AUTHOR ARCHIVES: Sharon Clancy

The latest developments in remote workforce management are helping companies to get more from their field service teams, explains Paul Ridden, CEO, SmartTask .

For field service companies that provide contracted, scheduled staff to client sites, workforce costs are a significant overhead, especially when you consider the constant pressure on margins and the need to provide innovative services to win new contracts.

Remote workforce management has been around for some time, helping companies to capture proof of time, attendance and work completed, enabling them to monitor the status of their teams centrally. Now systems are emerging that bring all of these components in to a single package along with the other key back office functions required to effectively manage field service teams. As a result, they can now provide complete peace of mind that personnel are safe while ensuring they are delivering the services agreed.

Such tools can work alongside systems including payroll, invoicing and rostering, using real-time data to verify timesheets, provide accurate proof of work and overcome scheduling challenges. This is helping to maximise profitability of contracts using the most appropriate employees, billing correctly and not overpaying. Meanwhile, it is possible to integrate intelligent rostering and control room to automate and streamline operational processes as well as reduce office-based administration costs.

 

Based on a framework of electronic proof and attendance it is becoming possible for existing staff located at client sites to effectively take on additional tasks such as inspections or audits, enabling organisations to provide areas of differentiation to clients and make best use of resources to boost profitability. There is also an opportunity to provide a tool to register an operational issue or risk, irrespective of the remote worker’s core function, with an effective process included to encourage and simplify such an action.

Using smart forms, via a mobile application, an employee can quickly complete and submit an incident report, which triggers an email escalation process sent to the appropriate department so they can deal with the problem immediately. This means supervisors and managers can have a live-view of any issues, failures or wastage with details electronically captured including photographic evidence where appropriate. A copy of the incident can also be sent to an online portal where it can be monitored and managed through its lifecycle while providing data for trend analysis via the management information generated.

These flexible smart forms can be configured for a wide range of uses including alerts, inspections, audits, requests, job acceptance and job completion. In particular, it is possible to implement an electronic compliance solution for health and safety, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), COSHH hazardous substance procedures. These checks can replace existing manual processes to achieve immediate workplace compliance, while streamlining administration and saving money.

Typically, a paper-based solution is not only time consuming and costly to manage across multiple sites, but is easy to falsely or fraudulently complete. In contrast, a smart form registers the exact time it was completed and with signature capture shows which employee undertook the check. Furthermore, all the data is delivered to the online portal, so it is collected electronically in real-time without having to post hard copies and have someone collate manually.

The latest developments in remote workforce management is evolving beyond simply proof of attendance. It is providing the potential to enhance business performance and help overcome some of the operational challenges faced by companies in the field service marketplace in terms of revenue growth, customer satisfaction and compliance.

 

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Over 300 service companies are now using its paperless 3-in-1 JobWatch field service solution, reports UK mobile workforce management solutions BigChange.

Launched three years ago, JobWatch was developed to give field service businesses of any size everything they need to plan, manage, schedule and track their mobile workforce. The easy to use, simple to implement system combines back-office, mobile app and real-time vehicle and resource tracking in a single cloud based solution.  It provides end-to-end management of the entire service process from quotation all the way through to invoice including intelligent planning and scheduling. A whole mountain of paperwork is replaced with automated workflows on the JobWatch app that guides mobile engineers or drivers through all their tasks.

According to BigChange’s CEO and founder Martin Port, JobWatch aims to bring mobile workforce management technology to the thousands of small, medium and large businesses that still operate using manual paper based processes:

“Historically this technology has been out of reach for SMEs given the cost and perceived complexity. JobWatch is a game-changer for these businesses, giving them the power of a ‘big enterprise’ system but with incredible simplicity, affordability and customisability.”

Among the users are nationwide hire companies Nixon and Elliott Hire who are using JobWatch to streamline the servicing of equipment and portable toilets  across the UK. The Forestry arm of Komatsu uses JobWatch to manage the servicing of huge timber felling and processing machinery.

JobWatch is proving to be a growth catalyst for startups such as waste and recycling specialist Clearabee who adopted the system back in 2013 when they had a single vehicle. Their business has grown rapidly and the company now serves over 30,000 nationwide clients across 15 sites with a team of 50 employees.

The return-on-investment for users is significant, says Port. “A perfect example is dp Doors.  JobWatch has brought their business 25% more revenue each month, thanks to smarter scheduling and greater productivity across their 23 strong field service team. This equates to an extra 4 jobs per engineer per week. Admin in their back office has been reduced by 15% and this time saved is being dedicated to value-adding sales and marketing activities. Failed jobs have been reduced by 50%. Their annual fuel savings from JobWatch are in excess of £5000 and this saving alone is paying for their JobWatch system.”

