Help Lightning, the leading provider of remote visual assistance software, announced today the acquisition of Fieldbit, an augmented reality-enabled platform known for its innovative knowledge sharing, remote collaboration and workflow automation capabilities supporting both expert led and self-help solutioning. 

Help Lightning is a leading innovator in the application of augmented reality for use cases that deliver positive outcomes in industries such as complex medical equipment and telecommunications. According to Gartner®, “by 2026, 75% of capital-equipment-intensive industries will use AR as a key component for cost reduction/avoidance among frontline workers”. With significant category growth expected over the next 3 years, the acquisition of Fieldbit will provide the broadest and deepest value creation for its growing list of global enterprise customers.

THE ACQUISITION SIGNIFICANTLY ENHANCES HELP LIGHTNING'S INDUSTRY-LEADING REMOTE ASSISTANCE SOLUTION WITH NEW, EXPANSIVE CAPABILITIES TO DEEPEN CUSTOMER VALUE

“Today’s announcement represents another exciting milestone for Help Lightning and more good news for our more than 200 customers who benefit every day from our AR-enabled solution,” said Gary York, CEO of Help Lightning. “The acquisition of Fieldbit is an important step in fulfilling our vision to provide instant access to expertise, delivering dramatic improvements in first time fix rates, resolution times, and customer satisfaction.” 

With Fieldbit, Help Lightning customers will benefit from access to additional capabilities to enable real-time, expert-led problem solving while also supporting a variety of self-help scenarios. The combined solution will include an industry-leading set of capabilities such as:

• Remote video collaboration and technical support
• 3D annotation
• The industry’s only Merged Reality feature
• Knowledge capture and share
• Work instructions including operational & safety procedures
• Augmenting real time data from IIoT platforms

“Like few other technology vendors we partner with, Help Lightning has been both an innovator and a partner in support of our company’s success,” said Tim Spencer, Senior Vice President and General Manager Service Operations at BUNN. “We were excited to hear about Help Lightning’s acquisition of Fieldbit and anticipate an exponential growth in value internally and externally from our use of the newly combined solution.”

With this acquisition, Help Lightning improves support for the ever-expanding needs of enterprise customers who depend on its services, including leading brands like Ricoh, Bunn and Becton Dickinson. Fieldbit brings depth and breadth in comparison to other solutions on the market, allowing the combined power of these two industry leaders to successfully meet the needs of today’s global enterprises. Fieldbit has a strong roster of successful customers including large enterprises such as BP, Emerson, and Veolia. 

“From the beginning, our vision at Fieldbit has been to be at the forefront of technology so we can provide the most advanced AR solutions for our customers,” said Evyatar Meiron, CEO of Fieldbit. “With our strong footprint in the energy, utilities and manufacturing industries, and together with Help Lightning’s ability to create and expand customer value, we are now able to bring unparalleled expertise and powerful capabilities to create positive outcomes for our customers.”

For more information about how Help Lightning enables business experts to virtually work side-by-side with anyone needing help, anywhere in the world, visit helplightning.com.

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Further Reading:

• Read more about Digital Transformation @ www.fieldservicenews.com/digital-transformation
• Read more about Help Lightning on Field Service News @ www.fieldservicenews.com/helplightning
• Read more about Remote Assistance on Field Service News @ www.fieldservicenews.com/remote-assistance
• Find out more about Help Lightning @ helplightning.com
• Learn more about Fieldbit @ www.fieldbit.net
• Connect with Help Lightning on LinkedIn@ www.linkedin.com/company/helplightning/
• Follow Help Lightning on Twitter @ twitter.com/helplightning

IFS, the global cloud enterprise applications company, today announced the latest update to IFS Cloud™, which is now generally available. IFS’s twice annual release cycle allows customers to constantly evolve their solution without the need for big upgrades or migrations, clearing their road to focus on business transformation.

