AUTHOR ARCHIVES: Kris Oldland

Rugged comes in many different flavours from Business Rugged to Ultra Rugged. In the latest feature in our Rugged Decoded series Kris Oldland takes a look at each of the main different classes of rugged devices and outlines what level of rugged is right for your field technicians...

As we continue our series looking at the various elements that define what makes a rugged device rugged, and try to decipher what the various alpha numeric codes and other associated technical jargon actually mean in reality, we now turn our attention to perhaps one of the most confusing areas of terminology – namely rugged definitions.

So let’s take a broad look at what exactly companies mean by the terms semi-rugged, business rugged, fully rugged and ultra rugged, highlighting examples of each asset class, and their possible use cases.

Business Rugged:

The business rugged device is the first entry into the rugged sector, although business rugged devices essentially offer little more protection and reliability than a consumer device in protective casings. Generally business rugged devices are designed for travel use, but are not sealed and prepared in the same manner as a semi-rugged or fully rugged device.

A business rugged device will have shock mounted hard disk drives and magnesium casings, to protect them from light drops and knocks but they are not waterproofed and sealed. They can survive a small fall, but not necessarily a drop of greater than 18 inches.

They do, however, tend to have the most flexibility of rugged devices when it comes to style and performance, since a greater range of parts can be used as part of their design. A business rugged device is a generally regarded as being geared towards traveling executives and other people who will be on the road often, but who will not be using their device as part of fieldwork on a regular basis. Therefore business rugged devices are not ideally suited for most field service roles.

Semi-Rugged:

A semi-rugged device is a standard notebook, smartphone or tablet that has been adapted to rugged use.

Semi-rugged devices will have gone through a process known as ruggedization. This will includes giving them a magnesium case, a shock or gel-mounted hard disk drive, and a spill-proof keyboard.

Such devices are able to withstand reasonably high and low temperatures ranges, however they may suffer a decrease in performance in those environments. For example, the gel in the screen might freeze at very cold temperatures, reducing visibility for a short period of time.

Semi-rugged devices are still very good for travel and outdoor use, and are best for people who travel often and need to occasionally work outside, but who don’t want the higher cost of a fully rugged laptop.

Therefore, they can be a good option for field engineers who are largely working in indoor client sites, such as those working in office based maintenance and repair sectors like print services, vending machine repair or IT infrastructure.

Fully Rugged:

A fully rugged device has been designed from the ground up with one overall purpose in mind: to be able to function anywhere, even in outdoor, dusty, or extreme weather conditions.

Each component is carefully weatherproofed and sealed to prevent salt, sand, moisture, or other environmental hazards from affecting it. The screens are specially designed to reduce glare, making it possible to use the device outdoors and in bright sunlight.

These devices can typically withstand freezing temperatures and heat up to 120 degrees Fahrenheit and are able to still function without a significant reduction in operating performance in a greater range of temperatures than a semi-rugged device.

Fully rugged devices will also generally have been tested to MIL STD 801G which will include drop testing across numerous different angles from a set height, which means that the device is capable of withstanding most drops and knocks likely to occur in a a field service engineers day.

Fully rugged devices are ideally suited for field engineers working outdoors and in more challenging environments such as those in utilities, construction, oil and gas or anybody else who is likely to need a computer outside and in an extreme working environment.

Ultra Rugged:

Ultra rugged devices are the most rugged devices available. They are tested to be able to withstand even greater drops, be fully submersible and impervious to dust ingress and are essentially able to operate within the most inhospitable environments on Earth with little to no reduction in operational performance.

Generally for most field service requirements ultra rugged devices are perhaps a touch of overkill as they are generally designed primarily for military use, however, field technicians working in environments such as deserts or at sea including oil rigs might also want the uncompromising reliability that an ultra rugged device can provide.

 

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What happens when two IT giants using different versions of Tesseract’s service management software decide to merge? In 2015, IT solutions provider XMA found out by embarking on a major systems amalgamation with Alan Sugar’s company Viglen.

