Service leaders community includes roundtables, webinars and executive slack workplace.

Service professional have dramatically altered their plans due to Covid-19. Simultaneously, they are preparing long-term strategies for recovery and growth. Without a blueprint, they are making quick pivots and seeking the support of colleagues to discuss what's working, what to avoid, how to keep their workforce safe and how best to maintain continuity.

In response, Aquant has created a content hub, Resources for Resilience, which includes webinars, virtual roundtables, and other ways for the service industry to connect. 

We've listened to our customers and the industry as they ask, 'What's next?' and work to figure our the complex challenges that lay ahead for them," said Mairead Ridge, Aquant's VP of Marketing, "Our goal is to help service leaders learn from the experiences fo their peers by amplifying the collective wisdom of service pros across the industry."

Join the Slack Workspace for service leaders, a place to have the important discussions they'd otherwise be having at industry events and forums, now postponed.

Upcoming events include:

May 5 - Virtual Roundtable: An Interactive Discussion about Covid-19 Response

Attend a forum of field service leaders for an interactive discussion about facing the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic. Share ideas and get inspiration from other service professionals about response and recovery. Sign up now.

May 12 Webinar - Creating the Service Organization of the Future

Rodger Smelcer, Co-Founder and VP of United Service Technologies is mounting a Covid-19 comeback strategy; making investments in technology and and workforce training that is moving the organisations away from reactive break-fix work and towards planed an predictive maintenance. Register to attend.

Webinar Replay - Adapting Service Innovation Strategies for the New Normal

Join Gyner Ozgul, Senior VP of Operations at Smart Care Equipment Solutions as he discusses how his organization is changing the way they do business by empowering its workforce to make better, data-driven decisions. Listen now.

Webinar Repay: How Comfort Systems Combats Shifting Workforce Challenges witg AI

Joe Lang, VP, Service Technology and Innovation of Comfort Systems, shares how the team is using AI to build a single source of service knowledge based on the collective experience of the workforce. He also touches on the strategic initiative for up-skilling a new generation of technicians. Listen now.

To learn more and connect with service peers, visit Resources for Resilience, a Series for Service Leaders

Zryon's Console X uses AI to analyse and streamline processes.

Kryon has launched ConsoleX, a robot-centric management platform that the firm says can configure, schedule and manage virtual workforces from any location in real time.

The software runs alongside the company's current Full Cycle Automation v20.3 offering and is based on its NGINX server platform, and according to Kryon, is the only solution of its kind on the market today.

A Virtual Service Management Workforce

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) uses Artificial Intelligence to configure computer software or robots which work across the user interface to collect data and move applications, mirroring human movement. These 'robots' engage with other systems, working effectively on repetitive tasks with no error rate.

Kryon's application allowing users to manage a virtual workforce assigning workloads and task monitoring as they would with human workers while applying analytics to optimise output.

"An automation project isn't over just because it's up and running. As more and more businesses implement business processes, they need stronger tools to continually monitor, analyze, troubleshoot and scale up their RPA solutions," said Harel Tyab, Kryon's CEO.

"Kryon's Full-Cycle Automation suite, the only solution of its kind on the market today, lives up to its name by ensuring optimal performance from start to finish, it already has a proven track record in the field and a rapidly growing base of happy customers, Tyab added.

RPA is becoming increasingly popular among global enterprises as they scale-up on their automation strategy. However, this year a report from Gartner suggested a disruption could be imminent.

Hyperautomation is an all encompassing approach that seeks to identify and automate as many business processes as possible and as quickly as possible. "It involves the use of a combination of technology tools, including but not limited to machine learning, packaged software and automation tools to deliver work," an introduction to the study said. In it, Gartner argue that RPA, far from being the solution, is now just one part of this new process.

Is it time for a reality check when it comes to drones and service? Mark Glover speaks to Robert Garbett from the UK Drone Delivery Group who says mid-mile delivery might be possible but we're a long way from Amazon delivering from above.

Think drones and you probably think of small, multi-rotor objects, when in fact according to the International Organisational Standardization’s (ISO) definition, it’s actually, “Any unmanned system that is autonomously or remotely controlled.”

So this could include: any ground vehicle, any air vehicle, any boat, any ship, any surface sub-sea system, any space system; in fact any hybridization of the above which is remotely controlled or does not have a pilot sitting on board is technically a drone.

POTENTIAL IN Field Service Management

“The image you’ve got in your mind is so wrong. It’s definitely not just a small, flying thing,” says Robert Garbett, the author of that ISO definition and a drone industry expert who’s explaining to me how the technology goes far beyond what we see buzzing in the air. “Once you re-approach the whole topic from that perspective, it opens it out into a far more expansive, exciting and beneficial product. A tiny, remotely controlled spider-shaped air drone really can’t do very much on it’s own but as part of an integrated system with autonomous control, it becomes much more powerful.”