The latest evolution of IFS Cloud delivers a long range of innovative, industry-specific new capabilities. For one, IFS is helping businesses collect the data needed to demonstrate their compliance and improve their performance against environmental sustainability standards - IFS Cloud Sustainability Hub is now available and integrated inside Microsoft Teams. Secondly, IFS Cloud for HCM and Talent Management solutions now provide the flexibility of using either basic or out of the box functionality for recruitment, onboarding, and development of your most key resource – your people.

New features include ESG capabilities, Advanced Analytics and innovative user experience

Available now are new APIs that connect factory machinery with IFS Cloud to deliver a connected shopfloor – this provides real-time intelligence that enables companies to better manage their supply-chain and production in line with order demands. New Intelligent Asset Monitoring and Maintenance functionality uses machine learning to improve predicative maintenance capabilities and efficiency.

The new Advanced Analytics feature that is accessible through the user-customizable Lobbies leverages modular tabular analysis models to clearly display business-critical information relevant to the user. End users can visualize their data in real, detailed graphical renderings suitable to the way they access and consume data, reducing the skills needed to make insights available to everyone.

As a market differentiator and ongoing driver for the evolution of IFS Cloud, the platform’s UX has also been updated. New branding capabilities allow the customer to integrate their own look & feel, helping to create a more engaging experience for users. Adding customization and analytical capabilities enables users to join up data, insights, actions and transactions in one place.

Additional capabilities added to IFS Cloud include:

• The Update Studio puts customers in control of the update and cadence of functionality, allowing them to analyze the release update and understand what impact it might have on configuration or customization, before making any changes, which is especially critical to customers in regulated industries. The Update Studio is at the heart of enabling our customers to stay evergreen.
• The Dispatch Console, which is part of IFS Cloud for Service Management, now features capabilities based on four personas of dispatchers, ranging from those that rely on a mostly automated process to those that will complete a whole process start to finish manually. IFS Cloud now gives each user profile the power to make sure they are delivering their Moment of Service™ for their customers.

IFS Chief Product Officer Christian Pedersen commented, “The updates we have built into the latest release of IFS Cloud are meaningful for our customers, both in how customers engage with the software through the UX improvements, as well as the additional functionality that has been added to help them manage and address the issues they face and the opportunities ahead of them. An example of this is the new IFS Cloud Sustainability Hub – there is no customer who does not want to improve the impact they are having on the environment and communities we all work in. Sustainability is a critical item for not only our planet, but IFS and our customers. We are continuing to see the world over that businesses want and need to transform if they are to prosper. Therefore, having regular, meaningful updates to our platform is key to enabling customers to remain evergreen and empowered to continually drive value from their software.”

IFS is committed to delivering an ever-evolving set of solutions for customers along their transformation life-cycles – future-proofing their operations, limiting risk to their businesses, and allowing them to create increasing value to their own customers.

“We’ve been expanding our digital transformation globally with IFS’s help, and since we initiated IFS Cloud six months ago, it’s proving to be key in how we deliver on our ambitions,” said pioneer IFS customer Cimcorp’s Director of Corporate IT, Pekka Nurmi. “IFS Cloud provides a big step forward in technology and capability for us and our customers and will continue to support our global growth strategy. The biggest value provided by IFS Cloud is the ease of use for the everyday end user – our users are excited and even our management has shown particular interest in the new user interface and functionalities."

To find out more about the latest IFS Cloud release, visit: https://www.ifs.com/ifs-cloud/cloud-21r2/

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Further Reading:

• Find out more about IFS @ www.ifs.com/
• Read more about IFS on Field Service News @ https://www.fieldservicenews.com/ifs
• Read more about Digital Transformation @ www.fieldservicenews.com/digital-transformation
• Learn more about  of IFS Cloud @ www.ifs.com/ifs-cloud/ 
• Follow IFS on Twitter @ https://twitter.com/ifs

Burns & McDonnell and Librestream partner to implement collaboration platform supporting critical infrastructure workforces.

