In this final feature from our series of excerpts from an exclusive Field Service News white paper published in partnership with Help Lightning, that is exploring the practical questions surrounding Augmented Reality we see how Revolution Retail Systems achieved an incredible adoption rate in record time when rolling out AR... 

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So how have Revolution Retail Systems (Revolution) adopted Augmented Reality into their existing service workflow?

“We phone-fix 70% of our calls that come in through level one and then we move to level two before dispatch,” explained Barker.

“If a customer comes through to level one and that call is then progressed to level two, we send them a Help Lightning link to work with the customer to ensure they’re opening the appropriate access points, for example. It also allows us to see if we can identify any broken cables or anything like that. We can see if anything has happened to change the structure of the device, so we know exactly what is going on before dispatching an engineer. We can capture pictures, know what module requires attention, and attach that information to the case. Only then would will we dispatch a technician to replace the module."

Revolution are currently using Help Lightning as a standalone application within the Help Lightning server in terms of workflow. However, it is available as an integrated CRM app, the implementation of which is currently on the roadmap for Revolution. However, even in its standalone format, the tool’s adoption within the contact centres’ workflow has been hassle-free.

Similarly, from the customers’ side, the tool’s use is simple, which is critical for any new technology we expect our customers to adopt. In Revolution’s workflow, a link is simply sent to the customer via email, which can either open in a dedicated app or even in a standard browser.

Indeed, for Barker’s team, the adoption process was a smooth one, which is both testament to the ease of use of the solution and Barker’s own change management skills.

 

"Firstly we kept talking to the teams about it, explaining the ‘whys’ behind it. It is essential to have those daily conversations with the folks who are using it and those who are not...."

 

“The solution is very intuitive,” Barker explains, “so it wasn’t a complicated training session. In our learning management system, we built a computer-based learning module, rolled it out to the floor, and just let the team see it.  We trained everybody on it, and we then gave it a week or so to see what we were getting in terms of adoption.

“Initially, we weren’t seeing the interaction that we wanted, which can be expected with any new technology rollout, so we looked at how we could improve the adoption rate. We did this in several ways. Firstly we kept talking to the teams about it, explaining the ‘whys’ behind it. It is essential to have those daily conversations with the folks who are using it and those who are not.

“We then ran some incentive schemes. For example, we’d run a contest for a month based around utilizing the AR. We offered prizes and rewards for the team if they could prevent a dispatch. These incentives were designed to make the benefits of using the tool tangible for our team. We wanted to prove to them that they could do it and use it in their day to day workflow.

“Then once we’d shown them that they could leverage the tool, we then said, ‘OK, now you have to use it. Now it’s part of the process.”

Introducing the solution in a gentler way that reinforced the benefits allowed Revolution to formalize the process to the point where it is now a fundamental part of the triage process.

“Now it is part of our agents QA forms and their requirements are that they’re using the AR on a daily basis. We now pull the stats around AR usage and communicate those numbers regularly. Our agents are held to a metric and it is part of their employee scorecard,” Barker explains.

This two-tiered approach has achieved an impressive adoption rate, with the process taking just three months to go from roll out to becoming a cornerstone of their workflow.

Having done so, the value for Revolution in leveraging the power of AR has been not so much in developing dedicated new revenue streams but reinforcing their position as an industry leader, helping to both secure new business and strengthen existing relationships.

“We’ve leveraged our use of Help Lightning almost as a marketing tool,” explains Barker.

“When we have executive meetings with Walmart or Target and in fact, any of our significant customers, our CEO has done demos of Help Lightning with their executive team so that they see what the store’s interactions with our help desk are like. It’s a compelling demonstration, placing us on the cutting edge of technology and being able to demonstrate we are an industry leader and show that we’re investing in the latest tools to help our customers.

“That’s the value proposition for us. We didn’t change our billing model at all for our customers. When we integrated Help Lightning, we didn’t increase their cost. Because while we’re absorbing the cost of Help Lightning we’re also seeing the savings associated with it.”

 

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Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief, Field Service News is joined on the Field Service News Digital Symposium by Clay Barker, Director of Service and Support, Revolution Retail Systems about their use of Augmented Reality within their field service operations.

During the discussion, Barker outlines how the tool has driven multiple benefits across their field service operation including improving customer satisfaction and increasing first-time fix rates as well as outlining how they achieved an effective roll-out which achieved excellent adoption rates in just three months of implementation.

Here, Barker reflects on the initial thoughts having seen the Help Lightning Augmented Reality tool and the potential he could see for its application within their field service operations.

