AUTHOR ARCHIVES: Mark Glover

A statistical analysis of global online trust show some business executives perceive cyber-security initiatives as having a negative return on investment.

A Survey from Frost & Sullivan, in association with CA Technology, has revealed 27% of business leaders think integrating digital security measures will have no affect on the company's bottom line, however there is a general acceptance that a higher digital trust equates into higher revenue.

The report said companies intending to grow must "enhance their digital trust credentials". 

Digital trust is the measurement of consumer, partner and employee confidence in an organisation's ability to protect and secure data and the privacy of individuals.

The study showed 70% of consumers surveyed trusted organisations to take the correct precautions to protect their data, whereas organisations perceived 95% of their customers to be satisfied with the levels of data protection offered.

You can download the report here. 

 

Heating, Ventilation and Air-Conditioning (HVAC) supplier GasTech has incorporated BigChange's cloud-based management system.

GasTech, based in Newcastle, has issued its engineers with rugged cloud-connected technology to assist with its 24 hours a day, seven days a week operation which includes the supply, install and service of HVAC. 

The platform, JobWatch, allows workers to carry out risk assessments and method statements and gives access to procedures, manuals, job cards and quotations, which are synced to GasTech's central office system.

The firm's fleet operation is monitored with vehicle tracking, producing real-time data for customer services. Client history information is accessible to the engineers who can look up previous work on-site. A live spare-parts manifest give workers an accurate overview of what parts are available in the company and also in other vans.

GasTech's Gareth Firth commented on the advantages a paper-free process brings to the business. "With our growing workload we knew we needed to reduce the time engineers spent filling out forms," the firm's Director said. "We undertook extensive research into the available systems on the market and it was clear BigChange was very easy to use and would take away the administrative headaches from engineers so they could be more productive."

New study also reveals incidents rose in latter half of year with companies struggling to identify when systems are compromised.
Research by cyber-security provider F-Secure has shown that cyber attacks in 2018 increased by 32% compared to the previous year.

The survey consulted 3350 IT decision-makers, influencers and managers from 12 countries also highlighted a lack of awareness in detecting incidents, suggesting firm's preventative measures such as firewalls were insufficient.

Findings also revealed that the Finance and ICT sectors were most commonly targeted by attackers while healthcare and manufacturing received fewest, with the majority of attacks affecting US-based IP addresses.

Leszek Tasiemski said today's cyber-attacks had evolved significantly and questioned whether or not companies were even aware of the issue. "Today's threats are completely different from ten or even five years ago," he said. "Preventative measures and strategies won't stop everything anymore, so I've no doubt that many of the companies surveyed don't have a full picture of what's going in with their security."

You can read the full report here.

Warwick University will once again become a central hub for field service professionals in the UK in April this year as the Field Service and Spare Parts Summits return. Field Service News will be there to participate in the deep level discussions we have come to expect from these back to back events and Thomas Igou, Editorial Director, Copperberg, gives an overview of what to expect this time around. 

This April, Copperberg is returning to the Warwick Conference Centre for its 4th Annual Field Service Summit and 2nd Annual Spare Parts Summit, bringing over the course of two days 200+ service and parts leaders from the UK manufacturing industry. Chaired by Andy Neely of the Cambridge Service Alliance, both days will be filled with intense group discussions and inspiring keynotes.

First up on 3 April, The Field Service Summit will focus on how to move from a service culture to an experience economy.

The right customer experience directly translates to economic gains and differentiation as premium service. With the growing number of connected devices, easier integration of new sensors and the rise of automation in the field, customers now demand a more memorable experience. The experiences consist of being able to make the customer participate, connect and build a relationship with the service, assuring loyalty in the long term. To be able to shift from a service culture to one based on capabilities and outcomes demands organisations need to go the extra mile in providing prompt, accurate and reliable solutions in the short customer attention span.

This shift requires developing internal competencies and changing leadership style while finding seamless solutions, to make field service memorable customer experiences.

At the 3rd Annual Field Service Summit UK in April 2018, more than 120 field Service Directors gathered to learn how to use the latest advances in software technologies to improve their connection points with their customers and maximise their service operations’ financial performance.

In 2019, The Field Service Summit returns with an even more engaging value proposition: entering the era of the Experience Economy with an outcome based service strategy.

Memorable keynotes will include Rajat Kakar, Vice President, Head of Product Related Services at Fujitsu on Preparing your CEO for the Unprecedented Service Digital Disruption. Other keynotes will include Airstream, IFS, SightCall, Salesforce, ebecs, clicksoftware, and regular Field Service News contributor, Bill Pollock from Strategies for Growth.

