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Swedish firm XMReality work with Bosch Rexroth to pioneer new remote service program that utilises smart glasses and augmented reality...

Augmented reality software and smart glasses from Swedish company XMReality have enabled automation and drive system manufacturer Bosch Rexroth to roll out a new service and support programme with remote assistance.

The first Rexroth solution launched for industrial hydraulics is called Hägglunds InSight Live, the support programme involves the client company’s own maintenance team in carrying out adjustments, troubleshooting and emergency work, with guidance from Bosch Rexroth’s systems specialists back at base.

Using the software from XMReality with an ordinary smartphone, tablet or laptop, along with the optional smart glasses, the local service engineer works directly with one of the in-house experts at Bosch Rexroth.

The system was initially used by Bosch Rexroth in Sweden but is now being rolled out in other selected countries. Potentially, any of Bosch Rexroth’s 375,000 (30k+ employees in Rexroth) personnel worldwide can access the system.

“Bosch Rexroth provides world-class services and we constantly strive to implement new and innovative ways to meet and exceed our customers’ expectations.”

“Using XM Reality’s platform, we are now able to offer a remote service portfolio that ensures that help, assistance and our specialist expertise are available for both planned and unplanned situations” commented Rory Moore, Service Business Development Manager - Hägglunds Products

 

“We are proud of now being classified as an Essential Supplier in Bosch global purchasing system” added XMReality´s CEO Johan Castevall. "This is a confirmation of the importance of our Remote Guidance solution in modern industrial way of work.”

The augmented reality smart glasses from XMReality enable hands-free operation during the interaction with the service experts, but the software can also be used with just an ordinary smartphone.

The service expert sees on his screen what the operator sees through the lens. The software transfers video and audio streams between the service expert and the operator with perfect synchronisation, even when the bandwidth is low.

Gestures, drawings or instructions can be overlaid by the instructor on the live image.

The XMReality software is compatible with Windows and Android operating systems. The optional smart glasses, which enable hands-free operation, can be used with prescription glasses or protective smart glasses.

Their 40° field of vision enables the instructor to see the periphery of the image – augmented reality smart glasses can often only offer 15-30° field of vision.

The smart glasses are powered by the tablet or laptop computer and battery life is usually around two hours, depending on battery size.

 

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The next event by UK non-profit organisation the Service Community has been announced...

Field Service professionals can reserve their place for free at this next Service Community event to be hosted by the Centre for Through-Life-Engineering Services (TES) at Cranfield University by emailing TheServiceCommunity@gmail.com.

The event will be the afternoon of the 12th May from 13.00 – 17.00. Before the session begins, there is also a great opportunity to visit the Virtual Reality / Augmented Reality lab at the OpEx institute, where you can dip into what these technologies might bring to the future of service delivery. Space is limited for this tour, so please state in your email if you want to attend the VR/AR visit.

Cranfield University  is one of the worlds leading global research establishments into TES and is working closely with industry leaders such as Rolls Royce, Bombardier, Babcock, Siemens and BAE, to establish within UK government a National Policy for Services in Manufacturing & Technology.

This event is the first of our Insights Series, where we aim to provide service leaders with practical hands on insights into one of 5 themes that will stretch across many industries including software, technology as well as manufacturing:

• Moving to the Cloud
• New Service Revenues
• Art of Transformation and change
• Workflow management : soft skills, processes and scheduling
• From Reactive to Proactive business: Customer Success, Consumption Gap

The agenda for the 12th May is no exception:

• 12.00: Virtual reality / Augmented Reality lab visit
• 12.30: Pre-Meeting coffee, biscuits,  networking
• 13.00: Welcome and introduction from Mathew Caffrey (Mngr Op Ex institute Cranfield)
• 13.15: Impact of VR/AR on Services & the Servitization Business model – Professor Howard Lightfoot (Cranfield)
• 14.00: The Challenge of scaling and expanding a service operation to support a rapidly expanding technology business – Ian Cockett (Services Director Cygnet Texkimp)
• 14.40: Networking Break
• 15.20: Creating a Customer Success Culture – Chris Farnath (Director Customer Success at Allocate Software)
• 16.00: Moving from a Opex to Capex, cloud based business model – Colin Brown (Managing Director Tesseract)
• 16.40: General Discussion & Wrap up
• 17.00: Meeting Closed

To sign up for the event and the tour, please email TheServiceCommunity@gmail.com. Event logistics will be sent out nearer the date.

