AUTHOR ARCHIVES: Mark Glover

A new market research project by Berg Insight has found that the global installed base of active construction equipment (CE) OEM telematics systems reached over 2.0 million units in 2017. Growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 19.2%, the active installed base is estimated to reach 4.9 million units worldwide in 2022. 

This includes all CE telematics systems marketed by construction equipment OEMs, either developed in-house or provided by the CE manufacturers in partnership with third-party telematics players. The European market accounted for almost 0.5 million active construction equipment OEM telematics systems at the end of 2017.

The North American market is estimated to be slightly larger than the European. The Rest of World represents more than half of the global installed base of CE telematics systems provided by construction equipment OEMs. Most major construction equipment manufacturers have introduced telematics offerings. OEM telematics systems are today commonly factory-installed as standard at least for heavier machines.

“Caterpillar and Komatsu are the leading construction equipment OEMs in terms of the number of telematics systems deployed worldwide”, said Rickard Andersson, Principal Analyst, Berg Insight, adding that while Caterpillar and Komatsu are clearly the leading construction equipment manufacturers by market share, they are also by far the top players when it comes to OEM telematics, together accounting for more than one million active CE telematics units.

“The remaining top-5 players are Hitachi Construction Machinery, JCB and Volvo CE which have all surpassed the milestone of 100,000 units”, he continued. Other notable OEMs include Deere & Company, Hyundai Construction Equipment, Doosan Infracore, Liebherr and CNH Industrial. “All of these players have installed tens of thousands of telematics units on various types of construction equipment, either independently or in collaboration with telematics partners”, concluded Andersson.


The report, The Global Construction Equipment OEM Telematics Market, can be downloaded here.

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Can 3D printing solve the increasing challenges of service supply chain logistics?

 

In this episode of the Field Service Podcast, fieldservicenews.com Deputy Editor Mark Glover discusses the potential of 3D printing in terms of service supply chain logistics and spare parts management for field service organisations with Atanu Chaudhury, Associate Professor, Operations and Supply Chain Management at Aalborg University, Copenhagen ahead of his presentation at this year's Spare Parts Business Platform Conference in Stockholm being held next week. 

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If you haven't had a chance to work out this excellent conference into your schedule why not check out the UK edition where many of the same key themes will be discussed being held in Warwick on the 4th April. 

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Artificial intelligence can be applied to enable the better detection of road traffic disturbances in real-time, according to research by the Finnish Transport Agency and Tieto.

The findings were the result of a Proof of Concept experiment conducted by the two organisations in the spring of 2018 that combined LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) measurement technology with sensor fusion and artificial intelligence techniques to analyse traffic flows.

Traffic situations deviating from the usual constitute a significant road safety risk. At present, the automatic monitoring of traffic anomalies tends to be based on camera surveillance, and the most sophisticated solutions focus mainly on the security of tunnels. Currently, artificial intelligence and sensor data systems are not widely used for real-time monitoring of traffic disturbances. Data analysis systems using sensor fusion and artificial intelligence can now provide new opportunities for traffic management centers to obtain a richer real-time view of road conditions and disruptions as they occur.

The experiment was carried out at the Mestarintunneli tunnel in Leppävaara, Espoo. Alongside camera surveillance, LiDAR sensors were installed in the tunnel. Compared to traffic camera footage, LiDAR technology has the advantage of being reliable in different lighting conditions, including low light environments. The desired solution was to detect, for example, stalled vehicles and other disturbances such as people or animals on the road.

The project had a lot of data at its disposal, collected from the normal traffic flow. However, the number of abnormal situations during the measurement period was small, which made it more difficult to develop an artificial intelligence solution.

“In order to model traffic flows, we decided to build a tailored machine learning model based on sensor fusion, and one that also recognises traffic anomalies by comparing them with the normal traffic model. This approach shows that even a smaller set of observations can be used to build virtually functional artificial intelligence solutions,” says Ari Rantanen, Chief Data Scientist, Data Driven Businesses at Tieto.

