AUTHOR ARCHIVES: Kris Oldland

As telematics specialist Microlise launches  Clear, its new driver coaching and behaviour app developed specifically for field service organisations, Kris Oldland discovers his inner White Van Man and realises that not all stereotypes are true…

UPDATE: SINCE THE PUBLICATION OF THIS EVENT REVIEW MICROLISE AND FIELD SERVICE NEWS HAVE TEAMED UP TO REPEAT THE DAY FOR FIELD SERVICE NEWS READERS.

DUE TO THE NATURE  OF THE EVENT SPACE IS LIMITED SO CLICK HERE TO REGISTER NOW!

When we hear the phrase “white van man” it doesn’t always conjure up the most positive connotations: a red top paper somewhere on the dashboard, an arm hanging lazily out of the window and, worst of all , reckless driving with little care for other motorists all fit into the traditional stereotype.

However, the white van driver is not only at the heart of the field service industry but also at the heart of the UK economy as well.

“Over the last few years there has been a meteoric explosion in the white van market. From September 2014 to February 2015, 150,000 vans were registered in the UK” stated TV presenter and author Quentin Willson. Willson was opening an event hosted by telematics specialist Microlise at the Milbrook Technology Park to launch its Clear telematics solution for field service.

“Bringing in £35Bn to the UK economy the idea of White Van man being the spine of the UK economy has been embraced by government.” Wilson continued underlining just how significant a role the White Van Man has in the British economy as the UK continues to rebuild it’s status as a leading financial power following the economic downturn and double dip recession of recent memory.

And of course for those companies who operate these vehicles, there are huge potential savings to be made from improving driver behaviour, to ensure that fuel economy is at an optimum whilst vehicle degradation remains at a minimum.

Service engineers are drivers too

This, essentially, is what Microlise’s Clear is all about: helping coach our field engineers into being better drivers in order to reduce costs.

 

This in itself isn’t a particularly new concept, of course. Telematics companies such as TomTom, Telogis and Fleetmatics have been raising this point and aiming their products at field service companies for some time now. It’s a busy market as it is so is there space for another telematics company toeing the same line as everyone else?

What do Microlise bring to the table that differentiates them from their competitors and peers?

Well for a start they have an extremely strong pedigree in the haulage sector, where they are very well established with fleet operators and truck manufacturers. The annual Microlise Transport Conference is the biggest transport conference in the UK with over 1,000 delegates attending this year’s event held at the Ricoh arena.

Secondly, Clear is aimed specifically at field service companies and is actually a very slick piece of kit indeed.

It is designed with compliance and safety at the forefront, with built-in vehicle walk round checks to both increase fleet uptime and safety standards. There is a comprehensive reporting suite that provides management with insight into utilisation, productivity and compliance in terms of work patterns and HMRC tax requirements.

 

The Clear launch event included interesting presentations from associations including the FTA and the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency which both highlighted the looming burden to van operators of having to meet the stricter servicing and roadworthiness compliance regime that already apply to HGV operations. (Given the fact that almost half of all vans fail their MOT first time this could, arguably, be merited. However, it would likely prove costly to both operators and government alike.)

We also heard some excellent case studies from facilities management giant Interserve and pay-TV providers Sky.

The road ahead is Clear

After a morning of we had the chance to test out Clear first hand which of course meant getting behind the wheel of a van ourselves. Our challenge was to complete the Alpine course as close to the optimum time of seven minutes, with as few driving faults as possible. The course which was apparently model on a section of road actually in Alps, certainly provided a challenge, with hairpin bends, heavy cambers and steep inclines combining to make a route that certainly demanded attention.

Stepping into a brand new Ford Transit van provided by co-sponsor Hertz , I admit I felt a sudden rush of nerves. I’d only ever driven a van once and that was not long after passing my test and I’ll readily admit that on that particular occasion I found myself quickly living up to the stereotype as I hogged the middle lane of the M40.

How would I cope on what those who had gone before me described as a tricky track? Was I about to have all my driving weaknesses laid out bare in front of me? Fortunately it seems that, like a good wine, I’ve improved somewhat with age and whilst the course itself was tricky I managed to get around with a respectable B from Clear’s rating system in a not too shabby 7 minutes and 37 seconds.