ABOUT OUR SPEAKERS & TOPICS

Howard Lightfoot: A leading expert on Servitization having co-written the book ‘Made to Serve’ with Professor Tim Baines

Ian Cockett: Service Director at Cygnet-Texkimp Ltd, a specialist manufacturer of equipment for the global fibre and fabric, plastic, foil and film processing markets. Previously Ian was Director of Service Operations at Bosch UK’s heating division running a service team of over 300 engineers.

Chris Farnath: An experienced Services Director working mainly in the Software and Technology arena, Chris’s current challenge is creating a Customer Success culture and will be sharing & discussing the challenges he faces in his current role. Chris is also a member of the Service Community leadership team.

Colin Brown: Colin is MD/Founder of Tesseract, a leading Service Management solution provider. In this presentation he is going to concentrate on the business challenge of moving from a transactional business model to a pay as you go model through a Cloud based technology platform. In particular how this has changed the business model of his company.

 

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We look at what Help Lightning are terming Mobile Merged Reality, An innovative mobile solution goes beyond augmented reality (AR) to redefine the future of help...

I need to be able to...

This commonly heard phrase fuels new ideas, creative thinking and innovation which often start many successful companies. A prominent Neurosurgeon, Dr. Bart Guthrie, used this phrase in frustration as he found his task list growing ever longer and more complex.

He needed superpowers to be able to consult on cases, prep support staff, collaborate with other physicians in surgery and meet with patients — in other buildings, in homes, in offices across town, across the state, even in other countries, all on the same day, often in the same hour.

Given the expense and reimbursement issues in health care, he needed an innovation that wouldn’t cost an arm or a leg or require brain surgery to operate. As a result, instant, virtual presence was born. In fact, it was the genesis for a new product category for superior service and knowledge exchange called mobile merged reality. With over 15,000 users in 50 countries, Help Lightning’s patented technologies and processes made it the global leader in merged reality. Augmented reality technology combines live video or a user’s environment with computer-generated digital information in real time.

Merged reality goes beyond AR.

 

It merges two users’ real-time mobile video and audio streams, along with visual inputs from a growing array of tools and modes included with the app. Mobile merged reality allows video interactions to have similar characteristics to in-person interactions, adding interlaced hand movement, gestures, visual clues, real remote objects, telestration, drawing, pointing and pictures. Adding gestures and nonverbal clues substantially improves speed of understanding, resulting in an enhanced recipient/customer perception of overall experience. Instant, accurate communication augmented by mobile merged reality and virtual presence can have a dramatic impact on service operations.

 

You can proactively, efficiently and effectively attack hard costs that plague the efficiency and effectiveness of operations and customer interactions. Customers can experience a 7 to 15 times hard cost savings for every dollar invested.

Expert personnel can see a 10 to 20% increases in efficiency. According to the Aberdeen Group 33% of service work orders require a second trip. Merged reality and virtual presence is able to help eliminate 18% of second trips that are required due to a lack of experience, alleviate 19% of second trips caused by limited access to information, and avoid 28% of second trips caused by wrong diagnoses.

Quickly solve problems for customers, assist newly on-boarded personnel, eliminate wasteful trips and differentiate the way your products are sold, implemented and serviced. Technical, healthcare, manufacturing, and service experts can show a resolution, not just describe it, even when thousands of miles away. Visually collaborate, assist with issues, and resolve problems as though you were working side-byside with a colleague or customer. Download the app for any iOS or Android mobile device and start helping and sharing ideas instantly. No additional special equipment is needed to start a merged reality session.