In late 2013, Alan Sugar, business veteran and star of hit BBC TV show The Apprentice, decided to sell major PC builder Viglen to XMA’s parent company, Westcoast Holdings. Westcoast took the decision to dissolve Viglen as a corporate entity but allow the Viglen brand to endure as part of XMA.

XMA uses Tesseract’s service management software to govern its print services division, namely the installation and maintenance of printers and photocopiers under tailored, all-inclusive printing and copying contracts. Viglen uses Tesseract’s software to manage the production of its PCs, as well as all warranty and maintenance contracts offered with them. At the time of the takeover, XMA and Viglen were using two different versions of Tesseract’s software, both of which were out of date.

A skill set overlap

As the two companies came together, XMA realised that it now had two customer service desks with a major skill set overlap. One was at the XMA head office in Nottingham. The other was at the former Viglen head office in St. Albans, which has remained the centre of operations for Viglen PC production and maintenance since the takeover. (Famously, it’s also where the BBC films the ‘walk of shame’ sequences on The Apprentice.)

“In terms of dealing with customer support requests, we found that our agents in Nottingham were using the same skills as our agents in St. Albans,” says Vaughan Tyas, IT Manager at XMA. “The problem was having two very different Tesseract systems to look at. We decided that we needed to rationalise this so that agents in both locations could take calls for printer maintenance and PC warranty and maintenance.”

 

This was the main reason why XMA saw fit to merge the two Tesseract systems and bring all the data for XMA and Viglen under one umbrella.

A step up from the old systems

As a result of the Tesseract merge, XMA still has two service desks across two sites, but they share a unified service management software system. Each site now uses a single toolset to record calls, diarise and dispatch engineers, dramatically improving efficiency.

Furthermore, XMA was able to upgrade to the latest version of Tesseract’s Service Centre, SC5.1. Previously it was using SC5, while Viglen was using the much older SC4.2. The upgrade to SC5.1 has brought a range of improvements, including enhanced task automation and a new user interface with simpler navigation. Unlike previous versions, SC5.1 is also completely browser-independent, allowing users to run the software on any browser on any device.

Still, the biggest benefit for XMA is the Advanced Program Interface (API) that comes with SC5.1. Previously, Viglen was relying on a variety of bespoke mechanisms to allow Tesseract to communicate with other Viglen systems and pieces of software. These mechanisms were created by Viglen using old, inflexible technology and could not be developed or evolved. This restricted the company’s ability to upgrade its service management software and was largely the reason why Viglen was still using SC4.2—originally released in 2001—at the time of the takeover.

 

These outmoded systems integrations have now been removed and replaced by the flexible, Tesseract-supported API that is built into SC5.1, which means all the integrations are maintained in-house by Tesseract.

“The new API is so much more versatile than the bespoke integrations we had before,” says Vaughan Tyas. “It means we’re no longer in a cul de sac if we need to upgrade again.”

What were the challenges?

The biggest challenge XMA faced when embarking on the Tesseract merge and upgrade was dealing with the data from the two systems. In particular, each system had different serialised product and service codes for the same actions. These codes needed to be the same in order for XMA to use SC5.1 as one unified system.

To accommodate, Tesseract was able to implement a data translation algorithm to synchronise the codes and bring the two systems in line with one another.

How have things improved? 

Now that the systems merge and upgrade is complete, XMA has seen a substantial rise in operational efficiency and productivity.

Staff are no longer working two systems, dramatically cutting back on time and manpower, and the company doesn’t need to over-resource to make sure it has agents who know how to use each system. In addition, SC5.1’s new and improved functionality has made a number of the company’s processes quicker and easier.

 

“The other good thing is that for our agents, it’s just business as usual,” says Vaughan Tyas. “The implementation was smooth and the training was easy, because they were all so familiar with the previous Tesseract systems—and SC5.1 is even more user-friendly than those were.”

 

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Foothills are using the StaySafe app and hub to monitor the safety of their field service technicians.

Foothills provide servicing and maintenance to the oil and gas industry in Alberta, Canada. Working with a number of clients, technicians travel to various sites to carry out construction, calibration and general maintenance of control systems, facilities and equipment.

Working in the oil and gas industry means that technicians regularly enter environments where chemicals and other hazardous substances are present. As well as the usual risks such as slips, trips and falls, field service technicians face the risk of explosions, fires, burns and chemical poisoning.