“Automatic recognition of traffic disturbances is a key requirement for a secure road network. Based on current functional requirements, the most cost-effective system has been traffic camera surveillance with a built-in disturbance detection system. However, we are constantly monitoring the market and introducing new technologies to seek new opportunities and cost-effectiveness,” says Senior Officer Kalle Ruottinen from the Finnish Transport Agency.

The project showed that automated analysis of traffic flows can produce new, near real-time information for different stakeholder needs without significant investments in sensors. In addition to analysing traffic flows, sensor fusion intelligence enables a number of other uses, such as forecasting traffic disruptions and assisting traffic management.

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Can 3D printing solve the increasing challenges of service supply chain logistics?

In this episode of the Field Service Podcast, fieldservicenews.com Deputy Editor Mark Glover discusses the potential of 3D printing in terms of service supply chain logistics and spare parts management for field service organisations with Atanu Chaudhury, Associate Professor, Operations and Supply Chain Management at Aalborg University, Copenhagen ahead of his presentation at this year's Spare Parts Business Platform Conference in Stockholm being held next week. 

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If you haven't had a chance to work out this excellent conference into your schedule why not check out the UK edition where many of the same key themes will be discussed being held in Warwick on the 4th April. 

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Andrea Capello is Head of Parts BU at Ariston Thermo Group. He spoke to Field Service News’ Deputy Editor Mark Glover ahead of his presentation at the Spare Parts Business Platform in Sweden next month about the issues of non-genuine parts and the importance of an accurate stock-inventory.

Spare parts are the lifeblood of the service industry; seen as mini-assets themselves and essential to the heavy asset they form, it’s no surprise that companies invest time and money into the cataloguing and care of such elements. “When we think about spare parts, I have in mind two common themes,” says Andrea Capello, Head of Parts BU at Ariston Thermo Group, the Italian firm that produce thermic comfort products for commercial and industrial use. “One is related to maintenance and the other related to repair." In both, it is important to be fast and to be reactive to customer demand."

To do so, a balance between maintenance and repair components is essential, although some technicians can skew levels, stocking only repair parts to uphold first-time fix rates. "In our business, we should not accept this," Capello says earnestly. "Maintenance is fundamental in order to keep our products working properly. The challenge is to have a clear understanding of stock-balance. Which means understanding what stock you must keep and where you keep it. Only then, can you be fast and responsive to the customer."

Another challenge facing the sector is the increasingly common amount of non-genuine parts. Capello tells me that repairing or maintaining products with sub-standard components can compromise customer safety, the integrity of finished goods and risks reputational damage. But what can be done? “Managing your installed park is important,” he explains. “You can also prevent it by communicating clearly with the installer or by working with a direct service.”

I’m keen to enquire about innovation in the spare parts management, in particular, new technologies such as connectivity and predictive maintenance, the very nature of which lends itself to pre-empting asset faults. Capello agrees, saying it could play a key role for customers: “I think connectivity is extremely important and will become more so in the future when it comes to our finished products,” he says. “This will help us not only to work closely with the customer and better understand their needs and maybe we can realise before the customer that their equipment has an issue.”

Having been in his role for just over a year at Ariston Thermo what does he enjoy about his new position? “It gives me a complete 360 degrees overview of what is a very important part of the company,” he tells me. “I can extend my support into marketing, pricing and business intelligence, topics which are new to me, but areas I find really interesting.” Alluding to his previous comments on connectivity and predictive maintenance, does he finds these areas exciting; to be exploring IoT and machine learning and to witness how these new technologies can complement spare parts management? "Innovation is something we are always exploring at the company,” he says, “and we are always looking at the next step, but we have to make sure that our customer understands why we are doing it."

Andrea's presentation in Stockholm will be a focus on stock optimization, referencing Ariston Thermo's own inventory processes and guidelines. Does attending an event such as the Spare Parts Business Platform bring other advantages such as networking? "It's a great opportunity to meet other people who may have similar challenges that you are facing," he says. "We can share ideas on how to approach those challenges and understand the benchmark processes of other companies and you can go home with useful partnerships and establish another communication channel, to get a different perspective from outside your company.”