 

Once you’re in a merged reality call with a colleague, customer or friend, tap to change how you interact. Choose whether you’re giving or receiving help, and start collaborating in seconds. Merged reality adds missing visual cues, gestures, and non-verbal communication methods to any session. If you’ve selected Give Help, simply place your hand behind your device. You’ll see your hand appear on top of your colleague’s image. For best results, use a white background such as a wall or piece of paper. Telestrate, freeze images, use hand gestures, pictures and even add real objects into the merged reality scene.

 

If you selected Receive Help, position your iPhone, iPad or Android device over something you’re working on, like a circuit. When the person you need help from reaches behind his or her device, you’ll instantly see the other person’s hand (or anything that is necessary to help) appear merged with your normal image view. Dr. Guthrie uses Help Lightning’s merged reality solution on a regular basis.

However, applications of merged reality and virtual presence are not limited to healthcare settings. The uses are endless; from live knowledge exchange to never before imagined consumer experiences. Giving better, faster help and care for customers, friends and colleagues is universal. By using ordinary smart phones and tablets, users add non-verbal, visual cues and critical human gestures to video calls for superior communication, collaboration and cognition.

Welcome to the future. Instant help anywhere in the world.

We call it Help Lightning.

 

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This feature is sponsored by:

 

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In part one of this series, looking at the big trends we will see in Field Service this year we looked at way the business trend of servitization is set to become more commonplace this year.

 Now in the second part of this series Kris Oldland looks at the impact the Internet of Things and Augmented Reality might have in field service...

The Internet of Things has arrived and has two feet firmly in the field service industry

OK so this is a bit of a cheat given that in my intro I pointed out that this was the one I got right in 2015.

However, last year I mentioned it would start to become commonplace.

This time around I’m going to go all in and state that across 2016 we will see IoT implementation become a commonplace strategy for field service companies in all corners of the globe.

Perhaps one of the big myths that was firmly debunked on our pages last year was that IoT was sole domain of the largest companies only.

 

Yes we will have read the case studies and white papers by the likes of GE, Schneider and Phillips and yes the stuff these big guys are doing with IoT is really, pretty damn impressive.

However, there are also now a growing number of examples of smaller to medium sized companies who have harnessed IoT in order to improve the service they are delivering to their customers (and even to have moved towards a servitized business model in some instances.)

This was highlighted perfectly by leading service consultant Nick Frank in a presentation he gave during a Field Service News webinar last year.

Frank gave a number of examples of SME’s utilising IoT, often with fairly simple, and dare I say it relatively lo-tech solutions, that were as much about thinking about the service these companies were delivering and how ‘outside-the-box’ thinking could improve that service.

In fact it was a core facet in all of the companies Frank referred to in the webinar, and indeed also those companies he often refers to in his regular column for Field Service News, that they intrinsically understood what good service looked like for their customers, and they viewed the emergence of IoT as an enabler and facilitator in delivering and enhancing that service.

Of course, for some companies innovation sits within their DNA so adopting new technologies and approaches is nothing to be feared.

However, this isn’t necessarily the case for all companies, so it is perhaps the recent launch of ‘Connected Field Service’ by ServiceMax, that finally connects the IoT dots for the rest of the pack.

It was perhaps inevitable ever since ServiceMax and PTC got into bed together in May last year that we would see a fully IoT enabled, Field Service solution merge as the fruits of this union.

But when ServiceMax capitalised on the growing emergence of Salesforce as a business platform, they were a young, wet-behind-the-ears business,that slipped under their competitors radar before it was too late and suddenly everyone was trying to play catch-up.

 

You can be sure that they won’t be given as much grace a second time around and almost certainly other significant field service management software providers like ClickSoftware, IFS et al will soon be in the IoT game as well.

Indeed ServicePower are also rumoured to have an agreement in place with PTC so watch this space.