Accidents related to these risks can be fatal.

In fact, 74 workers providing support services for the oil and gas industry, lost their lives in 2012. Many of these fatalities were caused by fires and exposure to harmful substances.

 

Foothill’s technicians often travel to sites alone or in pairs. The business recognised that if an accident were to occur, they needed a way to quickly locate their work alone employees and send medical assistance straight to them. Receiving immediate medical assistance reduces the severity of an accident and in some cases could mean the difference between life and death.

Foothills were previously operating a system in which employees were calling and texting to update their employer on their location and safety status. If, however, an employee could not be reached, there was no way of knowing where they were. Even if their last site location was known, some of the sites they work on are vast and locating them could take too long.

The business began looking into more robust systems with GPS tracking, check-ins and panic being key features in their search. When they came across StaySafe, they realized the solution had all the requirements they were looking for.

 

The ability to check-in during set intervals was important to the business as it allows them to keep an eye on the safety of their employees. StaySafe allows you to chose the length of check-in intervals within the hub. For those working in high risk industries, shorter intervals mean that even if an employee cannot panic when in trouble, you will be alerted through a missed check-in alert.

But what was particularly interesting for Foothills, was the ability to bring up the hub and view all their employees’ locations on screen. They tested the location feature during a trial and were satisfied with the level of accuracy StaySafe provided.

Greg Saunders from Foothills comments, “StaySafe is a great tool with lots of really useful features. If an employee panics or misses a check-in and can’t be contacted, not only can we now locate which site they are working on, but also where they are on the site.

Work alone legislation in Canada requires us to provide an effective communication system and check-in facilities suitable to the nature of the workplace's hazards. We felt our old system just wasn’t meeting these standards so implemented StaySafe as a way to meet our duty of care. We are now confident that if an accident does occur, we are able to locate our employees quickly and respond appropriately.”

 

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Field Service News is pleased to announce the three winners of our latest research prize draw!

Congratulations to the following Field Service News readers:

• Martin Higgins,Retail Service Controller, William Hill
• Sorin Anghel, Service Detection Department Manager, Draeger Safety Romania
• Pieter Taljaard, Head of Field Service and Support, T-Systems South Africa

Our team will be in touch with these lucky three readers each of whom receives a £50 Amazon Voucher!

If you want to be included in our next research prize draw all you need to do is take a few minutes to complete our current survey on IoT, Servitization and Field Service.

The survey should take no more than a few minutes to complete and all those that complete the survey are given the opportunity to submit their details to enter into the prize draw (only applicable to Field Service Professionals, terms and conditions apply.)

If you want to take part then click the link below and complete our latest survey now!

 

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Click here to take part in our research on IoT, Servitization and Field Service and enter our latest prize draw now

 

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Manuel Grenacher, CEO Coresystems takes a look at how crowdsourcing could potentially be a revolution in delivering field service as and when it’s needed...

Imagine a customer calls your customer service line and says he has a problem with his router. He wants someone there to fix it, and he wants them there yesterday. They’re upset because they’ve called your office several times for the past few months requesting service.

Your dispatcher tells the customer that the next available appointment is in two days. Your customer starts screaming at the dispatcher saying that it is unacceptable to have such a long wait time for an appointment.

In a world where a ride can be ordered on demand and Amazon will deliver almost any product you want the same-day you order it, customers’ expectations for the type of service they want to receive from businesses continue to grow more demanding. And timeliness and flexibility often come high on the list of customer desires, even if field service companies did not initially consider these things to be customer priorities. Since field service customers’ hopes are now through the roof, there should be a new way of delivering on-demand field service to meet those high expectations.

Creating an enjoyable customer experience is important for the success of any field service business. To create this experience, field service organizations must prioritize coming up with strategies to deliver instant service that’s fast, personal and predictive.

Service should be more predictive

Gone are the days of waiting around for machines to break, then sending field service workers to the rescue at the next available appointment time. Because of IoT sensors and smart machines, preventive and predictive maintenance are what customers want. Field service workers should be able to predict machine failures and stop problems before they occur, therefore preventing downtime. The pros of predictive maintenance are numerous.