 

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Want to know more?

FSN Premium subscribers and FSN Elite members can access the full length interview plus many, many more in the Field Service New Digital Symposium.  If you have an FSN Premium account you can access the video on the button below. If you are currently on our FSN Standard subscription tier you can upgrade your subscription by clicking the link below. 

If you are yet to subscribe you can join 30,0000 of your field service management peers by subscribing to FSN Standard for free to gain access to a monthly selection of premium content or select either FSN Premium or FSN Elite for even more resources. Click the button above to visit our subscription page to find out more. 

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In this fourth feature from our series of excerpts from an exclusive Field Service News white paper published in partnership with Help Lightning, that is exploring the practical questions surrounding Augmented Reality we look at how its introduction improves multiple facets of field service operations...

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Revolution Retail Systems have been using the Help Lightning Augmented Reality tool for almost two years, having had the opportunity to observe it being used and instantly seeing an array of opportunities.

As Clay Barker, Director of Service and Support, recalled on the Field Service News Digital Symposium, “we could see how we could use the tool in a number of ways, to improve customer and technician interactions as well as the ability of our internal staff and level two support to troubleshoot and diagnose, to make sure we send the right part, one time – the opportunity we saw was endless.”

When we look at the metrics that are often sat at the top of the list in terms of critical KPIs for field service organisations, we can instantly see how AR can be aligned in improving such metrics.

As is the case for many field service organisations, for Barker and Revolution Retail Systems, one of the most important of these metrics is the first-time-fix.

“The idea that we can’t get resolution on our first attempt is a challenge and if we can eliminate a dispatch, it’s an even larger benefit to the customer, because we’ve reduced the amount of downtime required to for resolution by using the AR effectively,” Barker explains. 

“I saw the opportunity that it was going to give my employees in communication with the customer. That is because what we’re asking the customer to do more often than not is look at the asset. We’re guiding them through this very technical, mechanical device, asking them to open access points, we’re asking them to turn knobs, we’re asking them to do lots of different things.

 

"As soon as I saw the tool, I listed off ten or fifteen ways in which that we could use the solution. It was so clear to me that that we could add value with this software..."

 

“We were trying to do that all via audio without a visual of what they could see and without being able to share visuals at our end that coudl guide them. 

“When I saw that we could take a pin and point to an access point and say slide this over to the left and show them exactly what we wanted them to do. The idea of how easy that made what we were trying to do from a communication standpoint, it was a no brainer for me.”

The team at Revolution Retail Systems did attempt some trials with video using apps like FaceTime, but while an improvement on audio-only calls, the functionality remained lacking the levels of interaction that sets AR apart as the obvious vehicle for remote service.

“At the end of the day, you can’t reach into it, you can’t point, you can’t take a screenshot, you can’t capture a picture off of it,” Barker explains.

“There are just so many other layers to how we use Help Lightning that has improved our business, outside of just customer experience. For example, the ability to capture pictures which allows more accurate invoicing. If the customer’s damaged the unit somehow, we can capture an image of it when we’re using Help Lightning; we can use that for support on our invoicing - there are hundreds of thousands of dollars that are spent on out of scope charges. Using the AR tools in this way provides us with the ability to invoice with more confidence with clear documentation and evidence.

“As soon as I saw the tool, I listed off ten or fifteen ways in which that we could use the solution. It was so clear to me that that we could add value with this software. There were savings, layered in savings over and over again on it – the ROI on it just was too easy!”

 

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In this third feature from a series of excerpts from an exclusive Field Service News white paper published in partnership with Help Lightning, that is exploring the practical questions surrounding Augmented Reality we explore the importance of effortlessness in any new technology we introduced into the complex machine of field service operations - especially one that can change our industry as dramatically as Augmented Reality... 

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Any new technology’s true strength when introduced into a complex workflow such as field service is that it needs to just work. It needs to be seamless and effortless for both the customer and the technician or engineer.

In this sense, AR is no different. It has to fit comfortably within the workflow. It has to integrate with other applications crucial within the field service management technology stack to be easily adopted. In a world of APIs and increasingly open architecture, this, on the surface, would seem a relatively simple request. Yet, in a world of data security and mobile device management, introducing a sophisticated new technology is not always as easy as it might seem at first glance.

So has AR reached this tipping point from exciting potential to effortless implementation?

York believes it has, although as he explains, AR is not actually a single technology but instead a set of technologies that can be used to solve problems of a variety of sorts.