 

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In Part One of this feature, Brendan Viggers, head of product and sales support at IFS Aerospace & Defence Centre of Excellence, explained the potential of  Wearables and Context Aware technology to transform various maintenance and servicing tasks in the Aerospace and Defence sector. In Part Two, he explains why  Context Aware apps will be critical in delivering ROI and user satisfaction in wearables.

With device development enabling us to monitor activity in more detail, user context-awareness is being included in consumer devices to an ever-increasing degree. Imagine what could be achieved if technologies like cameras and the Kinect - a motion-sensing input device by Microsoft for the Xbox One video game console - were included in appliances and devices in your base maintenance facility or field location.

Recognising where people are and what they do will enable designers to create attentive applications that look at what is going on and react appropriately. For example, teleporting - sometimes called “follow- me” computing - is a tool available today to dynamically map the user interface onto the resources of the surrounding computer and communication facilities in office complexes.

In a maintenance environment, this could be adapted so that relevant applications can 'follow' a worker moving around maintenance locations or even different equipment and process bays in an aircraft, and be available as required. The maintenance station will recognise which member of your maintenance team is going to use it based on identity tag or even body profile, and pre-select that person’s authorised maintenance or repair task schedules. If directly linked to equipment health monitors, it could automatically add high priority preventative maintenance tasks to a repair schedule being undertaken in the same location.

 

So What?

CCS Insight predict that there will be up to 100million smartphone companions such as smartwatches by 2017. Research from Business Insider Intelligence indicates the global wearables market will grow at an annual compound rate of 35 percent over the next five years.

The advance of wearable technology seems unstoppable, but it isn't a new revolution - witness the use of emergency buttons to call for help after a fall. Its deployment has simply taken off over the past few years. We all understand that wearable blood glucose, heart rate, blood pressure monitors can help people stay healthier for longer. In Aerospace and Defence, future wearable technology must be demonstrably useful - both needed and wanted. To be wanted, we have got to have valuable applications that will benefit wearables and be contextually aware - only then can we truly demonstrate a real return on investment that warrants change and adoption of the technology.

Empowerment and the future with wearables

The key to this is not so much wearables, but the context aware applications that are accessed by or loaded onto them. Making applications more social and user friendly through context-aware wearable technology will surely be the way forward. Mobile applications, as a front end to powerful enterprise platforms, can be developed and made context aware in very short order.

Our experience shows that it is possible to develop and deliver mobile applications specific to a user’s requirements often in weeks rather than the traditional ERP software application that takes months or even years to deploy. In the forward space these apps must be optimised with functionality for the engineer depending on the operational environment. Overloading an engineer with full IS solution functionality doesn't make sense.

Mobile apps offer a solution to the problem of gaining essential feedback of operational information without inundating the engineer - they must be task-specific, in a recognisable format, optimised for specific equipment, easy to customise and devoid of superfluous overhead. The ability to add operational data relating to flight, crew and vehicle in real-time adds real value to ERP.

IFS is currently deploying a range of mobile apps, the next step would be to port mobile apps on to a wearable device that is sufficiently context aware so automatically records when and where a fault is logged – saving valuable time by negating the need for the engineer to 'down tools' in order to log on to a laptop or handheld device to gain access to back-office information.

Innovative wearable technology has matured over the past decades from 'fall monitors' to truly interactive, context aware support tools. We can give operators direct support at their fingertips, in their ears or in front of their eyes, and also intimately understand the challenges they are facing. The development of hardware and sensors to 'socialise' the technology is about to take off, but these are really just delivery and input points for information that allows context-tailored applications to link users to powerful enterprise processes.

The immediate benefits of delivering powerful computer support directly to users, and capturing contextual information to improve enterprise-level knowledge offers exciting opportunities in the immediate future to streamline MRO activity and allow supply chains to get ahead of the game.

IFS is at the forefront of integrating innovative wearable and context aware technology with an agile Aerospace and Defence ERP application which streamlines support and, critically, reduces costly operational downtime. The result is aircraft spend more time in the air with maintenance support tailored to suit any environment, at any time.

 

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Enterprise mobility company Kony Inc. has launched a mobile solution with SAP-Certified Integration to help companies modernise their field service processes for mobile devices, IoT and wearables.