The highpoint of the event, though, will be the idea blitzes: 16 group discussions on distinct and dedicated topics within field service management that will run four times throughout the day, for intense discussions.

Then on 4 April, the 2nd Annual Spare Parts Summit will take place, focusing on putting availability at the core of a manufacturer’s strategy.

Spare Parts is the money-maker of a service division; however, in a time of great uncertainty, where the boundaries of competition are crushed wide open by tech giants and technological breakthroughs, and where global trade agreements are under constant threat by protectionist governments, the need for change and innovation is more important than ever.

"Spare Parts is the money-maker of a service division..."

The 2nd Annual Spare Parts Summit will guide you through the most modern tools and strategies to ensure that your customers’ expectations, availability, is ensured. The event will offer engaging peer discussions to discuss how to not only digitize service offerings for the benefit of customers and profit margins but how digitalisation will impact spare parts businesses and the industry as a whole.

The event will also look at pricing strategy as a key to business growth, and how to be coherent in pricing approaches in an omnichannel environment where ecommerce becomes a vital tool to lock in customers and fend off competition.

Finally, the event will also showcase innovations in warehouse management, supply chain optimization, and how to use IoT for parts failure predictions in order to ensure that manufacturers always deliver the right part at the right time.

Some keynotes to look out for: the Increasing Influence of Ecommerce in The Industrial Aftermarket by Carl Daintree from Sandvik. In this session, Carl will highlight Consumer/Customer behaviour analysis, and their new expectations regarding a seamless online experience with 24/7 access to information as well as why manufacturers are now working towards utilising Ecommerce as their primary sales channel, and exploring the benefits of this strategy.

Another keynote to look forward to: When reality trumps value-based pricing of spare parts - Moving beyond from Price Setting to Price Getting by Matias Mäkelä, Pricing Manager at Kalmar Services.

The session will focus on how even state-of-the-art product segmentation, carefully built value-based price structures maintained by modern pricing tool do not always guarantee the optimal result in final net prices. Matias will share his hands-on experiences on tackling margin erosion due to various indirect factors affecting net price getting.

With over 200+ service and parts leader in attendance over two days, the Warwick Conference Centre will once again be host to the UK’s largest business conference for service leaders in the UK, with a unique format putting delegates at the forefront of the program with the idea blitzes.

You can register for the Field Service Summit here and the Spare Parts Summit here. 

Firm's supply chain business, Final Mile, is set to expand its network of smart-delivery lockers across the UK.

BT have announced its supply-chain business, Final Mile, will now be available in 1000 locations in the UK. The expansion follows a series of contract wins and an increase in its sales force.

The storage facilities uses the Internet of Things (IoT) to connects its network of secure lockers and boxes, enabling engineers to collect equipment and spare parts.

The number of sites have doubled since the service was launched in 2016 and Steve Maddison, Final Mile's General Manager says testing the solution on its own fleet of technicians was important. "We know from our own experiences with our own field service engineers, as well as our external customers, the fast, reliable delivery of parts and equipment is critical to customer service," he said. "We know Final Mile works because we've tested it with one of the largest field engineering workforces in the UK - our own."

 

As part of a series of interviews with speakers from the 2019 Spare Parts Business Platform, Mark Glover spoke to Atanu Chaudhuri, an academic in additive manufacturing, about the challenges manufacturers face when building a business case for the 3D printing of spare parts.

Of all the technologies currently vying for the attention of field service professionals, 3D printing is the one that appeals most to the imagination.

Sure, Augmented Reality and Artificial Intelligence are exciting, and the use-case for both is becoming stronger. But how about a printer that prints a tangible, useful component? A spare part that an engineer can produce and integrate while out on a job. What if 3D printers with robot arms were the final part of a first-time fix process, working in tandem with selfmending, machine learning assets?

I say the above with tongue firmly in cheek. I think we’re a long way from a technician-free fixing procedure; in fact, I think the human, engineer element will always be a constant, but you can see why the technology gets the juices flowing.

That said, the concept of 3D printing or additive manufacturing is not as new as we might think and has been in a period of gestation for nearly 40 years. Its first milestone was in 1981 when Dr. Hideo Kodama from the Nagoya Municipal Industrial Research Institute published an account of a working photopolymer rapid prototyping system. A machine that produced photo-hardened materials, corresponding to a cross-slice of a model, that when layered create 3D tangible parts.

Unfortunately, lack of funds meant Doctor Kodomo was unable to pursue his theories but American Charles Hull, in 1984 etched (or printed) his name in history by inventing stereolithography which used digital data to produce the 3D model. Then in the early 90s, the world’s first Selective Lasering Sintering (SLS) machine was invented, which shot out a powder, rather than a liquid, to build a solid (if slightly imperfect) 3D object.