Andrea Capello will be speaking at the Spare Parts Business Platform which takes place on 12 and 13 of February in Stockholm, Sweden.

Big Data, the Internet of Things (IoT) and Sensors will be the technology trends most impacting mobile workforces over the next 12 months, say mobile technology buyers in research published by Panasonic.

When asked to rate the importance of technology trends for use by their mobile workforce, buyers rated Big Data (52%) the most important, closely followed by IoT (51%) and Sensor technologies (41%), including atmosphere, temperature and biological sensors. The main drivers for the technologies were improved business efficiency and productivity. 

Unsurprisingly, the mobile device buyers thought that the IT Department would benefit most within the organisation from every technology trend. However, looking at the second department to benefit most threw up some interesting insights. Respondents believe business management would benefit from Big Data, the IoT and Wearable technology. Sales would benefit from virtual reality developments. Logistics from drone technology and Research and Development would benefit from augmented reality, sensor technology, blockchain and artificial intelligence.

Looking further into the future, over the next three years, buyers could clearly see the impact on their mobile workforces of Big Data to improve service offerings, improve processes and reduce costs. With IoT, they saw the mobile workforce benefits as improving processes, improving service offering and helping to improve the functionality of mobile devices.

Considering how mobile devices will need to change over the next five years to take advantage of these new technologies, buyers prioritised improvements in device and data security (43%), processing power (31%) and communications for faster data transfer (31%).

Mobile device buyers also predicted the increasing importance of foldable tablets over the next five years and the continued rise of rugged devices as critical tools for mobile workforces. However, the largest group of buyers did not expect to change the type of mobile devices they were buying until two-to five years out.

However, the adoption of smart technologies for mobile workforces already looks well underway. Many buyers said that the implementation of smart watches, wrist bands and drone use had already been completed or was imminently planned for mobile workforces. 

Cost (27%) and reliability (19%) were the biggest issues preventing organisations from adopting new technologies faster. “Although a wide range of exciting future technologies are being watched closely, there is clear evidence from this research that businesses are adopting and looking to capitalise on the benefits of Big Data, IoT and Sensor technology for their mobile workforces,” said Jan Kaempfer, General Manager for Marketing at Panasonic Computer Product Solutions. “As these technologies are deployed, we move ever closer to the age of Edge Computing, where processing power is required at the edge of the network, much closer to where data is collected. This means the role of the mobile workforce computing device becomes even more critical in the gathering, analysis and communication of data, and the provision of services and in improving productivity.

A copy of the whitepaper, Future Technologies and their Impact on Mobile Workforces and their Devices, can be downloaded here. 

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Technology buyers are in favour of spreading the cost of equipping their mobile workforces with notebooks, tablets and handheld devices with 78% of UK technology buyers said they would be interested in a subscription-based solution to equip mobile workforces.

Currently buyers say their top considerations when purchasing mobile devices for their workforce are cost (72%) and life expectancy of the product (54%). Yet the majority of buyers still expect to replace their mobile workforces’ devices every 2-3 years.

Buyers said an “As a Service” approach for mobile hardware, as opposed to paying out in advance with a large, one-off capital expenditure, would help them to purchase up to date technology more quickly (54%), manage costs better (49%) and free up budget to purchase more accessories (34%).

The new approach of payments for hardware spread over three years at 0% interest, with helpdesk support and secure, end of life disposal was also attractive to buyers for reasons beyond cash flow. 53% said it would help them to maintain and dispose of devices more effectively and 33% agreed it would be a more secure way of disposing of mobile technology.

The service elements buyers most wanted included in the subscription model were a three-year warranty (65%), a payment plan with 0% interest (46%), and delivery of devices straight to the workplace (46%). Optional extras they were keen to see offered included Insurance (45%), extended standard warranty (43%), accidental damage warranty (43%), accessories (39%), specialist software applications (34%) and a trade-in programme (34%).

Despite the enthusiasm for the service, 69% of buyers were unaware of companies offering the service-based solution with 0% interest. The independent research, carried out by Opinion Matters on behalf of Panasonic Toughbook, questioned 250 UK technology buyers of notebooks, tablets and handheld devices for mobile workforces.