For field service companies though, whether they are blue chips, the smaller innovators that Frank has highlighted so well, or anything in between the ability to enhance service offerings through IoT are becoming both more accessible and more easily understood.

Indeed in our own exclusive research from October last year over half (55%) of our respondents stated they thought “IoT will become a fundamental part of field service operations in the future” whilst a further 21% went further stating that “IoT is critical to any field service organisation’s strategy”.

Augmented Reality will replace IoT as the new kid on the block everyone is talking about...

OK so if IoT is moving from the exciting cool tech everyone is talking about to the big ticket everyone is investing in, then Augmented Reality (AR) is the tech whose impact upon field service is still being outlined and explained somewhat.

However, once people grasp the concept, and the relativeease of implementation of the technology, and the quite frankly huge potential for AR to wipe significant cost lines from a field service P&L then they are almost instantly converted.

The thing is with AR that like IoT it has the potential to not just optimise the levels of productivity companies get from their service operations like mobile computing and the Cloud have done. It has the potential to completely change the way field service companies approach their service operations, and to do so for the better.

 

However, unlike IoT there isn’t the potential barrier of retrofitting hundreds, thousands or potentially millions of assets in the field.

In fact one AR provider that impressed me and everyone else that saw there demonstration at Field Service East last September (Help Lightning) offer their app as a download from the App store.

So what exactly is AR and why do I think it will have such an incredible impact?

Very simply AR is the overlaying of digital information onto the reality we see before us.

In field service, this has huge potential.

Often the largest single cost for any field service company is the cost of getting a highly skilled engineer, to fix that critical issue, for a key client ASAP. There is the cost of travel, accommodation not to mention the dead time lost whilst he is in between jobs.

AR allows us to get the experience of that engineer on-site without him being there. In fact we can utilize a less experienced engineer who is closer to the job, locally out sourced staff or even the customer themselves to undertake the physical maintenance whilst under the direct guidance of our experienced engineer who can be based in a centralized location, or even at home.

 

Through the use of AR our remote engineer can not only see exactly what the on site engineer is seeing and talk them through the repair, he can at any point freeze the image being captured by the on site engineers device and show his less experience colleague exactly what to do with hand gestures or even on screen annotations shown in real-time.

So instead of explaining over the phone ‘the dial near the mid-centre of the asset, turn it clockwise by about 20 degrees’ he can physically point to the correct dial and show how much it should be turned and this will be seen by the on site engineer on his device.

Studies have shown that the human brain is almost 20 times more receptive to being shown something via hand gestures than spoken word and this is at it’s core the power that AR provides.

And by replacing the need to ‘fly experience in’ with the ability to ‘dial it in’ field service companies could make potentially huge savings very quickly leading to a whole rethink about how we deploy our most experienced engineers.

This also leads us onto the other big area where AR could be deployed within field service, namely training.

As millennials become more and more a part of the field service landscape, the need for digitizing our knowledge banks becomes more pressing, and whilst AR can be used as a standalone training tool, for those companies utilising it actively in the field it is a simple case to record each interaction - thus building a digital knowledge library as a by-product of every AR based service call.

Given the benefits, low-cost implementation and potentially instant R.o.I surely AR will rapidly move from exciting new concept to industry staple and I think we will begin to see that traction this year.

 

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Look out for the part three of this series when smart glasses and rugged computing take centre stage…

 

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Do Millennials and Augmented Reality hold the key to the future of field service?   Field Service News Editor-in-Chief speaks exclusively with Professor Howard Lightfoot of  Cranfield University School of Management to find out why field service organisations should ditch the chalkboard approach and embrace augmented reality

Augmented Reality (AR) is starting to make some serious waves in Field Service.

AR has made its way from being one of a number of potential technologies that we could see impacting in our market to perhaps the biggest conversation in field service circles, matched only by the emergence of a number of case studies of how Internet of Things.