 

With my dignity secured I could now spend some time with the coaching side of the app to understand better how it works. With my recorded data transferred I was ready to see where I went wrong and was duly handed a tablet (the app is available on both IoS and Android) to have a look through the low points of my run.

The app itself had a nice intuitive interface and I was impressed with how quickly and easily I was able to drill down into data such as fuel efficiencies, carbon emissions and of course dangerous driving elements such as over steering and harsh braking.

And as I looked through my reported errors, I was advised on where I went wrong by none other than Ben Collins, AKA the Stig, the former racing driver who know makes his living perform insane stunts for the movie industry.

Whilst our group were each getting their specific feedback there was also an opportunity to see the back end of the system at work, as it comfortably managed our ‘fleet’ of 30 or so delegates and fed back data in real-time.

The reporting suite also gives field service managers valuable information on fleet utilisation and productivity, delivering additional operational benefits, whilst real-time vehicle tracking gives fleet managers the insight to understand the location and operational status of every vehicle in the fleet.

Clear field service benefits

“Clear will deliver huge benefits to organisations operating fleets of vehicles” commented John Mills, Head of Mobile Workforce Telematics at Microlise. “The product has been developed with the specific needs of these organisations in mind, and we’re excited to be working in such a dynamic space.

“Whilst telematics solutions are traditionally centred on vehicle tracking and driver performance, Clear comes complete with a range of other features that will help field service organisations to be compliant in terms of HMRC reporting, DVSA regulations and in-house vehicle safety standards. Comprehensive task management and communications further enhance efficiency and service levels.”

As well as highlighting driver faults in real-time, Clear also offers easy access reporting. I could very much see how self coaching via smartphone or tablet helps improve engagement and education of our field workers. And such a tool could be very powerful means of communicating to our engineers that they are indeed professional van drivers as well as professional engineers.

In fact,  perhaps one of the biggest challenges of improving the driver standards of our field engineers, could possibly be convincing them they are professional drivers in the first place.

 

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WANT TO EXPERIENCE THE DAY FOR YOURSELF - INCLUDING DRIVING A WHITE VAN AND PERSONAL DRIVING TIPS FRPOM THE STIG?

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Coming soon: More on the importance of convincing field engineers they are also professional drivers.

 

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Like any other industry, the world of the casino has had to adapt to the many trends and changes in which new technologies offer a range of options for maintaining, supporting and implementing operational activities. ClickSoftware explores how the role of field services will change.

With global gambling revenues rising to over $450 billion in 2014 the industry is clearly still massively profitable. And with changes in legislation that have helped deregulate a lot of red tape that previously inhibited the casinos' activities, it looks like global gambling will soar in the future.

However, such expansion provides new challenges and new opportunities for the industry. And from the simple field service operations of maintaining existing casino operations, to adapting to the new digital challenges offered by cloud-based gaming platforms, there are many questions as to how the role of field services will play in this new and exciting future.

A highly knowledgeable and ever-ready team of field service operatives must be on hand to provide support for the vast array of potential problems that could occur. Traditional casinos are massive operations that require a great deal of skill and forethought in how to maintain and operate the wide range of functions that the businesses provide. In terms of the actual gaming activities that are conducted, a highly knowledgeable and ever-ready team of field service operatives must be on hand to provide support for the vast array of potential problems that could occur.

Not only do many casino establishments operate on a 24 hour, seven days per week basis, but the sheer quantity of gaming options can often present a headache to the field service engineer. With even the simple slot machine requiring a great degree of specialisation, it's incredibly important for teams of field service engineers to be able to share technical information via mobile devices that can aid maintenance under tight deadlines.

 

Similarly, with a range of other activities being conducted under a casino roof ranging from entertainment, catering and hospitality, the field service operations will also be under a great deal of pressure to implement productivity software with dynamic scheduling so that knowledge is shared and activities can be aligned in these huge business operations.