However, drones were airbound in the early 90s, used extensively and effectively for the first time in the Gulf War. In the Spring of 1991, an article appeared in Airpower Journal, penned by Captain P.Tice of the US Air Force. His piece, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles: The Force Multiplier of the 1990s, centered around the dwindling number of army personnel and how Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) - or drones – could effectively plug the gap.

In the piece Captain Tice said: “When used, UAVs should generally perform missions charecterised by the three Ds: dull, dirty and dangerous.” Now, this was written in the context of military operations: long-term endurance missions that could last several days (dull); the detection of chemical agents (dirty); and reconnaissance behind enemy lines (dangerous), so their use in this instance is very different to delivering an Amazon package, or the delivery of a spare part, but ultimately its purpose is to remove the human from a process.

One could argue service is going in the same direction. The human influence is becoming less as self-diagnosing assets, remote technology and big data gradually impede on an engineer’s role. Will drone assistance be part of their eventual demise?

There’s still some way to go before we see autonomous robots donning overalls and popping round to fix your boiler, but in other sectors such as the airport industry, the influence of drones is already being felt and, according to Garbett, has further potential.

“The service sector in the airport system is huge and a lot of it can be done via autonomous systems or remotely controlled systems: Baggage handling for example,” he says. “The technology could eliminate the need for human beings to be airside increasing security and the efficiency of baggage handling. It could also eliminate the health and safety risks associated with human beings throwing bags around all day.”

"In 1865 a spluttering, noisy vehicle with four wheels was an alien…as…well…a drone in 2020..." 

Garbett is Chief Executive of Drone Major Group, a specialist consultancy advising on the application of drone technology working with customers who want an independent and expert guidance on what is possible, where to procure what they need and how to implement it safely and effectively. In 2018, he founded the UK Drone Delivery Group where over 300 members seek to lobby the UK Government in establishing a clear path to a UK-wide commercial drone industry.

Last month the group published a white paper (currently out for consultation) calling for the creation of long term drone testing areas, a significant step that could speed up the process of acceptance. He does however acknowledge the process is a long one, an evolution almost, referencing regulation in the automotive industry as a blueprint. “Right from the start, you could do what you wanted [when driving] because there were no regulations. Then the regulations started to come in, the first one meant you had to get out of your car at a junction, wave a red flag as you crossed just in case you killed a horse…” He pauses for a moment, “I believe that happened because one horse was killed which is a great example of over regulation.”

I laughed at this. It sounded ridiculous but online investigation revealed 1865 Locomotive Act enforcing a top speed of two miles per hour when passing through towns. The regulation was passed to protect horse and cart, the primary form of travel at the time, where motorists, according to the legislation were expected to “carry a red flag constantly displayed, and shall warn riders and drivers of horses of the approach of locomotives, and shall signal the driver thereof when it shall be necessary to stop, and shall assist horses, and carriages drawn by horses, passing the same”.

It seems ridiculous now, but Garbett’s comparison is a salient one. In 1865 a spluttering, noisy vehicle with four wheels was an alien…as…well…a drone in 2020. In both contexts however, concerns are fueled around safety, taking well over 100 years of further regulation and development before driving became even remotely safe, or less dangerous.

Yet as recently as the 1970s deaths at the wheel were still remarkably high, it took another layer of robust regulation, primarily around seatbelt use to make a dent in the grim statistics. In terms of an evolution, 100 years is more than enough time for change to happen.

Is this the approach then for drone commercial use in the UK? In the group’s white paper the scattering of drone testing areas are cited as ‘sandboxes’, although Garbett prefers Technical Evolution Areas static areas that, he says aren’t really there to  purely  test. “They’re there to take a thing from concept to operational deployment and beyond,” he explains, “and through that learning curve, and to accelerate that learning curve upwards so we really can get the benefit that we currently get from cars. So you link the technology areas and link them across the country and start in safe areas first.”

"We are going to turn this into a technology evolution. Somewhere in the UK where we are starting to deliver parcels, mid-mile, depot to sub-depot.”

The press release accompanying the white paper cited a Barclays’ report valuing the drone market close to $40 billion by 2023 so perhaps its evolution will be quicker if these figures transpire, although the driver lies not in B2C delivery (the idea that Amazon Drones will be dropping parcels from the sky is, according to Garbett feasible but a long way away, “There’s no way you’re going to have sufficient infrastructure and the depth of availability of airspace and the durability of batteries to have a small air drone delivering things to my balcony.”) but in terms of service and logistics, value lies not in last mile delivery but the mid-mile to depots, where the final leg of the journey to the warehouse or factory could take be fulfilled by an autonomous vehicle that trundles into the building carrying the spare part.