To support clients in the critical infrastructure industries, Burns & McDonnell, a 100% employee-owned engineering, construction and architecture firm, and Librestream, the #1-rated provider of augmented reality (AR) and remote collaboration solutions, are collaborating to implement Librestream’s field-to-office collaboration and knowledge capture platform, Onsight. Onsight’s solution is device-agnostic and is compatible with computers, tablets and enterprise wearable devices, and helps field workers conduct their jobs safely and more efficiently.

THE TECHNOLOGY HELPS FIELD WORKERS ACCESS INFORMATION AND RESOLVE ISSUES MORE EFFICIENTLY

Through the value-added partnership, Burns & McDonnell will support training, technology management and system integrations of Librestream’s full-package solution to help clients navigate unprecedented challenges.

“We are excited to partner with Librestream and its technical excellence to enable our clients to access critical information and more rapidly resolve issues in the field,” says Matt Olson, vice president and managing director of the Networks, Integration & Automation Group at Burns & McDonnell. “The integrated experience that captures and shares knowledge across project teams offers advantages in design accuracy, safety and efficiency while creating multiple benefits — both individually and collectively — through each project phase.”

Evergy Ventures, a nonregulated subsidiary of investor-owned utility, Evergy, made a strategic investment in Librestream to accelerate digital transformation within the energy sector. Through its research, Evergy Ventures identified Librestream as the top provider of remote expert and knowledge management tools. Evergy Ventures is supporting Librestream with strategic guidance and helping develop key relationships with utility innovators.

“This is an incredibly transformative time in the energy industry, and it is great to see Burns & McDonnell, one of our trusted partners in our hometown of Kansas City, partnering with Librestream to continue to advance the digital workforce,” says Dennis Odell, vice president of Evergy Ventures.

Librestream's Onsight platform enables workforce transformation through industrial use cases, powering the workforce of the future by combining AR, artificial intelligence and Internet of Things (IoT) data visualization, as well as enabling automated on-the-job training, reducing cognitive load and driving operational insights. Onsight enables customers to achieve meaningful business outcomes such as 70% productivity gains, 65%-70% increases in asset uptime, and increases of three times the inspections per day, all with a more integrated experience that captures and shares knowledge across the workforce.

“Burns & McDonnell brings strong industry experience with digital technology, use case development, platform integrations, stakeholder management and training,” says Gary McAuliffe, vice president of sales for global utilities, Librestream. “Together, we look forward to bringing all of the services and technology together to provide Burns & McDonnell clients with tools that are simple to incorporate on projects and increase efficiency and safety.”

Through the official partnership, the Onsight platform benefits to Burns & McDonnell clients will include:

• Field collaboration and conferencing built for rugged environments. When traveling to perform a site visit isn’t possible, videoconferencing supports projects through on-site troubleshooting calls from the field to team members working remotely or in the office. Calling from the field also allows the team to capture situational information for future training and work processes.
  
  
• Data gathering and knowledge capture. The technology minimizes time spent sorting through data. It has demonstrated faster field documentation than traditional methods, with Librestream noting a potential 70% productivity gain.
  
  
• Workflow — step-by-step guidance and ability to assign tasks to people in the field. With remote specialists a call away and guided systems in place, less-experienced personnel can perform necessary field tasks if needed. With workflows and guided forms, the software captures and organizes field knowledge automatically.

To publicly launch the newly formed partnership, Burns & McDonnell and Librestream will conduct a joint webinar on Sept. 28, 2021, at 11 a.m. EDT. Zachary Wassenberg, product manager with Burns & McDonnell, and McAuliffe will give an overview of the platform and discuss a specific use case associated with bulk electric system reliability (NERC FAC-008 inspections). Sign up for the webinar here.

