but 75% claim that service revenue is increasing.

 

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Berg Insight presents a unique database covering the 350 largest cellular IoT deployments identified as part of the company’s world-class IoT market research activities since 2004.

The extensive list includes various types of projects and product categories deployed across all types of vertical markets including aftermarket automotive, fleet management & MRM, healthcare, OEM automotive, retail applications, smart homes and buildings, utilities, wearables & consumer electronics as well as industrial M2M and other. The database includes project size and geographical distribution by the end of 2017 as well as a 5-year forecast for each individual project.

“The projects included in the top-350 list together account for approximately 214 million active cellular IoT subscriptions”, said Rickard Andersson, Principal Analyst, Berg Insight. He adds that this corresponds to as much as 33.0 percent of the total number of cellular IoT connections worldwide at the end of 2017.

The 350 projects on the list are in the coming years forecasted to grow to 521 million units by 2022, corresponding to an overall compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 19.5 percent. “More than 40 deployments on the list have surpassed 1 million subscriptions and the top-10 projects alone account for over 80 million units”, continued Mr. Andersson. Fleet management & MRM is the largest vertical in terms of the number of projects that made the top list, followed by retail applications, aftermarket automotive and OEM automotive as well as smart homes and buildings.

When comparing the number of active subscriptions represented by each vertical for the entries in the top-350 list, OEM automotive is instead the largest vertical, accounting for 46 million units, ahead of utilities at about 34 million units and fleet management & MRM representing 31 million units.

Download report brochure: The 350 Largest Cellular IoT Projects Worldwide

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In an age of servitization and advanced services, spare parts management has become something of a difficult beast to fully grasp for many companies who are offer aftermarket services.

For example, in a world of guaranteed up-times, the cost of failure to keep an asset running can often far outweigh the lost revenue from the sale of the replacement part needed to get the asset back up and running and fully functional again.

Yet, the path to servitization is not an easy one to tread - so is it worth cannibalising what for many service companies is a reliable, consistent and strong revenue stream in its pursuit?

Whichever route companies ultimately turn to, one thing is certain, spare parts management is going to be a crucial aspect within the service delivery sector and as with mobile workforce management, there are a number of technologies and innovations that are emerging that could change the way we approach parts management in the future.

Therefore it was with great interest that we took a look at the insights from a recent research project undertaken by Copperberg. The research was conducted online across the last month primarily to Copperberg’s own audience of conference delegates.

In total the there were 65 responses to the survey and these representatives were all professionals within the sector ranging in seniority from parts managers through to Managing Directors - although the main body of respondents were at the division head/director level on a national scale.

The majority of respondents were from Europe although other regions, including China, were represented. The respondents were largely from manufacturing verticals, which would be anticipated given Copperberg’s flagship event the Aftermarket Business Platform is also a manufacturing dominated event. However, there were a number verticals within the manufacturing sector represented including heavy machinery, medical and automotive.

So let us take a brief look at what trends the research revealed...

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Inventory Management:

Inventory Management sits at the heart of good parts management as without the ability to track components and parts at any given time as they move from depot to the field (and potentially back again depending on a companies approach to repair and reverse logistics) everything else within in the equation becomes open to inaccuracies and subject to guesswork.

Indeed, the importance of inventory management appears to be hugely important within the organisations represented within Copperberg’s research with 91% of the respondents ranking it as being either four, five or six on a scale on to six with six being very important. In fact, almost half of the respondents (43%) listed Inventory Management as very important (6) - further emphasising the significance of inventory management in the context of spare parts management.

So it is absolutely shown to be clear in the research that the focus on inventory management remains one of utmost importance for the vast majority of companies.

 

Parts Pricing and eCommerce:

Parts pricing is also another area that was unanimously outlined as being important to the survey respondents.

This is particularly interesting as the fact that so many companies still view parts pricing as being highly important to them could be viewed as an indicator that the revenue streams that come from spare parts sales is still very much a critical part of the aftermarket landscape.

In fact, 86% of respondents stated that they felt parts pricing was at least a four on the same scale as listed above, however, here it was just under a third of respondents (32%) that felt this issue was very important.

eCommerce is of course another area that is heavily linked with parts pricing and there are indeed some correlations between the two areas, yet in terms of responses, eCommerce remains somewhat less of a priority than pricing.

With regards to eCommerce, exactly two-thirds of the respondents (66%) listed it as a four, five or six with only 16% seeing it as being very important (6).

This is quite an interesting difference between the two as we might have anticipated these results being more closely aligned.

One assumption, however, may be that with regards to eCommerce the solutions have now matured and so most manufacturers in 2018 may have at least some form of eCommerce solution in place - perhaps this explains why it is viewed as less of a priority?

This is certainly though an area for further discussion - something that will be surely had at the Copperberg Spare Parts Business Platforms which are running in Q1 next year.

 

Digitalisation:

Digitalisation is the key buzzword of the last few years although given that it encompasses a number of important shifts within the current evolution of business processes this is perhaps to be expected and there is no denying the importance of digitalisation within the field service sector and it is also a major consideration within the closely related function of parts management as the research reveals.