As casinos operate with a highly visible 'front-of-house' operation, it's therefore highly important that any field service activity is conducted in a discreet and professional manner with the minimum of disruption to the business' activities. As such, mobile apps run on compact devices are the most effective way for field engineers to stay connected in this demanding situation.

And conversely, the mobile environment has also infiltrated the traditional casino format massively in recent years. The advent of online casino sites hosted by Chipzup have revolutionised the way in which customers can play a massive variety of games remotely through websites that offer lucrative prize winnings from the convenience of a smartphone or tablet.

 

As such, the field service aspect of this changing relationship between customer and industry will be adapted to become specialised in the digital and technological side of gaming operations.

This is especially the case with the rise of cloud-based gaming that promises to allow people to enjoy streamed high-end games direct to their device. Such a method of playing games threatens to revolutionise the traditional console-based activities as the actual game will be stored, executed and rendered on a remote computer that streams live-video action of the game to the player's device.

This method of conducting gameplay could revolutionise the online casino experience as players will be able to enjoy a much wider variety of games from different systems regardless of what device they actually own.

And with the recent news that Sony had purchased the defunct cloud-gaming site OnLive, it looks like big business will be stepping into this exciting new area of gaming potential. Whether this will result in a centralising of operations remains to be seen, but it will undoubtedly result in a much higher technological adaptation on behalf of field engineers to keep servers running and ensure that connectivity between the customer and business doesn't suffer.

Despite all of the changes that are taking place in this rapidly growing and hugely popular industry, the key concepts of field service operations must stay the same however. So clear communications between operatives through the use of rugged hardware and mobile devices that take advantage of cloud-based support will all have to be implemented and sustained in order to ensure the smooth running of the modern casino environment.

 

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The great and the good of the service management industry came together at this years Service Management Expo held in London's Exel and Field Service News was at the hear of the action hosting the FIeld Service Solutions Zone.

Here we speak to Dan Lancaster of Telogis about the importance of telematics in field service...

 

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The world of academia and industry came together at the end of May to discuss the latest theories and trends in servitization at the Aston University Spring Servitization Conference. Held in the purpose-built Aston conference centre in the heart of the University and hosted by the Aston Centre for Servitization Research and Practice, the conference holds a unique position within the servitization community in bringing together representatives of both academia and industry. Kris Oldland was there.

Aston's own Professor Tim Baines is widely considered by many to be one of a handful of people at the very top of this field and he was joined by academics from across the globe from Helsinki, to Tokyo, from Hangzou to Glasgow. Industry was also well represented with companies of all sizes in attendance ranging from third generation family-run Nicklin Transit Packaging through to blue chip companies such as Air France and Goodyear.

“The purpose of the conference is best expressed as three objectives,” explained Baines. “Firstly, to bring the researchers in the field together to really consolidate the knowledge base around servitization, so where are we today with servitization.”

“Secondly it’s to bridge theory and practice, to bring practitioners into the mix, talk about their experiences and let the academics learn from that and vice versa.”

“And the third thing is possibly the most important of the three: it’s all about community building. All too often that the community of servitization is disparate and fragmented, this conference is about bringing the international community together to share their experiences on servitization, their research on servitization.”

 

There certainly was a genuine buzz of community throughout the two days, which was greatly enhanced by the format itself. With no less than forty presentations being presented across two days the danger of death by PowerPoint ran higher here than at most conferences. However, the ten minute rule – strictly enforced by Baines and his colleagues - kept everyone on their toes and the sessions were well supported by a slick app which allowed for feedback and questions for each presentation. This added a good interactive element which kept the audience involved throughout.

The advantage of so many presentations, of course, is that there were a phenomenal number of talking points being generated from each session, so as we made our way to the networking coffee breaks each time the courtyard area was full of debate and discussion.

Whilst servitization is indeed gaining a lot of traction at the moment, it remains an unknown area for many or at best an area of confusion for others. In it’s simplest sense servitization is the shift from a traditional transactional manufacturing approach (whereby we build a build a product, sell it and then offer some form of aftermarket service to help maintain that product for a specific period of time) to a model where we build a product in order to sell the service itself.