One man who has been talking up the importance of AR within a field service environment for some time is Professor Howard Lightfoot.  Indeed, it was his forward-looking work at Cranfield University in embracing AR and it’s potential use amongst manufacturers and service organisations alike that garnered him a coveted place in this year’s FSN20 – a list of the most influential people within the field service industry globally.

However, whilst the potential for AR as a field service tool is vast, Lightfoot’s work has been in applying it in another area that will likely have just as big an impact on the field service industries globally: using AR as a training tool to bring in the next generation of field service engineers.

I took the opportunity to catch up with him after his presentation at this year’s Aftermarket Business Platform conference to find out more about the work he and his colleagues were doing and to ask the $64 billion question – is there a sufficient skill-set and talent pool amongst the millennials to ease our fears of an approaching ageing workforce crisis?

“What we’ve set up at Cranfield is a learning laboratory,” Lightfoot begins. It’s not a design laboratory laboratory or an engineering laboratory; it’s a learning laboratory and we are using virtual and augmented reality tools as part of training and teaching processes.”

Lightfoot, who is perhaps arguably more well known for some of his pioneering work in the field of Servitization, is part of a team at Cranfield who are very much ensconced in the world of manufacturing both at home in the UK and abroad.

“We are looking at how companies maintain products throughout their useful life and that can be ten, twenty, thirty year but also doing that at the right cost. So a lot of our research is on doing that,” he explains.

“So, how things work, degradation mechanisms, self-healing technology. The area I’m working in and the reason I’m interested in the aftermarket business and field service is in the application of augmented reality in training people and also getting data out into the field readily and easily.”

The application of AR in field service operations is potentially an absolutely massive game changer, he believes.

“It could de-skill the field service activity - and there will be parts of the world where you can’t get the right people. With augmented reality you can link them to a skilled technician back at base who can take them through the process, not with a manual, not on the phone but he can actually see what they are doing and he can overlay information for them, digitally point at things ‘that’s the nut, this is the one you turn. Don’t torque that one anymore than this, torque that one to this level or undo that cabinet first and make sure you disconnect this before you do that.”

 

Indeed as a tool for transmitting knowledge and experience from one corner of the globe to another it is a genuinely exciting technology that could really up the ante when it comes to improving productivity in the field.

AR: a fantastic training tool

However, it is the use of AR as a training tool that Lightfoot is truly passionate about.

“You can visualise things,” he begins when asked why it is such an important tool in future training techniques.
“They use it in chemistry teaching - you can visualise a molecule in virtual reality much more effectively than a two dimensional picture on a computer screen or in a book. Imagine augmented reality where you get a molecule and then start overlaying information for students on that and then it becomes much more meaningful. It becomes real.”

As mentioned above, whilst in many ways we are on the cusp of a glorious period for the advancement of field service with technologies such as AR and IoT begin to open up completely new ways of structuring field service operations, at the same time we are facing a crisis of unheralded proportions as huge swathes of our workforce edge ever closer to retirement age.

AR: recruitment appeal

I was interested to explore whether Lightfoot felt whether the use such bleeding edge technology such as AR could play a role in attracting and the brightest and best of the next generation away from the dominant careers of finance and law and towards the Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) subjects that could help field service organisations cope with the sudden loss of their baby-boomer workforce.

“There is certainly more of an interest now in manufacturing in the UK generally with brighter people,” he admits. “I think for years people wouldn’t go near something like manufacturing or even science and engineering because it was too difficult and manufacturing does seem to have a bad press. Everyone wanted to be in finance not manufacturing. Now things are starting to turn a bit. The UK government has realised you can’t build a country just based on financial services.”

 

“Luckily with some of the technology emerging, like augmented reality technologies, these millennials, the guys going to university now are born into this technology. For them it’s just second nature. They tweet they send text messages at a faster speed then I can talk and so the use of that technology for them is completely there.”

Of course it is one thing attracting millennials, educating and training them is another matter entirely and if we are to harness the dynamism of this young demographic we must understand that the way they learn is fundamentally different to how their predecessors did.