"69% of buyers were unaware of companies offering the service-based solution with 0% interest..."

“With the rapid advances in design and functionality of mobile devices and the resulting productivity gains for mobile workforces, businesses are keen to keep up to date with the latest developments,” said Kevin Jones, Managing Director for the Panasonic Mobile Solution Business in Europe. “This is resulting in an expensive capital expenditure every two-three years. But buyers are telling us that they would much rather move to a new subscription-based model, similar to the growing popularity of software as a service. Panasonic’s new Toughbook as a Service Solution helps our current and future customers overcome this challenge.” 

 

Toughbook-as-a-Service

Panasonic launched its new Toughbook-as-a-Service (TaaS) earlier this year. It’s a unique, interest free, monthly payment model for rugged devices. Businesses can now equip their mobile workforces with any rugged Panasonic Toughbook notebook, tablet or handheld device without having to worry about large upfront costs in capital expenditure. Toughbook-as-a-Service
Toughbook-as-a-Service is an end-to-end subscription, powered by European digital services provider, Econocom. It allows companies to pay for their Toughbook devices monthly, over a three-year period. Uniquely TaaS subscribers pay the same as a cash purchase, even though payments are spread over a longer term - eliminating the need for large upfront costs and allowing organisations to benefit from an OPEX-based solution rather than CAPEX.

TaaS solutions include access to Panasonic Toughbook devices, delivery, 3-year warranty, helpdesk support, and end-of-life services such as collection, recycling and data wiping. As well as the rugged hardware, customers can choose to add into the monthly payment, on the same 0% interest terms*, options for their solution including vehicle mounts, docking stations, specialist software applications and other device accessories, as well as extended and accidental damage warranties.

Customers can also choose to personalise their TaaS subscription with a number of optional extras, including a trade-in programme, which allows businesses to upgrade their technology without losing the value of their existing estate. TaaS also provides the ability to bundle in airtime, MDM and data analytics, for example. 

Click here to download an Executive Summary of the research Mobile Computing as a Service: Breaking the expensive cycle of mobile technology refreshes.

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Given the many industries field service straddles, the crossover of its employees into lone working is huge. Field Service News’ Mark Glover looks into this area of health and safety and discovers how technology - and positive human engagement - can play a huge part in its successful implementation.

The last five years has seen a shift in worldwide attitudes to health and safety. Emphasis has shifted from ‘safety’ to ‘health’ with more focus placed on long-latency diseases such as asbestos-related workplace cancer and musculoskeletal conditions such as tendonitus. Employee wellbeing and mental health is attracting greater awareness and safety professionals are having a stronger role at board level, with CEOs understanding the business case for a robust health and safety system.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is an agency of the UK Government’s responsible for regulating and enforcing health and safety law. As well as providing information and guidance, they also investigate workplace incidents and accidents and bring forward prosecutions if a company has been in breach of legislation.

Having spent five years as a health and safety journalist, I have seen the profession and HSE come in for criticism for pandering to the Nanny State and stifling society with its regulation. As such, the sector gets a bad reputation, not helped by UK subeditors keen to brandish the “health and safety gone mad” headline above a piece on a children’s party or a village fete being shut down. Often though - and newspapers will fail to report this - the reason for intervention is justified as ultimately, lives were most likely at risk....

 

Legislation and lone working

In the UK alone, it is estimated there are six million lone workers in the UK, and approximately 23 million in the US. Workers sent to fix a coffee machine, lorry or an offshore wind turbine classifies them as a lone worker; the spectrum of lone vocations is a vast one and those in field service will often come under the lone worker category.

 

"Employers are required to provide a duty of care to their workers and to do all that is ‘reasonably practicable’ to protect them..."

 

In the UK, health and safety legislation is underpinned by the Health and Safety at Work Act. Employers are required to provide a duty of care to their workers and to do all that is ‘reasonably practicable’ to protect them. In the sphere of lone working, there is no specific legislation as such. Speaking at a a recent lone worker safety conference in London, Sean Elson, a specialist Health and Safety Lawyer at Pinsent Masons said: “Most of the issues that I see around lone working are seen through the prism of the general duties of the Health and Safety at Work Act.”