Sony and Telemadrid

A great example of this approach is  the brand new state-of-the-art system Sony Professional Systems Europe have just installed for Spanish news company Telemadrid, replacing an existing suite. However, instead of Telemadrid having to pay a big lump sum they are paying Sony on a pay-per-usage basis.

The benefits for Sony are that over the longer term they can generate greater profits for longer periods plus embed themselves within their customers’ workflow making customer retention far higher.

 

The benefits for Telemadrid are that they have a far more manageable cost line on their proft and loss sheets, they have access to the very latest technology and  they need no internal technicians to service that technology. Most  importantly, it is in Sony’s best interests to ensure that Telemadrid receive 100% uptime otherwise they will face severe financial penalties. Result: Telemadrid knows the service they receive will be reliable.

(For the full story on how Sony is transforming its service business  in Europe read our in-depth two-part interview with John Cooper, Head of IT and workflow Management, Europe here)

This trend will continue as more and more  companies are pulled into a servitization model by their customers. Rolls Royce’s power-by-the-hour is one of the best-known examples of the servitization model and was the direct result of American Airlines demanding such a service from the jet engine manufacturer some thirty years ago). Other companies are seeking to adopt a servitization model for reasons such as improving profits or differentiating themselves from their competition.

METSO

One company that has just made the transition to servitization is mining, utilities and recycling organisation Metso. John Cullen, Vice President of Marketing and Brand, was one of the keynote speakers at the conference and outlined how and why Metso had made the shift.

“At the moment I would say we are at the beginning of the process,” Cullen began.  “We’ve actually been going through a process of servitization within our company but it’s a journey that started some three years ago when our services unit was put into a separate division having previously been attached to the different product businesses.”

But why have they made this move? In fact there were a number of different reasons that led Metso went this path. “There were a number of different drivers for us,” Cullen stated. From a customer perspective we weren’t delivering to our customers everything that they wanted. They were looking for us to take a more active role in their business processes and support them, where we tended to be very much more reactive.”

“Secondly we already had a lot of great service products within the company but they weren’t recognised because we weren’t selling them as a servitized products. We were just coming to our customers and saying what problems do you have, we can fix it."

 

“So we really needed to change the way we were doing things from being reactive to proactive. For us, it helps our business develop new revenue streams, but it also means we deliver a better service to our customers.”

The cultural challenge

Of course such a radical shift in business strategy needs not only the buy-in from the executive level but also from all members within the organisation. Something which can prove to be a significant hurdle for companies to overcome when moving to a servitized business model.

“When we presented these concepts they’ve actually been embraced by our people but one of the challenges is that we are changing the way people do their job in everything. So what we are asking people to do is throw away maybe twenty years of doing things and look at things in a completely different way and that’s hard for anybody to do,” explained Cullen.

“It’s about a cultural shift. The positives being that people are interested, they’re eager and they do see the benefits but actually doing it but, still, changing the way you’ve been doing things is a difficult thing to do.”

 

It is, of course, a cultural shift for Metso’s clients too. It’s a big point of discussion: should companies try to roll out such an approach to all of their customers in one go or is it better to perhaps apply the Pareto principle and roll the changes out to those customers your closer to first?

For Metso the intention is to take the first approach although the reality of doing so isn’t particularly straightforward. “It’s an approach that we are trying to put out to every company but the practicalities are that we have to start with a few customers within various territories and then actually develop competence within the organisation to deliver,” Cullen explained.

“But it’s not something we want to limit,” he added, “It’s a culture and we want to change the culture everywhere.”

 

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Look out for Part 2 of this report from the Servitization conference  where we'll hear from Christian Kowalkowski of the Hanken School of Economics on how servitization has evolved over the past decade.

 

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As we continue our exclusive serialisation of Advanced Field Service’s excellent Service Manager Handbook 2015/16 edition we turn our attention to agile resource scheduling…

You are also able to download the full 40 page ebook for free by simply clicking here and completing the brief registration form

It’s simple to manage a relatively small team of engineers with a limited number of jobs. But as your business grows, so do the scale and complexity of your resources.

However, the challenge of getting the properly skilled technician to the job with the minimum of fuss and overheads is not insurmountable. So when scheduling your field resources, how can you get it right?