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Further Reading:

• Read more about Digital Transformation @ www.fieldservicenews.com/digital-transformation
• Read more about Artificial Intelligence on Field Service News @ www.fieldservicenews.com/artificial-intelligence
• Read more about Augmented Reality on Field Service News @ www.fieldservicenews.com/augmented-reality
• Find out more more about Librestream @ www.librestream.com
• Learn more about Burns & McDonnell @ www.burnsmcd.com
• Read more about Librestream on Field Service News @ www.fieldservicenews.com/librestream

OverIT announced that, starting from October, the company will be spun off from the Engineering Group becoming an independent entity controlled by Bain Capital and Neuberger Berman.

In addition, Paolo Bergamo has been appointed as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of OverIT. Prior to joining OverIT, Bergamo was Senior Vice President Product Management at Salesforce in San Francisco, California.

In his new role, Bergamo will lead OverIT's global team, growth strategy and vision.

Bergamo has a deep knowledge of Field Service Management, with over two decades of proven global experience in the software sector. Given his track record, Bergamo is ideally placed to lead OverIT in its next phase of growth as innovator and visionary.

"The spin-off is the result of a strategic partnership between Neuberger Berman and Bain Capital, that has the goal to accelerate OverIT's internationalisation and build the global Field Service Management software leader through increased investments" said Piero Galli from Neuberger Berman.

"When searching for a new CEO to lead OverIT growth journey and reach the ambitious goals we set, we wanted someone who deeply understood not only the industry OverIT operates in, but also the ambition of our funds and the culture of a global company. Paolo has proven leadership capabilities and a track record of scaling technology businesses; we are pleased to have him join to lead the company in the next phase of growth" said Giovanni Camera from Bain Capital.

"I'm thrilled to join OverIT at such an exciting period" said Bergamo, "When Bain Capital and Neuberger Berman proposed to me the ambitious project to bring OverIT, one of the flagships of Made in Italy technology, to the forefront internationally, I felt I couldn't miss this great opportunity. I have the ambition to make OverIT an international hub for young technology talent to grow and unleash their potential".

 

OverIT, backed by US capital with development headquarters in Italy and main US office in Miami, is a multinational company with more than 20 years of international and cross-industry experience in Field Service Management. The firm is recognized by premier global advisory and consulting organizations as a leading vendor in FSM, Mobile Workforce Management and AR industries. providing more than 300 international customers and 150,000 Field Service users with process knowledge, innovative functionalities and cutting-edge technologies.

Bain Capital, LP is one of the world's leading private multi-asset alternative investment firms that creates lasting impact for our investors, teams, businesses, and the communities in which we live. Since our founding in 1984, we've applied our insight and experience to organically expand into numerous asset classes including private equity, credit, public equity, venture capital, real estate and other strategic areas of focus. The firm has offices on four continents, more than 1,200 employees and approximately $140 billion in assets under management. To learn more, visit www.baincapital.com.

Neuberger Berman, founded in 1939, is a private, independent, employee-owned investment manager. The firm manages a range of strategies—including equity, fixed income, quantitative and multi-asset class, private equity, real estate, and hedge funds—on behalf of institutions, advisors, and individual investors globally. The firm manages $433 billion in client assets as of June 30, 2021. NB Renaissance supports ambitious entrepreneurs and management teams with a goal to create market leading businesses. Part of Neuberger Berman since 2015, today NB Renaissance manages €2.0 billion of commitments from a pool of high-quality Italian and international investors. NB Renaissance is currently invested in 12 companies, which include some of the excellence of the Italian corporates. NB Renaissance can count on a team of 20 private equity professionals of Neuberger Berman in Italy, supported by the broader Neuberger Berman private equity platform of 245+ professionals.

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Further Reading:

• Learn more about OverIT @ www.overit.it
• Read more about Digital Transformation @ www.fieldservicenews.com/digital-transformation
• Read more about OverIT on Field Service News @ www.fieldservicenews.com/overIT
• Read more about AR on Field Service News @ www.fieldservicenews.com/augmented-reality
• Learn more about Bain Capital @ www.baincapital.com
• Find out more about Neuberger Berman @ www.nb.com
• Follow OverIT on Twitter @ twitter.com/OverITSpA

 

Augmented reality (AR) has replaced artificial intelligence (AI) as the most disruptive emerging technology, according to a survey by GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.