Digitalisation was ranked was 71% of the respondents to the Copperberg survey as being listed as either a four, five or six on their scale of importance, with 22% of respondents listing it as a six i.e. very important.

This places digitalisation as being deemed to be not quite as important to the respondent base as Inventory Management and Parts Pricing but more important than eCommerce.

What is interesting to note here is that these two very specific niche challenges seem to be in some-ways the eternal, perennial headaches of the sector, whilst broader, business-wide concerns such as digitalisation are possibly more likely to appear as an issue to overcome in the short-term which in themselves could lead to improvements in other areas - such as improved inventory management for example.

Which leads us neatly into...

 

3D Printing & Artificial Intelligence:

Two perfect examples of exciting new technologies that are emerging would be 3D Printing and Artificial Intelligence (AI) - with one set to play a hugely significant role in the niche of spare parts management, whilst the other will play a broad role in almost all sectors, including spare parts management.

So how do the industry experts who made up the Copperberg respondent base see each of these exciting technologies impacting the spare parts management sector?

With regards to AI just over a third of respondents (35% ) thought it would be important to some degree (again listing it as either a four, five or six).

However, less than a tenth of the respondents (9%) felt that AI was currently very important for them.

In terms of 3D printing, surprisingly the numbers were even lower.

In fact, less than a third of companies listed 3D Printing at a four or higher and only 8% of respondents felt that 3D Printing was very important in the sector currently.

 

Parts Logistics:

One area, however, that was overwhelmingly listed as being important within the field of spare parts management across the next 12 months was that of parts logistics.

94% of respondents listed parts logistics as being at least a four in the scale of importance with over a third (35%) going on to state that they felt parts logistics was important enough to warrant being listed as a six.

This makes parts logistics one of the most important areas in the spare parts sector across the next twelve months according to this respondent base, although Inventory Management is very important to more companies.

 

Conclusions:

The results of the survey bring us some interesting conclusions - particularly when we stand them alongside the trends we are seeing from within the field service sector.

Of course, field service and parts management are two leaves on the same branch with deeply symbiotic relationships between the two.

Yet, from this research at least, it does seem that many of the forward-looking discussions we have been having within the field service sector, particularly around emerging technologies such as AI, IoT and Augmented Reality as well as the wider topic of servitization as a strategy for business growth - may be further down the line than their equivalent discussions with our spare parts colleagues - and in some companies that may be significantly so.

Perhaps, part of the reason for this is that parts management is a highly complex beast with a huge amount of moving parts (literally) and even if solutions such as inventory management systems have been put in place it may take time for the benefits there to be truly felt.

However, the simple fact is that no matter how efficient field service management is - it all falls out of the window if parts management is poor - and this is perhaps the greatest learning from the research - that the focus of professionals within the parts management sector currently remains on efficiencies - and for that, we in field service should be hugely grateful.

 

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Want to know more? Click here to Visit Copperberg's website to register for an exclusive white paper based on this research!

 

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OnProcess Technology, a global pioneer in service value chain optimization, today announced OPtimize a digital transformation service leveraging predictive analytics to improve post-sale business outcomes.

Building upon OnProcess’ domain, AI and automation expertise, OPTimize enables businesses to drive unparalleled gains in service revenue, cost savings and customer experience.

“Post-sale service is vital to OEM and service provider success. Not only does it drive customer loyalty, it accounts for the vast majority of a business’ profitability. Many companies struggle with managing the fine balance between revenue, cost and customer experience, and more often than not, one or two get sacrificed for the other. When that happens, business suffers,” said Mike Wooden, CEO, OnProcess Technology. “OPTimize enables OEMs and service providers to streamline critical business processes and maximize those three service components. We make it possible for businesses to unlock new levels of post-sale value.”

“Service Council’s research has benchmarked thousands of service leaders over the years, highlighting how top-performing organizations (Service Champions) combine a holistic approach to out-performance; establishing a balance between operational and customer-facing commitments to yield commercial business success,” said John Carroll, CEO of Service Council. “OPTimize is positioned to solve service and executive leadership’s conundrum of finding an equilibrium between what has long been considered adversarial forces: profit, cost and customer experience. This is an exciting release and OnProcess is a vendor to watch.”

OPTimize provides the visibility, intelligence, automation and exception management required to improve the service value chain, from sales order management, remote triage and inventory management, to field service management, fraud prevention, warranty management, and even end-of-life services. Using OnProcess’ proprietary real-time control tower, predictive analytics and award-winning solutions, OPTimize ensures the precise balance of revenue growth and cost to serve reductions, with an optimal customer experience within your post-sale service value chain.

• Reduce Cost to Serve: Clients dramatically reduce capital expenditures, minimize operational costs and improve efficiencies throughout their post-sale services.
• Grow Revenue: OPTimize speeds time-to-revenue, reduces revenue leakage and boosts customer retention, all of which result in greater post-sale revenue.
• Enhance Customer Experience: Clients eliminate needless triage cycles, improve service quality and resolve customer issues quickly. Service events are transformed into productive, positive engagements that consistently meet and exceed customer expectations.

Click here or email sales@onprocess.com for more information about OPTimize.

 

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