Optimise travel times

Typically, around half of engineers’ time is spent (i.e. lost) in travelling to the customer’s site. Escalating fuel costs mean that long journeys also eat into your profit margins.

Clearly, optimising travel times has never been more important.

When new calls come in, you need to know your engineers’ present and future locations. Modern GPS navigation, route planning software and mapping tools have changed the rules for engineer allocation, helping your engineers reach customers via the quickest and/or shortest route. Don’t assume the usual route is the best one. Stay alert to incidents and planned roadworks that are causing hold-ups.

Your scheduling system should reduce planning time by suggesting and prioritising slots in the vicinity of the engineer’s base location and/or existing call locations, as well as finding the best slot for the job in line with SLA commitments.

Track your field team

Can you see at a glance which engineers are in the area and who is best placed to answer a new call or respond to an emergency? If, for any reason, an engineer cannot gain access to a customer’s site, is there another call locally that they can be redirected to?

Knowing your engineers’ whereabouts will help you react with agility and re-plan rapidly. You’ll also be able to monitor how long they’re spending on any particular job and check whether other work needs to be urgently re-planned.

Over time, having this data will help build a record of engineers’ actual and reported locations, highlighting any anomalies that need addressing.

Combine breakdown service with planned maintenance

Do you know which customers have routine service checks falling due? Is an engineer already scheduled to attend the customer or working with another customer nearby?

Being proactive in scheduling routine maintenance jobs will free your team to handle unexpected events.

Your systems should give you the flexibility to generate service jobs when you want to and to prompt operators with information about these jobs at the appropriate time.

Hit the ground running and increase first-time fix rates

You should have the systems in place to quickly identify who has the skills and availability to take a call. Provide them with everything they need to know to get in quickly, do the job, close down and exit, including call history and technical information. Enable them to do this via their mobile device, rather than having to carry around boxes of manuals.

Needless to say, your engineers require ready access to spares and parts. Can you track your inventory so that parts can be sourced quickly – from another engineer in the vicinity, the depot or a supplier? Give your engineers the power to search for and order spares via their mobile device.

This can also assist in reducing the costs of carrying inventory on the van ‘just in case’, which ties up your capital unnecessarily.

Plan non-billable activities

Time has to be allowed, planned and incorporated into the overall scheduling process for non-job related activities such as holidays and training. You need to be able to see at a glance any potential clashes: will approving a particular holiday request make it impossible to deliver certain jobs on time? Or can delivery be achieved only by the over-utilisation of the engineer prior to or immediately after their holiday?

And what contingency plans do you have for unplanned absence or adverse weather that may prevent engineers coming into work?

Review demand against resources

Integrated planning can help manage the tricky juggling act of satisfying the customer by responding within a reasonable timeframe and keeping engineers’ and back-office staff’s workloads within acceptable limits.

Your scheduling systems should prove invaluable in managing the complexity of resourcing across all jobs and provide a holistic view over the resourcing commitments across the business, so you can see at a glance the forecasted demand on your staff and their availability to take on new work.

By being able to visualise the impact of resourcing staff into new jobs and contracts, you can assign priorities and create realistic schedules. If necessary, reschedule or reassign existing work to another engineer with the skills to complete the job. Your system should hold details of engineers’ skills and certifications.

Download the full 40 page ebook for free by simply clicking here and completing the brief registration form

 

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Field Service News Editor-in-Chief, Kris Oldland reflects on a busy summer in the European field service industry in his leader for issue seven of Field Service News...

Click here and complete the brief form to download a digital copy of Field Service News issue seven now

I’ll be honest, when the doors closed on the third day of this year’s Service Management Expo I gave an almighty sigh of relief...

Not only was it the end of a very busy three days but it also marked the end of what was an incredibly busy conference season in the European field service industry and to be quite frank I think everyone needed to take five just to catch their breath.

Since we published the last edition of Field Service News we’ve attended the Aston Spring Servitization Conference, The Field Service Forum, The TomTom Telematics Developers Conference and of course the Service Management Expo and each of these events brought into focus some of the key conversations that are happing in our industry today.