A study conducted by the U.S. Department of Energy, found that predictive maintenance results in a 35% to 45% reduction in downtime and a 20% to 25% increase in production within the oil and gas industry.

Field service software enables predictive maintenance by collecting and analysing data so service visits can be planned ahead of time.

Predictive maintenance means no more unnecessary truck rolls. Service appointments are scheduled only when needed; at times when a machine has been predicted to fail.

On-demand field service workforce

No matter how an organisation decides to enable predictive maintenance, predicting service needs to be accompanied by a scalable workforce. In order to dispatch field service workers on demand, companies can use crowdsourcing platforms like Mila. The company builds service crowds of pre-vetted, trusted, and qualified technicians who are ready to provide service at a moment’s notice.

For example, Swisscom, a major telecommunications company, is already using this external on-demand workforce consisting of vetted individuals (Mila Friends) and professional service providers (Mila Pros) to help customers with setting up their Wi-Fi, troubleshooting or explaining new products. Having these kinds of workers means they can give customers service that is quicker and more flexible.

The Mila Crowd is most often active in the evening during the week or on the weekends, outside of regular office hours.

More flexible and faster service

In the past, companies have relied on dispatchers to fill their technicians’ schedules with appointments for the day or week.

However, this type of scheduling means all of your workers may be booked up if there’s a spike in problems or customer requests at a certain time. Additionally, if there are certain times of year that are more demanding for your business than others, this style of dispatching can cause long customer wait times for appointments.

By using an on-demand workforce, companies can react to customer requests more efficiently. Workforce-as-a-service also means field service organisations can save money, since they are able to scale their services without having to invest in hiring and training new full-time employees.

Provide more proactive service

Have you ever been at a restaurant and needed a napkin, silverware, or ketchup to eat your food, only to have your server appear out of nowhere and deliver those items? How amazing does it feel to know your server anticipated your need and gave you something you wanted and needed without you having to ask for it?

Customers now prefer service that stops problems before they occur. By implementing preventive and predictive maintenance, companies are no longer just being reactive. Being proactive means offering individualised service and personalised help to customers with consideration for their specific needs.

It also means customer engagement is higher since companies no longer have to wait for customers to come to them with a problem. Field service workers can monitor IoT-connected sensors and smart machines send notifications when a failure is going to occur.

Being proactive, rather than reactive is a better way to run a field service business in today’s market. And workforce-as-a-service makes this possible.

 

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Despite different operating models, companies from all over the globe can benefit from an aggregated approach to field service mangement writes Marne Martin, CEO ServicePower

We know that differences exist country to country, industry to industry, company to company.  One of the benefits of working with some of the largest brands in the world is that you get a great feel for the latest trends and best practices.  You also get a front row seat in watching academic strategy and real world operations collide.

A great example of this is corporate moves toward global applications and business management platforms.  Sure, the philosophies and strategies behind the initiatives are sound but they can sure conflict with reality….big time.

Take the US and UK as an example.  Both are English speaking nations with many similarities in culture, religion, music and brands.  However, pick a service and industry – managing OE warranty or extended service contract fulfilment for white goods.

 

The US relies predominately on independent service contractors, requiring at least 1,500 a 5 hour difference across time zones. This requires greater network management and field leadership, and call centre coverage and software to manage a wide range of brands, products, skills, selection, and status updates. It also requires a robust claims adjudication software that is highly efficient at preventing fraud and overpayments but easy enough to manage efficiently and pay claims quickly.

The UK is vastly different. With 1 time zone, it requires only 50-200 contractors, and fewer when manufacturers employ technicians.

Improved response time and greater efficiencies have pushed the industry to adopt what ServicePower calls a ‘mixed labour model’ wherein ‘job sources’ like manufacturers, service contract administrators, retailers, and even insurance companies, utilise some percentage of contracted labour, in addition to employed labour, to deliver upon customer commitments.