GlobalData’s latest report, ‘Emerging Technology Sentiment Analysis Q2 2021’, reveals that 70%* of industry professionals surveyed stated that AR would disrupt their industry most out of a selection of  seven emerging technologies AI, cybersecurity, cloud computing, IoT, blockchain, and 5G, in addition to AR. This was a sharp increase from the previous quarter, where only 51% selected AR. In addition, 58% said they had become more positive towards the technology over the last 12 months.

AR IS EXPECTED TO BECOME MORE DISRUPTIVE THAN AI, 5G, BLOCKCHAIN AND OTHER EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES.

Filipe Oliveira, Senior Analyst at GlobalData, commented: “This change in how people see AR will likely be long term, and not just a temporary blip. It is clear that people are warming towards the technology, even if they don’t believe that it will make a big difference tomorrow.”

When asked when AR will disrupt their industries, survey respondents were cautious. They expect the impact to be felt later in the decade. While more than half of Q2 respondents said that cybersecurity and cloud computing are already disrupting their industries, only 24% said the same about AR. Moreover, only 10% think that the disruption will come in the next 12 months.

The same pattern was observed when respondents were asked which technologies would live up to all their promises. More than 60% expected cloud computing and cybersecurity to deliver fully, but only 26% expected the same from AR. Further, 50% of respondents said that the technology was hyped, but they could see a use for it.

Oliveira added: “The contrast between the large share of respondents that said AR is disruptive and the low share that said AR was already disrupting their industry suggests that there is some way to go before AR becomes ubiquitous in business. However, several conditions are aligned to make the promotion of AR as a business tool easier.”

COVID-19 has put some AR use cases in the spotlight, namely in healthcare and ecommerce, and new uses are continuing to emerge. For example, in April, Delta Air Lines announced that it would equip all flight attendants with AR technology delivered via 5G to enhance training and help staff with in-flight catering.

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Further Reading:

• Read more about Digital Transformation @ www.fieldservicenews.com/digital-transformation
• Read more about Augmented Reality on Field Service News @ www.fieldservicenews.com/augmented-reality
• Read more about Artificial Intelligence on Field Service News @ www.fieldservicenews.com/artificial-intelligence
• Find out more more about GlobalData @ www.globaldata.com
• Read more about GlobalData on Field Service News @ www.fieldservicenews.com/globaldata

The largest telecommunication company in the Americas has selected OverIT's SPACE1 to help transform the customer experience for their broadband and television services for their users in the Americas.

SPACE1's unique ability to combine augmented reality-powered remote assistance with guided digital instructions delivered improved interactions between agents and customers, resulting in the telco group choosing SPACE1 during testing to replace their existing remote assistance platform.

This Telco giant was looking for a solution that could support the following: 

1. Real-time customer engagement from SMS or WhatsApp for session control and collaboration
2. Digital work instructions for agents
3. Intelligent indexing and re-purposing of interactions for training and knowledge management

Agents being able to interact easier with end-customers by having preliminary virtual calls to triage results in reduced field technician visits to customer homes by 50% and improved first-time fix rates by 70%. Using Artificial Intelligence, agents from 7 different call centers are equipped with more efficient tools in real-time. They can interact, capture, and record their experiences with the end-customer, which are then processed by and shared within the entire organization.

One of the Telco group's essential requirements was the ability for SPACE1 to integrate seamlessly into their current tools. SPACE1's proven track record with integration has presented them with the right choice for their business compared to other AR providers.

"The selection of OverIT's SaaS offering by the largest Telecommunications group in the Americas marks a new milestone for OverIT's SPACE1 supporting B2C business models. OverIT's industrial-grade AI-based remote collaboration and knowledge management platform is unparalleled in the industry and the only capable of offering complex virtual collaboration scenarios. This contract definitely strengthens the explosive growth of the subsidiary in North America", said Alejandro Nestares, SVP and GM OverIT Americas.