There has been an abundance of excellent content produced by some of the leading figures in Telematics, Servitization, IoT, Artificial Intelligence and much more with each outlining how these varying tools and technologies will impact on field service.

And whilst long may it continue, it is also good to have a little bit of time in these long, hot summer months to let all these ideas, concepts and strategies tumble around in our heads for a while. Then, as we move into the final quarter of the year, our thoughts and plans around how we can harness some of these concepts, can solidify and evolve into strategies with substance.

And as I start to bring some of my own thoughts into focus my first initial observation is that so many of these new trends are interconnected.

In the past I’ve explained my belief in this column that we are entering a golden age of service, driven by a perfect storm of technologies emerging together and if anything the last few months have reaffirmed that belief.

Service is no longer an after thought but a primary business driver and if there was ever any doubt about this it was completely eradicated at the Aston Servitization Conference.

It was fantastic to see academics and industry leaders coming together to learn from each other and at the end of an intensive two days there was no doubt in my mind that this growing trend of Servitization was moving very quickly from academic theory with a handful of industry examples (albeit high profile ones) to a considerable shift in business thinking which is continuing to gather momentum.

Indeed the topic of servitization raised it’s head again when I interviewed Sony’s John Cooper with Cooper providing a perfect example of Servitization in a new contract with Spanish media outlet Telemadrid. As Cooper himself explains “when it’s pay-per-usage - it becomes all about the service.”

Which of course brings us back to the technology, for working in the parameters of an outcome based solutions contract means that your field service operations have to be highly efficient to ensure you are delivering the uptime levels such contracts are built upon.

IoT is of course one such technology that is truly driving these changes in business thinking and culture. Sony for example employ a number of remote monitoring and diagnostics tools across their B2B technology range, and such connected devices are huge enablers for companies moving from a traditional reactive type of service operation, to a more proactive type of operation that an advanced services approach requires.

 

And it is not just the devices our engineers are repairing and maintaining that are becoming connected, it is their tools and even their vehicles themselves that are becoming connected also.

It is of course no surprise that the connected vehicle dominated conversation at the TomTom Developers Conference, but in fact it wasn’t the only game changer for fleet management discussed that day in Amsterdam.

We also saw TomTom Telematics redefine themselves as a Platform as a Service for the telematics industry with the launch of their Apps Store, and this new model for telematics, built on open integration, is something of a game changer.

It is a smart move by the Dutch Telematics giant and one which couldn’t have been better timed as another major player in the Telematics space, Microlise who have a phenomenal reputation within the haulage sector, have also turned their attention to field service with the launch of a very slick new solution Clear. 

And then of course there are the two technologies that are underpinning most change in field service, Mobile and the Cloud. 18 months ago we researched the Cloud and I made some bold predictions around it’s adoption in field service. In our latest research project we revisit some of those claims and see if, how and why the adoption of Cloud based solutions in our industry has moved on at all within the last 18 months.

Time to let those little grey cells get to work...

The growing industrial trend of servitization amongst manufacturers is gaining traction and as it does so ever more importance is placed upon delivering efficient and effective field service.

The Aston Spring Servitization Conference brought together industry and academia to discuss the latest developments within the field and Field Service News was there to find out more...

 

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As field service tools become increasingly Internet based connectivity becomes an ever more significant challenge. We look at how Volvo Construction overcame their connectivity woes...

About Volvo                                                  

Volvo Construction Equipment was established in Great Britain in 1967. A division of the Volvo Group, it has established a reputation for market leading quality equipment and customer support.

A supplier to the mining and construction industries, Volvo provides an extensive range of equipment including wheeled loaders, articulated haulers, excavators, utility equipment and pavers.

The business operates eight customer support centres throughout Great Britain, supplemented by strategically located home-based engineers. Its headquarters are located in Duxford, Cambridgeshire.

The challenge

Volvo Construction Equipment’s team of field engineers travel across the UK each day responding to customer queries – from initial fault diagnosis to servicing and updating equipment. These engineers are largely dependent upon access to internet-based tools, hosted on the company’s network, for diagnosis and configuration purposes. Yet visits can often take place in remote or inaccessible areas of the country with poor mobile signal.