In a perfect world, those job sources deploy technology to manage the contractors, intelligently determine if an employed field resource or a contracted resources is the best option (based on parameters), dynamically dispatch the highest ranked contractor, secure job updates, adjudicate claims for services provided and finally, pay the independent contractors, and get feedback from the customer.  This model varies by industry and local parameters, but can work to drive value for both customers and field service organisations the world over.

In North America, those job sources, let’s call them manufacturers for simplicity’s sake, have consolidated all jobs which require independent contractor delivery onto aggregated software platforms, like our own ServiceOperations. Aggregation onto a common platform leads itself to additional economics of scale and advantages to drive the customer response times and productivity measures that enable a field service operation to be efficient.  This is much more than a mobile dispatch platform.

In that aggregation model, the job sources dictate that all contractors performing work on their behalf are first credentialed, and then invited to set up profiles- the who, what, where and when they can deliver services, then receive and manage work orders and finally file claims on a single software platform.

 

This dramatically streamlines contractor and warranty management. For the contractors, this aggregated approach also increases adoption and reduces overhead costs because a high volume of their daily workload comes from a single platform, which in many cases is integrated with the field service management software they use to manage their own operations.

ServicePower has even gone so far as to offer an end-to-end, cloud based field service management software, NEXUS FS^TM, already integrated with ServiceOperations, to further streamline contractor operations. We also provide Optimization on Demand^TM, enabling contractors to maximize the productivity of their field representatives, much like large enterprises do with our ServiceScheduling product, on demand, rather than in real time.   So the effect is very much a ‘push’ to the platform from the party responsible for paying for the service.

In the UK, the model is slightly different.

Those same manufacturers, that meet their obligations in the UK generally through the retailer or service contract/extended cover providers, typically have a high percentage of employees to perform ‘branded service’. So, whereas in the US, the manufacturers have forced aggregation onto the marketplace, pushing work to contractors, in the UK, the manufacturers are on the receiving end of work from multiple job sources, in multiple different ways.  However, manufacturers suffer from the same inefficiencies and increased overheads based on dealing with faxes, emails and numerous home-grown dispatching systems, as the third party contractors suffered from in the US till the early 2000s.

 

Regardless of the differences in each country’s model, this same fundamental aggregation model has immense value to the UK market, perhaps ever more related to filling capacity in employee bases. Consolidation on to innovative platforms that are easy to use has real value for continued growth in adoption by the field service industry.  For job sources dispatching service on a particular branded white good, the manufacturers have begun to dictate that all work orders come through a single platform, ServiceOperations.  And this can be expanded to other product segments, whether home health care equipment, IOT sensors, electric car rechargers- you name it.

The aggregation model works because a single integrated software enables the manufacturer (or retailer or third party administrator) to receive, confirm acceptance, provide status updates and in cases where they require supplemental contractor coverage, dispatch work to their own preferred independent contractors, paying for services rendered.

This model is a very much a push to the aggregation platform from the party responsible to the consumer, and not necessarily the obligor.

The true benefit of an aggregated dispatching model is the ability to aggregate work orders or jobs from a variety of sources, improving operational efficiencies and reducing costs, for every member of the service delivery chain, from the job source, the retailer or extended cover provider in the middle, to the consumer at the end.

 

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The Internet of Things is set to continue to dominate conversations around technology and service delivery in the next few years as providers begin to standardise platforms - research from Berg Insight reveals...

According to a new research report from the M2M/IoT analyst firm Berg Insight, the global third party Internet of Things (IoT) platform market increased 36 percent to €610 million in 2015.

Growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 30.8 percent, revenues are forecasted to reach € 3.05 billion in 2021. There is a wide range of software platforms available, intended to reduce cost and development time for IoT solutions by offering standardised components that can be shared across many industry verticals to integrate devices, networks and applications.

Most IoT platforms available on the market today can be categorised as being a connectivity management platform, a device management platform or an application enablement platform, although there are many products that offer overlapping functionality or other unique features.

Many enterprises and organisations have already been involved in various machine-to-machine (M2M) deployments that have typically been characterised by customised solutions deployed within single industry verticals, or by one company, to improve existing business operations.