The Kony Mobile Field Service solution for SAP Business Suite is a set of three new apps and implementation services designed to help businesses move away from a paper-based field service operation to a completely mobilised environment within 30 days.

“We are seeing more organisations turn to mobility to streamline processes and increase productivity; however, many are still held back by expensive upgrades and limited resources,” said Dave Shirk, president, Product, Strategy and Marketing for Kony. “With Kony Mobile Field Service solution, enterprises using SAP Business Suite can now quickly mobilise the field team without investing in expensive upgrades to their SAP systems, or having to rip and replace their entire backend infrastructure. With mobility, they can now process more work orders, improve their service levels and first time fix rates; and ultimately increase revenue by introducing the ability for technicians to upsell and process payments in the field.”

The solution is a single integrated suite that optimises the entire field service business process. This enables businesses to maximise efficiency while processing notification, planning and tracking, and executing work orders all in a single integrated app suite.  It is built on the Kony Mobile Platform, and extensive experience and expertise based on helping global companies and brands mobilise their field service business processes.

One of the first users to deploy the solution is Irish utility company ESB.  "Servicing more than two million customers, we needed a mobile solution that our field technicians could rely on to help streamline work orders and improve overall efficiency,” said Eugene O’Sullivan, Networks Mobile programme manager, ESB. “We turned to Kony to help mobilise our field services because data is very important in our industry and Kony’s solutions offered the data synchronisation we needed. With our Mobile Work Order solution, technicians have the ability to view work order details, see location maps, review meter details, and record data to complete the work orders.”

Kony is a silver partner in the SAP PartnerEdge program and provides enterprises using SAP systems the flexibility and agility they need to use these apps as is or they can customise the front-end application design and integrations with their back-end systems to fit their requirements. In addition to SAP, Kony can also mobilise other enterprise applications such as Oracle, Microsoft, Siebel, and Salesforce to drive process improvements.

 

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Commercial catering and refrigeration equipment service provider Serviceline has transformed its field service operations with the Maxoptra dynamic scheduling and planning system from Magenta Technologies.

Serviceline has completed stage one of the project to streamline its operations by providing better visibility of its mobile resources and availability of service engineers’ time.  By automating 90% of field service tasks, the company now has time to focus on enhancing customer service.

Serviceline has 120 engineers collectively possessing more than 400 different skill sets. Planning, matching and allocating work to the best qualified service engineer is very challenging, especially when new jobs come in during the day, which continually changes priorities.

“We had this vision of what we wanted the business to achieve. For us, customer service is key. It’s all about communication, the relationship you build and maintain with your customers. We always had a belief that if we could automate the planning and scheduling process to quickly provide the information our people needed to make the best decisions, then they would have more time to talk to customers,” said Steve Elliott, Managing Director of Serviceline.

“Maxoptra is the embodiment of that concept. It is the first and only dynamic scheduling and planning system that we have found which does that, where there is the programming functionality to take away 90 percent of what our staff had to do manually.”

Elliot continued: “It used to take six months for a new planner or dispatcher to learn fully how to use the two booking systems we used to manage the complexity. Now we have complete visibility of where our engineers are and the status of each job. This allows us to consider options and make the best routing and planning decisions quickly.”

The software is fully integrated with the existing SaaS telematics platform, to provide a map-based real-time display of vehicle location, job status and work schedule. Serviceline can now have optimised schedules from Maxoptra sent directly to in-cab terminals, allowing the field engineers to navigate to their jobs and report their progress in real time. The system also highlights variances from plan.

 

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The Aerospace and Defence sector has a deserved reputation for being early adopters of new technology solutions for  servicing and maintenance. True to form, ground breaking developments in Wearables and Context Aware technology are expected to  streamline  maintenance operations in the sector and empower the supply chain.  In Part One of this two-part feature, Brendan Viggers, product and sales support at IFS Aerospace & Defence Centre of Excellence, explains the potential.

Aerospace and Defence support, whether that is maintenance, engineering, supply or transportation, is complicated by the challenges of distance from the home base, environmental and operating pressures, and even cultural constraints in deployed operating areas. Maintenance in the field is very different from at the depot or base.

Maintenance activity requires, as a basic minimum, the right information and technical support with the right functionality to support operations, so it is a no-brainer that this needs to be tailored for the environment where the maintenance is taking place. For many years vendors have deployed solutions forwards that are manifestly complex, full enterprise solutions on mobile devices.