Previously, engineers were provided with a single-network USB dongle that could be plugged into laptops for network access. The limited geographical coverage meant that this had proved hugely unreliable, with engineers often unable to find a strong signal from the network provider.

 

Without access to the internet, engineers were often forced to return to the nearest depot – which could be up to 60 miles away – or in some cases, seek out a local café or restaurant offering free Wi-Fi.

This inability to complete the job on the first visit was also frustrating for customers unable to progress a project due to a broken down machine.

Richard Shelford, IT Operations Manager at Volvo Construction Equipment, said: ‘‘Engineers would often arrive at a job and carry out the initial diagnosis only to find that the network signal was too weak. From a customer-service perspective this was really tricky, as they would be forced to abandon a job and drive off to seek Wi-Fi access somewhere else.”

He added: “This process was proving hugely costly for us in both time and mileage but also for our customer whose downtime costs can run into tens of thousands of pounds.”

The solution

Volvo Construction Equipment was recommended to contact M2M Intelligence to see if they could suggest a more efficient way to operate.

M2M was able to supply a Multinet roaming 3G SIM which enabled field engineers to create a local hotspot with a Wi-Fi router in their van. The M2M-i Multinet SIM enables the router to connect with any available UK network so Volvo engineers are no longer reliant on a single provider’s ability to supply a constant signal in all areas of the country.

These hotspots allow staff to connect and use the online diagnostics virtually wherever they are working.

 

A trial across eight vehicles was tested by senior engineers, with extensive experience of the industry - including first-hand knowledge of some of the challenges that the business was facing. Following a successful trial, the solution was quickly rolled out across the Volvo Field Service team.

The results

Volvo was able to vastly improve its customer service by eliminating wasted site visits and reducing equipment down-time. This has also had a number of additional benefits in regards to productivity, cost savings, employee satisfaction and internal communications.

Productivity increased

M2M’s Multinet roaming SIMs have ensured field engineers are connected virtually anywhere. This has had a major impact on productivity as engineers are now able to increase the average number of campaign updates, including diagnosis or configuration, each day.

Cost savings

The solution has also driven significant cost-savings for the business – both in terms of vehicle expense and staff time. Field engineers no longer have to drive back to the depot or a local restaurant to gain Wi-Fi access – and are operating more efficiently as a result.

Employee satisfaction rose

Increased productivity has removed many of the frustrations experienced by field engineers. Rather than facing obstacles around limited network signal or the associated stresses of having to find a nearby location with access, they can focus on the task in hand. This means delivering a speedier service to customers and getting equipment and projects back up and running as soon as possible.

Better internal communications

The business has also seen an improvement in internal communications. Staff can use internet-enabled video conferencing more frequently to communicate with product specialists and between different depots. This is allowing field engineers to tap into company resources – and quickly.

The company now has plans to continue a phased roll-out across the wider business, including product specialists and sales teams.

‘‘Almost immediately after trialling M2M’s solution, we knew we had to have it!’’ said Richard. ‘‘Our engineers were previously carrying out approximately two campaign updates per day. Using M2M’s solution, they can double that - so to say it’s had a big impact on productivity would be an understatement! To quote one of our own engineers, ‘it’s simply brilliant’.’’

 

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In Part One of this interview in our Industry Leaders series, John Cooper, Head of IT and Workflow Solutions in Sony’s Professional Solutions unit in Europe explained why he and his colleagues needed to revisit their existing service infrastructure and replace a 15-year-old legacy system with something better suited to the growing complexity of their service organisation.

In Part 2, he talks to FSN's Kris Oldand about how he and his team reviewed both off-the-shelf systems and customised solutions to determine which was fit-for-purpose, their reasons for making the choice they did and the impact on the service operation.

“We had a remedy based solution that actually had its routes dating back almost 15 years believe it or not,” Cooper begins. “It was initially designed for specific service offerings we had which were very much one-to-one. One customer , one product. So a kind of classic repair-related issue. They’d call the help desk, raise a remedy ticket, we’d determine if a repair was required, we’d pull the units back and we’d issue replacements;  a nice simple system.”