As Lightfoot comments : “In our day, Google and the Internet weren’t around. If you had a project to do it was library and some really serious heavy detective work to get some information. Now the information is instantly accessible they spend the time learning rather than finding the material to learn from.”

Knowledge sharing the Millenial way

However, the biggest difference is not so much the access to information but the way information is disseminated. For a generation born into smartphones and social media, sharing and collaboration are simply parts of life. This is something Lightfoot believes Millennials can benefit from greatly.

“They’ll share with people, they’ll text somebody a message about what they’ve found, they’ll email somebody something they’ve got or they’ll send somebody a link through social media. So the technology is there for sharing, for learning quickly and for accessing information quickly. It’s incredible.”

Of course the flip side of this is whilst a generation that has such easy access to information has phenomenal opportunity to learn rapidly, there is also a danger of them being less focused. However, Lightfoot believes that the key to keeping Millennials engages is through the adoption of technology within the teaching environment.

“This is why things like virtual reality and augmented reality are so important.” He explains, “When you start using that to train them and educate them then that’s the technology they are familiar with. They’ll buy into that far more than giving them a book or standing somebody in front of them lecturing at them.”

 

“Learning via technology and these new techniques is going to feed their desire to want to learn. I picked up a study from Columbia state university on augmented reality and training and there study showed people picked things up twice as quickly when trained through augmented reality than being trained with the hardware and with a guy in front of them. Also they said they felt it was a more intuitive way of learning.”

Digitisation of knowledge bases

Given the above, Lightfoot also is a staunch advocate of ensuring the digitalisation of knowledge bases and integrating them with training programs sooner rather than later. “I think you’ve got to capture what you’ve got and make sure you retain that tacit knowledge, the knowledge learnt over the years. I recall talking to Rolls Royce many years ago about how they saved information on engine data. The problem was they saved it in different methods in different places. Spreadsheets, software, handwritten and in their heads so you must get the infrastructure right to capture knowledge from the guy in the field.”

“For example if you’re using AR to help an engineer in the field that can now be recorded. It doesn’t just disappear anymore. You can digitize the whole thing. So every time the guy speaks to someone my take would be: for God’s sake make sure it’s recorded. Once you’ve got that digitised you can share that information easily.”

You don’t tell your new engineers to go read the manual, you send him to these recordings and the trainee is happy because that’s the technology he is used to, he adds “You need them integrated, you need to make sure the knowledge capture and the knowledge sharing work together. There is nothing like learning from someone who knows what he is talking about whichever way you do it.”

And what about that $64Billion dollar question? Can millennials replace the ageing boomer workforce? Are they suited to field service engineering roles?

“Absolutely” Lightfoot states, “I think more than any other generation now because of the technology they are used to and the way are used to acquiring information. They are used to data sources and it matches quite well with the way systems have to be put together in terms of things like field service and maintenance.”

“So I think yes they are fit for the job. What we have to do is get them interested in manufacturing and technology industries so let's drive that on.”

 

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Sister show to Field Service USA, Field Service Fall brings three days of industry education to the East Coast of the USA. Field Service News Editor-in-Chief Kris Oldland flew over to see what the latest hot buttons for the US service industry were…

Held in Buckhead, the upmarket business region of Atlanta Field Service Fall lived up to it’s billing as one of the key US events in the field service calendar by bringing together some 200 plus senior members of the field service industry across the three day event.

As always with industry events focussing on field service operations the delegates came from a range of disparate industries including healthcare, manufacturing, telecommunications and more, yet despite coming from seemingly different universes, the same pain points were discussed, the same opportunities for improvement of service delivery discovered and the same challenges of implementing such opportunities and overcoming these pain points were at the heart of the conversations.

Kristina Hill, IFS Marketing Manager Enterprise Service Manager commented “As always the WBR field service events bring a great crowd of multiple different verticals together to brainstorm and share thought leadership and discuss pain points”

“It brings all sorts of companies together” Hill added “but as different as they are and as different as they run process wise, they are also very similar in their pain points and the issues they face. It’s great to see people working on new initiatives and adopting new technology”

This sentiment was echoed by John Callen Support Solutions Manager, NCR who was attending for his seventh time at a WBR Field Service Event.