IoT puts more emphasis on integration of sensors, devices and information systems across industry verticals and organisations to transform operations and enable new business models. “IoT furthermore aims to facilitate a better understanding of complex systems through analytics based on data from diverse sources to assist decision making, improve products and enable entirely new services”, said André Malm, Senior Analyst, Berg Insight.

Whereas connectivity and device management platforms have already reached comparatively high adoption, the market for application enablement platforms (AEPs) is in an earlier phase. AEPs typically provide functionality such as data collection, data storage and analytics. Fully featured platforms also provide tools, frameworks and APIs for creating business applications featuring data management, event processing, automated tasks and data visualisation.

Many platforms also provide tools and ready-made libraries and UI frameworks that facilitate modelling and creation of interactive applications, workspaces and dashboards with little or no need for coding. “The AEP segment is seeing considerable activity in terms of acquisitions and new market entrants”, said Mr. Malm. After PTC acquired ThingWorx and Axeda, other major software and IT companies have followed.

Examples include Amazon that acquired 2lemetry, Autodesk that acquired SeeControl and Microsoft that acquired Solair.

Other leading IT companies that are extending their service offerings to include IoT platforms – often focusing on analytics and machine learning – include IBM, SAP and Oracle. “As a group, AEP vendors primarily face competition from system integrators and companies that develop similar functionality in-house”, concluded Mr. Malm.

 

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Kirona a leading field service mobilisation company, have announced it has been selected as a G-Cloud 8 Digital Framework supplier.

G-Cloud 8 is the latest version of the framework agreement from the Crown Commercial Service (CCS) which supports the UK Government’s policy to centrally manage the procurement of common goods and services through an integrated commercial function at the heart of government.

The G Cloud Framework can be used by organisations across the UK public sector including central government, local government, health, education, devolved administrations, emergency services, defence and not-for-profit organisations.

 

“We are delighted to have been awarded G-Cloud 8 supplier status by the Crown Commercial Service,” said Neil Harvey, CTO at Kirona. “This is testament to the strength of our offering and the quality of our team. The G-Cloud framework provides government organisations with the ideal marketplace to purchase high quality, cost-effective services. We are looking forward to new opportunities presented by the framework and to helping more government organisations improve their productivity and service.”

As a G-Cloud 8 Digital Marketplace approved supplier, Kirona will offer software as a service, including its Job Manager mobile application to enable delivery of data and services to field resources to carry out their job efficiently, eliminating paperwork, speed up job completion and support data capture on a range of platforms and devices. Kirona’s Xmbrace Dynamic Resource Scheduler provides intelligent appointments and dynamic scheduling of resources or assets.

 

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Find out more about Kirona in the Field Service Directory

 

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ClickSoftware, a leading provider of field service management solutions for the enterprise, recently announced that Aragon Research, a technology-focused research and advisory firm, has recognised the company as a 2016 Hot Vendor in the Internet of Things (IoT) category.

Each year, Aragon Research selects Hot Vendors -- across multiple industries -- that continue to push their respective fields' boundaries into new ways of experimenting with techniques and strategies to improve business. ClickSoftware was one of five selected in the category of IoT.

ClickSoftware develops software for use by the field service industry, to maximise productivity and improve customer service. Its software contains advanced decision-making algorithms that helps managers optimise business practices, complete more service calls per day, and arm field service professionals with the information they need to delight customers. Aragon Research recognised ClickSoftware, an early adopter of integrating IoT functionality into its platform, for its ability to go "beyond the current approach to field service" and traditional scheduling functionality.

 

"The rise of IoT is forcing change in business models, and the Field Service industry is no exception as the need to make all workers productive is the current business imperative," said Jim Lundy, founder and chief executive officer, Aragon Research. "ClickSoftware is innovating by leveraging IoT to deliver a solution that's truly impactful and helping solve some of the most sophisticated service challenges today."

"We are honoured to be recognised by Aragon Research as a Hot Vendor in the Internet of Things category for 2016," said Tom Heiser, chief executive officer, ClickSoftware. "Our inclusion in this report validates our commitment to providing the most advanced Field Service Management solutions on the market and demonstrates that our technology is instrumental in advancing the power of IoT in the field service industry."

 

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Find out more about ClickSoftware in the Field Service Directory here

 

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