“Of course now we are in a situation where we have technology that sits across multiple partners of Sony, plus hardware and software vendors,  and we look after it all. It may be multi-site, it may even have multiple SLAs within contracts.” Cooper explains.

So despite having updated and improved their existing system across the years, its core purpose was as a backend system, and it lacked the reporting functionality and dashboards that it was becoming more and more apparent Cooper and his team required.  “We got to the point that we realised the bits that really mattered to our customers were the bits that we were finding it hardest to do.”

 

As the need for a more modern service management system became apparent Cooper and his colleagues had some clear expectations of what they wanted. “We thought about this issue of the ecosystem and how do we get everybody involved. Pretty quickly we came to the decision that what we needed to do was get something that sat within the Salesforce world; our sales and marketing organisation use Salesforce - it’s a standard platform in Sony,” he explains

Bespoke or fit-for-purpose?

However the next decision was whether to opt for a ‘fit-for-purpose’ solution or create something bespoke. Something Cooper clearly gave great consideration to:   “We had two other big choices – do we bespoke something or do we look for something that is fit for purpose,” he begins.  "In the past I didn’t see much in ‘fit-for-purpose’ solutions that I felt actually really understood something as complex as what we wanted to do. At the same time I was very wary about bespoking because it gets you a solution for today and,  if you're clever,  maybe for the next two or three years. I didn’t want my team to be thinking what to do next about IT, I wanted them to be thinking about making the customers happy."

 

“So we looked around and we found ServiceMax amongst a number of systems that we had already looked at. I just thought: this is a system that has really been thought through by service professionals, people who really understand what happens. It’s not just a standard set of processes.”

“Despite it being an off the shelf package there is such as degree of configurability that you can work how you want to work. There is such a good degree of best practice built in it pushes you down a path of best practice and I’m a big fan of that.”

 Dual benefits

Of course there are numerous benefits to a next generation service management system such as ServiceMax, including easy Salesforce integration, breaking down many of the data silos that can exist within an organisation.

And perhaps the most important of these is the ease of access to reporting which Sony had found lacking in their previous solution.  This is of course indicative of how business is done today and a common expectation of Sony’s customers, so it was a key necessity for Sony when implementing their new system.

However, given the changing nature of Sony’s business with both a shift towards a more service-orientated business structure and also, through the use of remote diagnostics tools, a move towards a much more proactive and preventative service offering, such reporting tools also provide an important second function  - namely,  being able to report on all of the service value Sony are delivering that may otherwise potentially not get noticed or acknowledged.

“Sometimes we can have a conversation with customers and they’ll say well we’re not really aware of you doing that much for us.” Cooper explains.  “And that’s a facet of us keeping processes and systems nice and clean in such a way that systems continue to run. So the desire for us to want to demonstrate all the good stuff we’ve done is really strong.”

 

“The flip side of course is that no service organisation is perfect and sometimes when things go wrong the first person that hears about it is someone senior on the customer’s side and then the second person that hears about it is the account manager.  So if you’re not careful the only time people hear about service is when there is bad news and the reality is that 99% of the stuff is going wonderfully but there is not any awareness of this.”

In fact Cooper believes such easy access to reports and dashboards, is as powerful tool for his account managers as it is for his service managers.  “One of the other drivers for us in this quest for the right sort of system was something that keeps the whole ecosystem aware of what’s going on and what we are doing for the end customer.”

“We have this dream of the account managers turning up at customer sites and being completely clued in with all the stuff that’s happened in a nice simple to understand graphical way. So they don’t need to get into technical complexity but they know what we’ve done for the customers, they know of any live issues and they’re not going to get ambushed with you’ve got this problem or that problem.”

And Cooper sees this as perhaps one of the biggest changes in service today.  “That sort of thinking wasn’t there many years ago in our industry but now it’s becoming imperative, ” he asserts.  “Our feeling is that that service will really help us differentiate ourselves with our customers. Our goal at the end of the day is we want customers to come back to us and keep renewing service contracts and then when their technology gets to the point where there is something better for them out there they come back and buy from Sony.”

 

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