And while the law, according to Elson “remains stable”, what is expected as ‘reasonably practicable’ is changing. “It does not stay the same. It is constantly moving,” he said at the same conference. “What is it we have to do to satisfy our duties?” The introduction of British Standard 8484:2016, the country’s Standard for Lone Worker safety devices, has further ring-fenced the effectiveness of lone worker solutions in the UK. Companies offering technology-based solutions have to adhere to the standard, a key requirement of which, is that an alarm, once activated supersedes the 999 level of emergency response, and be directed immediately to the relevant control unit, guaranteeing an appropriate police response.

 

Technology

Craig Swallow is Managing Director of SoloProtect, a company providing lone worker technology solutions in the UK and US. Clients include Sky, Domino’s Pizza and department store John Lewis. Typically, the end-users are working alone; sent to fix satellite boxes, deliver pizza and furniture. Soloprotect’s suite of solutions include personal ID tags that incorporate video technology and small fob alarms, which can also be discreetly triggered if an incident occurs.

Other products include an alarm watch system and a lone worker app, that can integrate with mobile workforce management. The firm also provide analytics software that covers usage, training and alarm elements and produces graphically-friendly reports to showcase progress to the CEO or department heads, an important element of a health and safety Manager’s modern role. “Our main point of contact is a company’s Health and Safety Manager,” Craig tells me over the phone.

 

"Alarms when I first started were very much stand-alone and weren’t really connected to anything, they were literally press a button and hope someone hears it..."

 

“They have always had the desire of providing their management team with the benefits of using the technology, and now they can provide a clear dashboard that justifies the ROI.” I ask Craig how open clients are to adopting new technology? “You’ve got the whole spectrum. Some are scared, some are really progressive. I was with a client yesterday,” he says, “and I was showing them what benefits they would get as a set of managers would be and they immediately got it.” So how much of an evolution has there been in the lone worker technology “It’s been massive,” says Nicole Vazquez (pictured), an expert in Lone Worker behaviour.

“Alarms when I first started were very much stand-alone and weren’t really connected to anything, they were literally press a button and hope someone hears it. Then it got a bit smarter and pressing that button would make sure somebody hears it. Now it’s connected to GPS and some companies will link it into their tracking and their productivity.”

 

Disingenuous

Nicole, who runs Worthwhile Training, a training and consultancy firm specialising in lone working and security, however has seen a down-side to the employee tracking features. “If you’re giving somebody a device for safety but they also know that you are using it to monitor productivity too, then it can feel a little bit disingenuous from the end-user’s point of view,” she suggests.

Convincing workers that the technology is a compliment rather than a hindrance is an ongoing challenge in the lone worker arena and Vazquez tells me of a client, a kitchen appliance manufacturer, who gave engineers tablets to register their arrival and departure at a job and to take pictures before and after to prove no damage occurred after completion. Ultimately the technology was there to protect workers, but it wasn’t perceived that way.

 

"Rather than it being a spy, it would be their witness. The difference between those two words is huge..."

 

“When we talked to the engineers about it, they said they felt uncomfortable,” Nicole remembers. “We took the angle that this was about protecting them.” However, after the workers said their safety wasn’t an issue, Nicole took another approach: “We asked them if they had been accused of, for example, causing damage when they hadn’t, and suddenly everybody wanted to have a conversation about it.” She continues: “Rather than it being a spy, it would be their witness. The difference between those two words is huge. It’s not somebody keeping an eye on them, it’s somebody keeping an eye out for them.”

In the States, employees are perhaps more cautious about being spied upon while working. Swallow suggests the role of Unions has made workers more aware of such technology. “In lone working,” he says, “you still have the same challenges – the same in field service - of workers wary of being tracked. I would offer that it’s a greater concern in the US because the Unions are very powerful.

The engagement, therefore, between both parties is often a greater consideration in America.”