But in-field maintenance bears little or no similarity to that back at base, the environment is unique and often extreme. Time pressure is often increased for field engineers who have to meet tight turn-round schedules, and have the right technical documentation and direction to hand, dependent on the task and time. In unique, and often restrictive, maintenance environments full enterprise solution functionality can become a hindrance to field engineers - tailored functionality for the specific environment is critical to meeting operational deadlines.

The need for tailored information and functionality

Speedy resolution of unusual problems can be massively enhanced if equipment and those in support can understand the multiple contexts the field engineer is encountering. These include 'user' context such as the user’s profile, location, people nearby, even the current social situation; 'physical' context such as lighting, noise levels, traffic conditions and temperature; and 'time' context such as time of a day, week, month, and season of the year at the deployed location; and finally an 'operational' context to monitor elements such as spare part availability and the maintenance task at hand.

This is where wearables and context aware technology enter the fray. According to recent Forrester research, 68 percent of global technology and business decision makers say that wearables are a priority for their firm, with 51 percent calling it a moderate, high or critical priority.

 

Wearables can sense the user's physical environment much more completely than previously possible, and in many more situations. This makes them excellent platforms for applications where the computer is working even when you aren't giving explicit commands. Future developments will introduce increased use of solutions that will automatically tailor their presentation and operation through recognition of the maintenance environment it is in.

Context Aware and Wearables in action - Civil Aviation

In the base environment, there are opportunities for application of the technology across production, quality assurance, safety, warehousing and logistics - for example, wearables can increase worker agility. Supporting the location of faulty wires or equipment on a grounded aircraft, and notifying workers about hazards such as the presence of other activities being conducted on the aircraft, are areas that could be addressed right now. Boeing is currently experimenting with augmented reality for aircraft maintenance, a hands-free device instructs workers where to find a product in the inventory.

This could be extended to giving mechanics virtual 'sight' of components hidden behind other systems or structures relative to their personal location - allowing them to remove, fit or adjust a component that they cannot physically see.

The instant effect on maintenance repair and overhaul (MRO)

Wearables with augmented reality have the potential to automatically identify the spare part required by a field engineer. Information on the appearance, known context and maintenance task required can then be fed through to the engineer's wearable device negating the need to barcode scan or consult technology documents in difficult maintenance environments - such as a dark submarine bilge or the underbelly of an aircraft - where movement is limited. It also removes the requirement for the intimate support of a base supply chain and logistician. This comes with the added bonus of not having to trek kilometres across an airfield to access catalogues in a maintenance hangar or planning office.

With context aware and wearable technology cross-matching bar codes, stock or part numbers - or even better integrating with electronic technical documents - the engineer can ensure that the right item is demanded or fitted, with the benefit of reducing time consuming document and database searches that introduce a greater opportunity for error. Increased autonomy thanks to wearables and context aware computing means the maintenance engineer spends less time 'downing tools' to consult collateral material, improving overall MRO efficiency.

Expertise on demand

Wearables can also be used for maintenance, repairs and over-the-shoulder coaching for remote engineers. Cargo and maintenance personal from a major airline have trialled the use of an optical head-mounted display (OHMD) to help inspect aircraft on the tarmac. They capture video and photos and send them to a central office where technical safety professionals assess an aircraft’s condition.

IFS is working with XM Reality to bring forward a remote expert to assist in complex maintenance to broaden the capabilities of maintenance engineers on the ground - 'augmenting' flight-line workers' skills. IFS believes adding cognitive applications and voice-controlled intelligent agents similar to Siri to wearable devices would further augment such workers' skills, helping them identify and act on specific problems with more autonomy.

Look out for Part Two of this feature which takes a closer look at the role Context-Aware mobile apps will have in achieving wider deployment of wearables.

 

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Facilities and maintenance services provider Arcus Solutions Ltd has achieves a 20% improvement in productivity following deployment of Aeromark Optmatics mobile workforce management software.  Additionally, services levels are up 40%.

In 2013 Arcus went to the market to look for a new system that would help improve the management of the maintenance service to their customers and optimise the productivity throughout  their 155 strong field service engineer workforce.

Aeromark Optimatics was selected as it offered smart technology that would  provide clear visibility of field operations and optimisation of the whole service process, minimising operational costs whilst at the same time improving service levels.

After the first six months of full operation, not only has the cost base been optimised but the service levels delivered have improved by 40%.

“Aeromark’s agile approach combined with the power and flexibility of their Optimatics technology has enabled our entire business process to be optimised and aligned with best practice. This has resulted in over 50% reduction in touch-points, statutory paper records have been replaced with electronic documentation and we have seen a significant, reduction in fuel and wasted time” said Parag Gogate, Head of Projects and Quality at Arcus.