Backed by US capital with development headquarters in Italy and main US offices in Boston and Miami, OverIT is a multinational company with more than 20 years of international and cross-industry experience in Field Service Management. The firm is recognized by premier global advisory and consulting organizations as a leading vendor in FSM and AR industries. 

 

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Further Reading:

• Learn more about OverIT @ www.overit.it
• Read more about Digital Transformation @ www.fieldservicenews.com/digital-transformation
• Read more about OverIT on Field Service News @ www.fieldservicenews.com/overIT
• Read more about AR on Field Service News @ www.fieldservicenews.com/augmented-reality
• Follow OverIT on Twitter @ twitter.com/OverITSpA

 

Leading global provider of consulting, compliance checks and engineering support for the security, reliability and cyber security of industrial products, H-ON Consulting relies on OverIT's SPACE1 to provide users with an advanced, immersive and unprecedented remote collaboration experience.

The company's remote collaboration system called DIV-CO Collaboration System, for the technical management at customers' facilities, required integration with a component to be dedicated to certification processes and product compliance inspections of industrial manufacturing end customers remotely, with significant benefits for more agile and efficient procedures.

H-ON Consulting choose OverIT's SPACE1 Augmented Collaboration, a high-tech product combing Augmented Reality and Artificial Intelligence. SPACE1 offers advanced collaboration features for connecting H-ON Consulting's expert technicians with their clients, conducting inspections, tests, certification processes and compliance checks on industrial machinery entirely from remote, relying on real-time sharing of audio/video streaming, product checklists, 3D models, multimedia files and AR notes.

The integration of SPACE1, has resulted into major benefits for H-ON Consulting, such as a 20% increase in the efficiency of its operational staff, improved safety in the execution of product certification operations and significant time and cost savings, thanks to a 30% reduction in travel and the consequent downtime for the execution of large projects.

"In choosing OverIT, we were certain that the solutions provided would exceed our expectations," says Francesco Rosati, Marketing Director at H-ON Consulting. "In addition to the most apparent advantages, such as those related to cost and time reduction, the integration of SPACE1 has allowed us to access advanced post-intervention reporting features and to improve the organization of works both internally and for our customers, enabling us to collaborate remotely even in noisy environments with poor connectivity."

H-ON Consulting is an international provider of consulting and engineering services for the safety and reliability of industrial products. They provide engineering consulting for product safety and technical support for product certification.

Backed by US Capital with development Headquarters in Italy and main US offices in Chicago and Miami, OverIT is a multinational company with more than 20 years of international and cross-industry experience in Field Service Management. With more than 500 professionals, OverIT supports over 300 customers and more than 150,000 Field Service Users. The firm is recognized by premier global advisory and consulting organizations as a leading vendor in FSM and AR industries.

 

 

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Further Reading:

• Learn more about OverIT @ www.overit.it
• Read more about Digital Transformation @ www.fieldservicenews.com/digital-transformation
• Read more about OverIT on Field Service News @ www.fieldservicenews.com/overIT
• Read more about AR on Field Service News @ www.fieldservicenews.com/augmented-reality
• Learn more about H-ON Consulting @ h-on.it
• Follow OverIT on Twitter @ twitter.com/OverITSpA

 

Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief, Field Service News welcomes Gary York, CEO and Evans Manolis, Senior Consultant Help Lightning as the group discuss the practical considerations of implementing Augmented Reality in Field Service.

The discussion looks at whether Augmented Reality (AR) is set to become a key part of the field service toolkit, how the shift to remote services will change the role of the field service engineer, the importance of effortless when it comes to new technology, how AR can improve multiple facets of field service operations and how it can be implemented effectively within just a matter of months.

In this excerpt from that conversation, the group discuss how the pandemic drove many field service companies to embrace the technology in a way they never would have thought possible in normal conditions.

 

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