 

The Potential

But what about the advantages of linking lone worker and field service technology? Efficiency and compliance can surely compliment a health and safety solution? Swallow, suggests the engineer’s tablet or rugged laptop aren’t quite suited to the lone worker discreet hardware just yet. “It’s not an ideal terminal to use from a health and safety or alarm perspective,” he says, “but if you could create relationships between our system and the field service system, whether that’s sharing information about known-location or risk, for example then there could be advantages.”

 

"The potential of IoT and machine learning on lone working technology is an exciting one..."

 

Expanding further, Craig recalls a client, a large rail operator, who require confirmation that track-side maintenance is being carried out by an engineer with the correct training and credentials but they also want to know when the job is being carried out. “They want to use our device,” Craig explains, “because those individuals are lone workers so there’s a health and safety angle too.” “It’s also about audit. They [the client] are managing a complex chain of sub-contractors and sub/sub-contractors. Ultimately, it’s about making sure they’ve got a full audit trail and the task in hand is being done by the right guy with the right credentials.”

The potential of IoT and machine learning on lone working technology is an exciting one, and Craig, who used to work at PSION, the British company who pioneered the Personal Digital Assistant in the early 80s, is convinced the industry is headed in that direction. “Traditionally, our devices use circuit switch voice and SMS,” he explains.

“We have a data product, where the voice; audio or video call, or whatever data is being sent will come through a middleware platform. The theory is, as long as you’ve got an Application Processing Interface (API), that data can interface with that middleware platform, with as many other platforms as you like.” Nicole is also encouraged by the “joined-up thinking” between safety and efficiency. However – and this is a big question in field service at the moment – she remains cautious about the cross-over between the asset and the engineers.

“It’s about making sure the productivity or efficiency tracking does not blur the boundaries of staff, she says. “People are your assets.” Lone working technology is a part of health and safety which exists so that, after a day’s work, workers go home unharmed. Indeed, as Nicole says, people are your biggest assets and they deserve to be protected to the highest possible standard.

A year into his tenure heading-up ServiceMax Scott Berg is in a positive mood. Field Service News’ Deputy Editor Mark Glover went to meet the CEO to discuss life after GE’s acquisition, Brexit and why IoT still has more to offer...

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Note: This interview was held prior to the announcement of Silver Lake's acquisition of a majority stake within ServiceMax which sees GE to continue as a minority investor. Find out more about the acquisition here 

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Ahead of my interview with Scott I go online to read a handful of the firm’s customer case-studies. I browse with the intention of spotting a pattern, a pool of similar companies that can give me handle on the ServiceMax success story. Of course, the firm have always operated in diverse sectors: aviation; food production and pharmaceuticals to name a few.

As I delve further the specialism of the companies narrow into impressive and exciting-sounding niches: centrifugal pumps manufacturers; architectural coating companies; bio-analytical measurement system providers all extolling the values of ServiceMax’s solutions. With this in mind, I start by asking Scott how he keeps a handle on this array of industries, a forest of complex verticals. “You’re talking about large workforces that have scheduling needs at a real primitive level who have a real despatch and scheduling element,” Scott tells me in a meeting room at GE’s London offices.

“I think that unifies all those vertical industries for us. At the bottom of that, for the most part, there is either a complex piece of equipment and it’s really that machine or that piece of equipment that we that’s at the centre of what we do. “We tend to provide solutions for those with complex asset types of services which could be a wind turbine or a power plant, a centrifuge, or a brain-surgery machine in a hospital. When you look at it that way, there’s a lot of similarity across them.”

It will be a year this January since Scott took up the post as CEO of ServiceMax coinciding with GE’s acquisition of the firm. Despite being part of a multi-national conglomerate, a company who this ranked 18 in this Fortune 500, has the technician-focused ethos remained “This is a company that cares quite a bit about assets and equipment and machinery and engineers,” Scott says.

“I think there’s something close to 25,000 employed service engineers. There’s a real love and affinity which has been good and benefitted us.” Since the acquisition, ServiceMax have gained traction beyond Europe in countries where previously it had been difficult to get a footprint. Of course, investment has helped but Scott suggests GE’s global respect has also been a factor. “In the past 12 months we’ve had a number of customers in the Middle East fuelled by the positive brand and reputation of GE in that part of the world.”