“As a result of the considerable success of this project, we have decided to roll out Optimatics as our standard enterprise software across the whole group” continued Parag.

Optimatics provides a complete mobile workforce management solution for the entire process of service delivery, from scheduling, workflow driven mobile applications through to vehicle tracking. It provides Arcus’s administrative employees a more consistent approach to working, which enables them to plan reactive jobs more efficiently, by sending accurate customer data directly to the Aeromark mobile application.

Roger Marks, Managing Director of Aeromark said “We are very pleased with the results from the deployment at Arcus Solutions who have not only enthusiastically embraced the technology but also the associated changes in business process. We look forward to working with Arcus on the next phase of the wider project.”

 

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A new study from Juniper Research forecasts almost 20 million fully autonomous or self-driving vehicles on the road by 2025, with consumer adoption set to take off in 2021.  These driverless cars will, however, represent only 1% of all vehicles on the roads.

Driven by increased safety and convenience for drivers, development has progressed to live trials with North America and West Europe set to become the first to witness driverless cars in use on the road.

The research found that in the interim, consumer usage of ADAS (Advanced Driving Assistance System) technologies such as adaptive cruise control and automated braking will become key. It argued that these systems will serve to prepare drivers for the psychological change from the role of driving a car to operating a driverless car.

How to Monetise Driverless Cars?

The new research, Autonomous Vehicles: Adoption, Regulation & Business Models 2015-2025, finds that although the market has progressed to live trials, a discernible monetisation strategy has not become evident. Stakeholders are currently investigating multiple business models with manufacturers expected to engage in product licensing, self-production or open sourcing the systems.

Top 5 Players Driving the Market

Juniper Research ranked the top 5 most promising players in the driverless car sector. They were scored on a number of key factors such as: live trials; miles tested on road; technology development; project scale and scope; future potential and market opportunities. The rankings were:  Google, Volvo, Daimler, Tesla and Apple. Google was ranked as the most promising player, having been in development the longest and having logged the highest amount of autonomous miles on public roads.

Dealing with Dilemmas

The research noted that concerns over the decision making capabilities of these systems have been raised and questions have been asked about the decisions autonomous vehicles would take when presented with the Trolley Problem, where the autonomous car will be forced to choose between two disastrous outcomes.

The Juniper study argued that the siloed nature of technology development requires stakeholders to collaborate and ensure a minimum level of safety for those in the hands of autonomous driving systems.

The report forms part of Juniper’s ongoing analysis of Connected Cars & Telematics.

 

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The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has announced a review of compliance with consumer law in the cloud storage  services sector. While the review is focused solely on establishing compliance with consumer law, it is being driven partly by the European Commissions's strategy to build a "Digital Single Market" so may ultimately have wider implications for business cloud services. 

In the UK, the review has been prompted by consumer concerns about price and service changes for cloud storage. Cloud storage is used by a growing number of UK consumers to store photographs, music and documents: an estimated 40% of UK adults use cloud storage services.

The CMA review of consumer law compliance in this important sector follows some reports of practices and terms being used that may breach consumer law. For example, the CMA reports it has heard about consumers being surprised by significant price increases and by reductions to unlimited storage capacity deals after contracts have been agreed. The CMA is also aware of concerns about the loss or deletion of some consumers’ data.

The CMA’s review will assess how widespread these practices are, whether they breach consumer law and how they are affecting consumers. The review is open for responses until 15 January 2016. The CMA wants to hear from businesses about their practices and from consumers and industry experts about their experiences.

Nisha Arora, CMA Senior Director, Consumer, said: “Cloud storage is a dynamic and growing sector which is already highly valued by consumers. “We want to hear from business, interested organisations and consumers about their experiences, to assess whether companies understand and comply with consumer law and whether cloud storage services are working well for consumers as a result.

“If our review finds breaches of consumer protection laws we will take further action to address these which could include enforcement action using our consumer law powers, seeking voluntary change from the sector or providing guidance to business or consumers.”

The CMA review may ultimately have implications for business because it is being driven in part by the European Commission's strategy to build a 'Digital Single Market. This builds on the previous European Cloud Computing Strategy, which was designed to speed up and increase the use of cloud computing across all economic sectors and included work on developing ‘safe and fair’ terms and conditions.  The Digital Single Market strategy aims to develop legislative proposals for simple and effective cross-border contract rules for consumers and businesses.

The CMA report is expected to be published in May 2016.

 

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