The turn of the millennium saw the medical sector fully embrace 3D printing when over the space of ten years, scientists were able to create a miniature kidney, a prosthetic limb and bio-printed the first blood vessels using only human cells.
But where are we now with the technology and what manufacturing industries are really squeezing out the potential of additive manufacturing?

“We do not have enough people who can design a product for 3D printing..."

“The forerunners of the adoption of these technologies have been the aerospace and automotive sectors,” says Atanu Chaudhuri an Associate Professor of Operations and Supply Chain Management at the University of Aalborg and an expert in additive manufacturing. “However, there are a lot of other industrial manufacturers who are exploring this but are at different stages of adoption.”

I recently recorded a podcast with Atanu, ahead of his presentation at the Spare Parts Business Platform in Stockholm, which focused on the 3D printing of manufactured spare parts. With producers at various stages of integration, I asked what challenges they faced.

“One of the most critical challenges is the lack of skills,” he says. “We do not have enough people who can design a product for 3D printing, who can understand the process and technology. However, I think the companies who have invested in the machines, they have taken a step forward, but it is always a costly investment and there has to be a strong business case.”

The business case is essential when discussing any adoption of technology not just in additive manufacturing but in other young technologies. Boards are keen to see a genuine return on its investment especially when it carries financial risk.
However, in the case of 3D printing, Chaudhuri urges companies to take a long-view. “If a company was to do a one-to-one comparison with existing manufacturing technology, it’s most likely that 3D printing will not be suitable,” he admits.

“But if you take a more life—cycle perspective and look beyond the cost on a part-to-part comparison or look at the usage of the part over a lifetime of the product, say 15 or twenty years, suddenly you will see a huge difference.

“You will not be having a lot of inventory, you reduce the inventory carrying costs and maybe the environment will benefit, you will use fewer materials and suddenly the business case looks much better,” he says.

Atanu is an enthusiastic, yet realistic advocate of the technology and its infrastructure. Alluding to his earlier point of training, he admits that universities can come under scrutiny for not providing enough skilled workers, however when I ask what inspires him to do what he does, he cites his students and the role they will eventually play in the future integration of additive manufacturing as a key influence.

“It’s a motivation for me to train the next generation of engineers, industrial engineers or supply chain professionals who are ready to take on the world of digital manufacturing.

“I get immense satisfaction when my students graduate and get positions at the top companies and I can continue working with them. That is the main motivation I have,” he concludes. 

You can listen to the Field Service Podcast with guest Atanu Chaudhuri here.

In the latest Field Service Podcast, Mynul Kahn, CEO and Founder of Field Nation, discusses the changing modern nature of field service recruitment.

 

 

In this episode, Field Service News Deputy Editor Mark Glover, speaks to Mynul Kahn, CEO and Founder at Field Nation about the shift in service recruitment and how the gig economy will gain more relevance in the sector.

Börje Ekholm says telecommunication company will complete roll-out this year and network upgrade will compliment new technology such as Augmented Reality and autonomous vehicles.

 

Speaking at Mobile World Congress 2019 in Barcelona this month, Börje Ekholm Ericsson's CEO and President, said the firm expect to switch on the 5G network over the next 12 months and the robust network will facilitate ventures including Augmented Reality, Artificial Intelligence and autonomous vehicles.

Ericsson had previously announced 5G deals with 14 service providers across Europe, US, Asia and Australia including US Cellular and Telstrar. Memorandums of understandings have been signed with 42 other service providers and Ekholm told journalists to expect further announcements.

Citing research from the Ericsson Consumer Lab, he said that smartphone users will soon see the impact of the new coverage. "Consumers and enterprises are waiting for 5G," he explained. "One-third of smartphone globally will change either immediately or within six months to a service provider that switches on 5G."

Over half of those surveyed said they would feel uncomfortable working with a robot as a colleague or manager in the future.

A study by OnBuy.com, conducted by YouGov, showed British people would be reluctant to form a work relationship with a robot.

When asked how they feel about having a robot as a manager, 66% of men and 75% of women said they would feel "uncomfortable" with such an arrangement. 

The survey questioned 2,041 people and looked to gauge the British public's attitude to robots, given the rise of Artificial Intelligence smart-devices such as Amazon's Alexa appearing in UK homes.

"Whilst the idea seems far-fetched," said the accompanying press release, "the idea that robots could become part of everyday life has become a topic of conversation. Robot-human relationships has become a concept many have begun to form an opinion on."