 

"This is a company that cares quite a bit about assets and equipment and machinery and engineers..."

 

Europe though remains a strong area for the outfit with clients spanning the continent. On the day I meet Scott, Britain is reacting to Theresa May’s draft Brexit proposal, and my mobile buzzed and bleeped with news notifications as I made the train journey down.

The process of Britain’s extraction from the European Union has been fraught and complex with political commentators and business leaders offering various doomsday scenarios if negotiations falter. I ask Scott what effect, if any, Brexit could have on its European footprint? “I don’t want to get political and be on one side or the other and I can’t say I fully understand it,” he says wisely, “but there’s a demand out there for global operation in the world’s largest corporations and people are going to have to get through trade barriers and deal with the consumer on a worldwide basis regardless.”

We’re both happy to swerve further discussion on Brexit so I steer back to where it all began for Scott, in pharmaceuticals at Eli Lilly and Dendrite in the early 90s where he held Business Director and Senior Director roles respectively. A role at Connect offered a peak into the field service sector dealing with territory management systems, introducing large volumes of laptops into white-collar knowledge workers. “I had an early glimpse of the mobile workforce and what that was going to look like,” he recalls. At the time, California was the focal point of US software development. Fuelled by a growing interest in technology, Scott, originally from New Jersey headed to “chase the dream”. Fast forwarding then to 2009 and Scott is interviewing at ServiceMax.

As he plotted his experience, he was able to align his previous roles to the field service sector. “Even as I was about to join the company,” he says with a smile, “I was remembering all the things – even from pharmaceuticals – about remote working and parts ordering. We would deploy thousands of laptops to a sales team and none of those laptops had the means to service them, repair them, return then, ship them and prep them. Back in those days we had to run a full-on field sales operation because how else would 2,000 reps get what they needed.

“I had no idea how pertinent that would end up being first-hand experience of aftermarket or a parts operation where frankly where we trying to deliver a software solution.”

We work out that “back then” was 35 years ago and we both wince slightly at the speed of time passing. “My daughter calls me old,” Scott, 50, jokes. Still, the last four decades have seen a revolution in technology and software advances; the advent of the internet underpinning most applications. I ask Scott, given his experience, if he thinks the world wide web was a watershed moment, or perhaps something else? “I think the big change that I’ve seen for has been mobile,” he offers.

 

"The internet is not as ‘everywhere’ as people believe. It’s blocked in hospitals and airports. It’s enhanced by smart-mobile devices that have these rich capabilities but we also have to deal with the reality that they will sometimes lose connectivity..."

 

“Of course, this would be nowhere without the internet but going from luggable, yet heavy and fragile laptops to really smart affordable mobile devices; I think that’s a big deal.” And what about the internet? “ It’s been a bit of a double-edged sword,” he says. The internet is not as ‘everywhere’ as people believe. It’s blocked in hospitals and airports. It’s enhanced by smart-mobile devices that have these rich capabilities but we also have to deal with the reality that they will sometimes lose connectivity.

“We acknowledge the mobile workforce and the internet connectivity and getting data to people; we acknowledge the mobile devices and how important they’ll be but the only way to really do this properly is to think about that device and software operating in a connected and dis-connected way,” he pauses. “It’s a balance of the two. Relying on connectivity, the Internet of Things (IoT) goes beyond laptops, smartphones and tablets. Monitoring our heating and air-conditioning and even dimming our lights, its potential impact across heavy industry is huge."

In a previous interview with Field Service News’ Scott said that IoT had been an “unfulfilled promise”. Does he stick by the statement? “I think what needs to happen now, and this is where the real value will come from IoT,” he says recalling the earlier Interview.

“I think what needs to happen now, and where the real value will come from IoT, is when input from a machine can be fed into more predictive models using Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning. Only then we will get truly predictive services, and only then will you get a learning model rather than an alert system.” He elaborates further: “Part of the early benefits for our customer base have been error logs and early warning systems. Now, what we offer for field service management and asset performance management can be through IoT and the predictive side; and then measure whether or not that had the impact that was wanted.”