Garbett’s knowledge in this area is refreshing and it’s good to hear clarity on a topic that’s been shrouded in mystery, perhaps skewed by Amazon’s glimpse into their own drone programme, and perceived – wrongly – as that “small, tiny flying object”. But what about a watertight use-case for the technology’s commercially? How far away are we from that?

Garbett eludes to a project he’s working on around mid-mile in delivery and logistics. Run in tandem with a company he’s unable to mention the study has entered – encouragingly - into the feasibility stage. “We are going to turn this into a technology evolution,” he enthuses, “somewhere in the UK where we are starting to deliver parcels, mid-mile, depot to sub-depot – live and commercially.”

And the next step? I ask? What we need are companies like your audience to come forward and get involved.  The benefits are there, the technology is there and the will from Government to make this happen is also now there...what we need now is forward thinking companies or trail blazers to come forward so that we can assist them to realise the future.

Over to you then reader and remember, please try to keep that ISO definition in mind. There’s more here than a buzzing spider thing.

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Further Reading: 

• Read more about drones in field service @ www.fieldservicenews.com/drones
• Read more about the latest use of technology in field service @ https://www.fieldservicenews.com/technology
• Follow Robert Garnett on LinkedIn here.

A webinar hosted by Professor Tim Baines previewing September's World Servitization Conference will feature manufacturers exhibiting at the event and hosted on the 5th May 2020

The webinar, which takes place on Tuesday 5 March at 2pm (BST), serves as a digital preview to the forthcoming World Servitization Conference and will feature some of the manufacturers who will be exhibiting at the re-arranged event which now takes place in September - its original date in May having to be moved due to the Corona Virus pandemic.

 

The Increasing Importance of Servitization

The World Servitization Conference is in its first iteration of the a new event but already has an excellent pedigree being a natural extension of the Spring Servitization Conference which Field Service News has been a long standing media partner.

Run out of Aston University and hosted by the Advanced Services Group the global nature of this event in 2020 is testament to the increasing significance of servitization within industry - something that many are anticipating will be further increased by the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. 

The guest line-up includes:

• Chris Dodd, Managing Director, Assisted Living & Healthcare at Legrand UK & Ireland;
• Alec Anderson, Founder and Managing Director at Koolmill Systems;
• Lee Cassidy, Chief Executive Officer,Tactile Technology and
• Tim Hughes, Managing Director at CHH Conex.

As well as looking forward to September's conference, the webinar will look at manufacturing's relationship with servitization and how it might be affected in post-pandemic world.

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You can register for the webinar here.

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The World Servitization Conference takes place from 14 to 16 September at the NEC in Birmingham, UK. For more information on the event including details on how to register click here.

Study says next five years will see significant uptake across both continents.

A new report is forecasting a substantial growth in the number of active video telematics systems across Europe and North America over the next five years.

The research carried out by M2M/IoT market research firm Berg Insight says the installed-base of systems will exceed four million units by 2024 across the two continents.

Helping Field Service Professionals

Last year (2019) the number of active systems reached almost 1.6 million units in North America which, the study says, is a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 15.7 per cent, a trend which should see the active installed base reach more than 3.2 million units by 2025.

In Europe, during 2019, figures for telematics solutions at came in under 0.5 million. In line with a CAGR of 16.1 per cent, the study expects this figure to reach close to one million systems by 2024.

The study categorised the large array of companies delivering such solutions which ranged "from specialists focused on video telematics solutions for various commercial vehicles, to general fleet telematics players which have introduced video offerings, and hardware-focused suppliers offering digital video recorders and vehicle cameras".

In the former category, the report cites Lytx as one of the "leading video telematics players in their respective categories", acknowledging the firms high number of subscriptions as the highest in the sector, which in 2019 reached over 600,000 devices and protected 1.3 million drivers.

The report's introduction argued that camera integration is one of the key trends in the fleet telematics sector, justifying its forecast of the combined number of devices across North America and Europe will exceed four billion by 2024.

Tech that reduces data lag by is set to grow across region and bring benefits to industrial sector.

A report from data and analytics company GlobalData says the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region is on the cusp of wide-spread edge computing adoption with industry verticals set to benefit.

Streamlining Service Management

It predicts several sectors in the region taking advantage of the technology including manufacturing, which it says could streamline its industrial processes, improve supply chain movements and even operate heavy equipment more autonomously by adopting the technology.

Driven by Japan and China it foresees APAC second only to North America in terms of the edge computing market, with the two nations together accounting for 61 per cent of its revenue stream. It says the market will grow at an annual compound rate of 21 per cent between 2019 and 2024, reaching a $5.8 billion value.

The rise of edge computing has increased exponentially with the surge in connected assets which require greater band-widths that in some cases, the cloud is unable to cope with, producing lag.