“Every time I come here I get take aways from each presenter or each conversation I have, that makes me just that little bit better in my role” Callen stated, going on to say “I’ve got about twenty things with stars on them so I can’t possibly implement them all but I’m going to review again tonight and go from there.”

 

Indeed there was a real sense of community across the three days in Atlanta. Something that event producers WBR are keen to maintain and build upon.

Jonathan Massoud, Divisional Director & Market Analyst, of conference organiser WBR commented “The feedback that we got was that it is good to bring the community together and here is where they can get help to develop standards that they typically can’t get elsewhere, that they can’t get through benchmarking or through competitors so they can come together here, meet and increase their own community.”

It was this opportunity to discuss challenges amongst his peers that attracted Arnold Benavidez, Field service engineering Manager, Metso Recycling to attend for the first time also.

“One of the reasons I came to this event was to get different perspectives on how other field service organisations are managing their field service activities for their businesses. “ Benavidez commented, “What processes, technologies and strategies are they implementing that have been proven and been successful in the organisations.”

“Quite often I think we try to manage the chaos in our service organisations and we tend to have tunnel vision in just managing our way through that chaos. I wanted to come through this event to broaden my perspective and really get a good observation of what are the other possibilities that could improve my organisation and our overall business.”

 

The conference agenda itself was well balanced with a strong blend of forward looking presentations, case studies detailing how some of the more progressive companies within the industry have made improvements to their own service operations and general insight and opinion from a number of senior figures within the service industry.

One of the topics that dominated a lot of the presentations as well as conversations in the break out sessions was that of IoT.

As Massoud explained “One of the things we are hearing about now is the digitization of service in terms of the Internet of Things – what does that mean? Last year we talked about that and people were unsure of how to move forward, now it seems that each of the verticals now have things in place that are addressing that and we are seeing things move forward.”

“For example some organisations are putting in mobile boxes when the product goes out so they can pull data off it and that is just one example of how IoT is effecting the development of their products and their service and that’s come out this week.“

Callen also highlighted IoT as one of the big topics of the conference saying “I think a lot of the themes that I’ve heard this time around is around the Internet of Things, the way things are pushing forward it makes you think how I can implement this to solve problems of my own?”

 

“You’ve got to worry about the cost but you’ve also got to worry about the cost of fixing the problem,” he added

However, the talk wasn’t all about tech. The continuing drive towards improving customer experience was another frequently heard topic of conversation.

“The real focus still, which is nice to hear, is in delighting the customers” Hill commented “As customer demand grows and increases and the technology that is out there from a customer perspective makes that demand higher, I think that field service organisations are realising that they have to keep up and then they have to deliver in a way that is going to put the customer first. “

“That’s still a big trend and one of the things that was a big conversation topic is that the customer has to come first and then let the processes be driven by that.” She added.

Expanding further on the topic Massoud added “Customer experience has been top of the line for the last couple of years now in the research we are doing.

What we are seeing now is how companies using technology to improve the customer experience.”

“The shift towards having the field tech be more of a consultant in the field, soft skills developing, really jumped out again. I think it is something that the industry has been struggling with for a while but now they are starting to put some things in place and some training in place where they are making headway with technicians. So knowledge bases we’re hearing about all the way up to augmented reality type solutions, which also tie into knowledge management and knowledge sharing in the field.”

 

And in fact the absolute star turn of the three days was provided by Augmented Reality solution Help Lightning.

Developed in part by neurosurgeon Bart Guthrie, Help Lightning uses augmented reality to deliver remote guidance. The impact for field service of augmented reality is massive, potentially slashing a phenomenal amount of outgoing costs by allowing experienced engineers to guide local onsite engineers on how to make a fix themselves, instead of having to get the experienced engineer onsite.