 

"I think the version of autonomy that applies to complex services is a smarter machine that asks for help before it needs it..."

 

So, not only pre-empting but learning from pre-empting? “Exactly,” he affirms.

“We talk a lot about the closed-loop mentality; where you’re predictive about the maintenance instruction, then you capture the service that was actually executed then feed that back and now the model gets smarter over time.”

Despite the speed in which technology is progressing Scott believes the technical role of the engineer will remain.

He’s wise and experienced enough however, to know it is changing.

The asset, assisted by IoT and Machine Learning, will come to complement the technician. He references the term autonomous, suggesting – perhaps correctly – that people only associate it with self-driving cars. “I think the version of autonomy that applies to complex services is a smarter machine that asks for help before it needs it, a smarter machine that provides realtime data to advise the technician,” he says.

While IoT is certainly changing the field service marketplace, the hype around the technology is bringing a side-effect, a bi-product that requires effort for an end-user to control: data, reams of data. Scott is sympathetic towards clients who find themselves drowning in error-codes.

He tells me about a client he met the previous day - a provider of cancer surgery equipment.

“Every morning,” he says shaking his head, “the technician woke to an email reporting 2,000 potential error codes. And it’s all on this technician to decide what’s meaningful and what’s not. Sure, it’s a good IoT application that’s come up with 2,000 codes, but which one actually matters?”

The issue of data-overload affirms Scott’s earlier point, that IoT needs to be reined in by a strong predictive model that can filter the relevant information.

“That’s where things are really advancing now,” Scott affirms.

“To go from IoT spewing data at people, to layering a predictive model on that to advise and lead a technician’s actions, delivered through a smart mobile device that can present the relevant information.”

All of this ultimately adds up to efficiency, a key factor for those organisations whose business models are asset-heavy; the wind turbine or nuclear reactor for example. The effect of down-time across an assembly line, for even a short period can have serious financial consequences.

“They can’t afford for it to be down,” Scott explains, “and you can’t just call anyone to come and fix it. This isn’t a Google or a Yelp search to get someone with credentials to climb 300ft and fix a wind turbine.”

 

"The effect of down-time across an assembly line, for even a short period can have serious financial consequences..."

 

With good timing, a week before our meeting, a GE press release lands in my in-box announcing the launch of PreDix ServiceMax Asset Service Management software aimed squarely at these heavy-asset sectors. I’m drawn to the safety and compliance element of the software where the solution creates documentation for workers to check the correct Personal Protective Equipment is fitted.

“Even a simple checklist at the start of each technician’s day that asks if you are equipped with the right boots, or hard-hat or eye wear; just the reminder can contribute to a reduction in safety incidents,” Scott says.

Importantly, signed employee safety and maintenance documentation creates evidence of compliance. Scott outlines the process: “It [the documentation) shows that every technician, that morning acknowledged that safety procedure and that instruction, the documentation can prove it occurred. Along with the maintenance documents, it shows that everything that needed to get done was done.”

Checklist management has been a focus at ServiceMax. 

The firm have produced capabilities around form-data capture, the uploading and capture of photograph as well as video; all feeding into the battle against inefficiency. To make this point Scott cites describes wind-turbine maintenance, which to take place, a technician must climb 300ft, a journey that can take several hours.

“Imagine the tremendous inefficiency if you weren’t perfectly ready with everything you needed when you got up there. “You don’t want to get all the way and not have the right bulb,” he says, only half-smiling. You have to be perfectly ready to execute because you’re about to spend four hours getting to a destination.”

I wrap up the interview by asking Scott what inspires him to do what he does?

He lists the variety of industries that they serve, clearly enjoying the different experiences this brings.

However, he finishes – unsurprisingly, as is the ServiceMax ethos – by bringing it back to the engineer.

“I think the field-service technician is an underserved, individual skill,” he says. So, perhaps serving, literally, millions of technicians is part of what drives me.”

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Scott Berg is CEO of ServiceMax

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