It operates by being geographically closer to a data gathering device where computation is carried out locally avoiding a central processing cloud-based location meaning latency issues can be negated.

Its influence is expected to reach beyond industry, working alongside society's rapidly evolving connected devices ecosystem, including the growth of smart cars and smart cities. As larger data volumes are produced then Edge Computing will be expected to produce swift and accurate processing. Shamim Kahn, Senior Technology Analyst at Global Data says Edge Computing has the capability to keep up with the increase. "Edge computing would be key in handling most of these challenges, as decentralised processing would allow for excellent reponse times and reduced latency," he explained.

Several big tech firms have, in recent weeks, stepped-up their development in the technology including Amazon Web Services who updated their 'Snow' family of edge computing; Microsoft announcing Azure Edge Zones; and Google revealing its Global Mobile Edge Cloud strategy.

How can today’s service leaders prioritize shifting demands that range from too much data, an overextended workforce, and an uncertain economic climate that is accelerating an industry shift in service delivery?

In the April 28 webinar hosted by Aquant and the Service Council, Gyner Ozgul, Senior Vice President of Operations at Smart Care Equipment Solutions talks about how his organization is changing the way they do business by empowering its workforce to make better decisions.

He’s in the midst of leading a technology-driven transformation that aims to better serve customers and better train its workforce. As part of that transformation, his team is using AI-powered technology that combines service data and human insight to better inform decision making, and ultimately pave the way for a more predictive service model in the future.

In the webinar, we discover how Smart Care is:

• Addressing immediate service pivots to address COVID-19 and long-term recovery scenarios
• Adopting AI-tools to transform a mountain of data into a source of value for customers, engineers, and the company’s bottom line
• Scaling workforce training and development to centralize and distribute tribal knowledge.

For more information, sign up for the live webinar on April 28 or visit Aquant.io to listen to the replay.

Survey from Workiz on online trends show customer preference for digital booking and payments when booking home service visits.

To attract and retain customers field service firms should have an intuitive online scheduling system complimented by digital payment options, a study into people's technology preferences has revealed.

Perfect Service Management

The effect of instant, on-demand products such as Uber, Deliveroo and Amazon has meant customers now expect the same standards in other services which, according to the study, includes the process of hiring a technician to carry out maintenance or appliance repair.

The survey, carried out jointly by Google Consumer Surveys and Workiz, sought to analyse the e-commerce preferences of more than 1,050 people in the US, aged between 18 and 65.

The results reflected the growing digital influence of Millennial and Generation Z who are more comfortable carrying out customer interactions online rather than face-to-face or over the phone, and prefer to use digital wallets rather than physical cash.

The findings showed 44 per cent of respondents would prefer to book a field service appointment online and 35 per cent would pay for that home service online. Furthermore, if the scheduling and check-out process was an intuitive one, then 38 per cent would leave a positive online review.

In order to leave a positive review, respondents cited the importance of real-time communication from field service businesses with 63 per cent saying they would leave positive feedback if firms were transparent in their communication, specifically if real-time communication was utilised.

Commenting on the report, Workiz CEO Adi Azaria said customers now expect a perfect service experience. "Whether it's ease of scheduling or digital payment options, we're seeing that consumers today prefer a seamless interaction with field service businesses," he explained. "The appliance being repaired correctly isn't enough anymore. Customers want the experience to be frictionless every step of the way."

Firm hope offering can help with "service delivery continuity" during outbreak giving companies use of up to 15 licences throughout June.

Technical support company TechSee have made their 'TechSee Live' solution free of charge for Small and Medium-Sized Busineses (SMBs) during the Corona Virus pandemic.

SMBs who are new customers can take advantage of the virtual contact tool for up to 15 technicians until June 30. Larger enterprise firms, meanwhile, can take part in a free trial programme.

Service Management Continuity

TechSee Live creates a visual platform that field technicians can use to interact with customers through a live virtual channel using AR and overlay annotations. Crucially, it means they can work remotely and safely, observing social distancing requirements while carrying out the service visit without entering a customer's home.

TechSee uses AR, AI, machine learning and big data to produce its visual technology. Their lines have been taken up by a number of clients including Vodafone and most recently Verizon, who rolled out the tool to its technicians last week. Commenting, the Telco's Senior Vice President of Operations Kevin Service said the tool has enabled the firm to continue working but in a safe way. “We know how critical communication is, especially now as more and more people are working from home, engaging in distance learning and moving their family and friend interactions online,” he explained. “This new tool gives us the ability to provide the excellent service our customers deserve while minimizing the need for in-person interaction in these unprecedented times.”

The outbreak of the virus has seen many companies offer their services for free and TechSee's CEO Eitan Cohen acknowledges the effort the community is making. “At times like this, people everywhere have a chance to come together and make a real impact on a global scale,” he said.

For more information about TechSee's offer click here.