A simple, yet highly effective app, with slick delivery and seemingly robust connectivity (the product is capable of working across 3G networks despite being video based) Help Lightning was certainly the star of the show garnering a lot interest.

 

And with an engaging presentation by Guthrie supported by a constantly busy booth in the demonstration zone of the event, Help Lightning certainly won a number of fans across the three days including Marty Jost, Director of Technical Services, Hach who commented “The biggest thing for me was seeing the Help Lightning application. It’s simple enough that I want to go back and demo it for my people.”

Benavidez was also a fan of the augmented reality app stating “I was really impressed with some of the technology, specifically with Help Lightning, we’re coming currently on a second year of a down market in our industry due to the price of steel and a lot of people are looking at services to bring in revenue to make up for the difference, but selling services is difficult, as our customers tend to want to take care of those type of things on their own, so I think after seeing this technology from Help Lightning this may provide the opportunity to assist our customers who don’t want to pay the premium price of having a highly skilled technician on site but perhaps would be interested in having our technician guide their electrical or mechanical contractors on site to help facilitate some minor repairs.”

Indeed if the general consensus of the attendees of Field Service Fall are a good yardstick to go by then the team at Help Lightning, and Augmented Reality vendors in general could well become the hot ticket in Field Service in the very near future as the technology promises very obvious benefits for customers and field service providers alike.

“I think our customers could really go for that kind of opportunity because we are helping them be more self-sufficient and ultimately that is what they want to do.” Benavidez explained “I felt really confident when I saw that opportunity. I think it is definitely something I’m going to try.” He added.

However whilst IoT, Big Data and Augmented Reality are truly exciting topics quite rightly discussed frequently both in the trade press and at industry events such as this, it is also important not to overlook the fundamental technology such as scheduling and parts management tools that can help us get the right engineer to the right job at the right time, and getting them there with the right tools to do the job first time.

What always fascinates me personally about field service as a topic for conversation is that often whilst we have a natural tendency to focus on how we can harness the latest technology to streamline and improve the productivity of our operations, yet there still remain fundamental basics that we must implement if we are to meet the expectations our customers demand.

Therefore it was interesting to see that the problem of parts and inventory management was a pain point that continued to surface during the breakout sessions across the three days.

 

Whilst many of the conversations would have been driven by a series of roundtables hosted by Aberdeen’s Aly Pinder, the fact that this was an area that resonated with many was a clear indicator of the importance of getting the basics right.

As Deb Geiger, VP Global Marketing Astea commented;

“I think there is always an underlying commonality in terms of everybody is trying to optimise be more efficient and reducing those costs but also not at the risk of sacrificing, customer satisfaction. “

“People talk about speed and quick resolution, but you can show up quickly and not fix it first time. So its always weighing the different factors and ensuring that the piece of equipment is getting fixed first time and that the customer is satisfied. I think everybody is looking to continually optimise, look at their processes – how can they improve how do they optimise their workforce, some are having to do more work with less resources how do they make that happen without overtaxing the technicians.”

Of course what events such as Field Service Fall do is provide an opportunity not only for discovery, and peer networking but also for benchmarking how your organisation is performing in terms of delivering service.

As Callen wryly put it “Every one of us is in the same circus we just have different clowns working for us. My problems are the same things as the guy that has the printing press, as the guy that has the medical devices.”

 

“Operational wise and personal wise this is a great opportunity to benchmark progress. I’ve seen a lot of the same folks year after year. It’s good to see old friends. Here I’ve got friends that I talk to every year, what did you guys do with this, what did you guys do with that? We talk about problems and situations. And it genuinely helps us see where we are in terms of our own development”

This is something that Massoud is equally aware of and very much proud to be part of adding “It’s an opportunity that is unique for this space and you can’t go at it alone.”

‘A lot of guys tell us that when they first come here I’m coming back - it’s good to be part of this community”

In that case I guess I’ll see you all next year then.

 

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Registration for field service fall 2016 is now open click here for more info

 

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