“The visual assistance and the merged reality that we offer really is one of the most natural but the simplest of the augmented reality technologies,” York explains.

“It doesn’t require a lot of upfront capital cost, and it can be rolled out very rapidly. It can be rolled out standalone, and we have many customers who’ve got a lot of value in doing so with benefits across costs, revenue and customer satisfaction. These benefits are often not only incredible but also very achievable.

 

"We believe it’s incredibly important to use the devices that are already available and allow somebody to interact without even having to download an app..."

 

“However, even when these technologies are used as a standalone, it is important to remove any friction associated with using new tools and to make doing so a seamless experience for the customer but also for the call centre and the field techs.

“That’s really been a big focus for us. We look at every point in which there is potential friction in the process, and we say can we take that friction out?

“A good example here would be the inclusion of smart glasses within the technology stack. Smart glasses are fantastic. We support smart glasses. We have several customers experimenting with smart glasses, and we also have users who are using smart glasses in production today to roll out equipment.

“We have one customer that sells large, complex equipment to an international customer base, and during the pandemic, their equipment was in high demand, but they couldn’t go and set it up and train the customer. They started sending a pair of smart glasses with the equipment, so when local technicians or the customers themselves would put the smart glasses on, they would call back home using Help Lightning, and they’d be guided through an installation process as well as the training process.

“They were able to get their customers up and running with the technology even though they never had a physical interaction – so in the last twelve months, such solutions have proven to be really valuable.

“However, most people don’t have smart glasses, but all of us have a smartphone in our pocket. We believe it’s incredibly important to use the devices that are already available and allow somebody to interact without even having to download an app. A user can literally join a Help Lightning call by simply clicking a link in an email. 

“We’ve looked at every point in which there potentially could be friction; from the customer to the call centre all the way to the domain experts and the field techs. You can remove friction at each of those points through integrations. These are essential steps that allow the technology to work seamlessly and make it easier to improve those efficiencies by reducing the complexity often associated with using new technology.

“We have we have a lot of tools that allow us to integrate with Field Service Management solutions, Customer Relationship Management solutions and with Call Centre platforms. We even have integration with mobile apps. For example, we have a customer who has a mobile app that they use for service and in their mobile app, they have a call Help Lightning button built in. If the user clicks that button, it calls a group of technicians who are able to help with that product, at that location with that particular asset ID, at that exact time. Those kinds of integrations can be incredibly powerful for the customer.”

 

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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 full hour long interview the conversation turns to discuss whether we have finally reached a tipping point in terms of the use of AR in field service and if its incorporation into field service operations has now become seamless.

 

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Want to know more?

FSN Premium subscribers and FSN Elite members can access the full length interview plus many, many more in the Field Service New Digital Symposium.  If you have an FSN Premium account you can access the video on the button below. If you are currently on our FSN Standard subscription tier you can upgrade your subscription by clicking the link below. 

If you are yet to subscribe you can join 30,0000 of your field service management peers by subscribing to FSN Standard for free to gain access to a monthly selection of premium content or select either FSN Premium or FSN Elite for even more resources. Click the button above to visit our subscription page to find out more. 

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In this new article by Aquant, we look at a step-by-step approach that all service leaders should consider to ensure a smooth tech deployment.

Artificial intelligence is a growing force in the service space, but without proper pre-project planning, problems are bound to arise. To ensure a smooth deployment, team leaders should rely on a step-by-step approach to bring the final product over the finish line.

Enter the mighty checklist, whose power to manage expectations, help stakeholders remain consistent, and guide a project to completion knows no bounds. In our recent Service Leaders Spring Break sessions, we identified four essential steps that all service leaders should consider when implementing AI tools within their organizations.

let's put together the plan

1. Define the problem. Hone in on the larger business problem, then tie your service challenges to those broader business initiatives. Begin by diagnosing what the problem actually is — that means trying to solve for the root cause instead of putting bandaids on symptoms. Next, show the C-suite that your proposed service deployment will address those big issues. For example, if increasing customer satisfaction is a top initiative, be clear how technology that increases first time fix, or helps spread technician knowledge will result in boosting those customer service goals. Lastly, break those big goals down into tangible wins that will resonate across departments. For example, IT wins with cleaner data, and managers can rejoice at trackable KPIs.  
2. Create a stakeholder map: Stakeholders, assemble! From executives to end users, it’s important to determine who has an interest in the outcome, as well as influence over the overall project. A successful team contains a healthy mix of partners with the power to set and modify requirements, as well as others who will be directly impacted by the project's outcome. Once you assemble your dream team, you can determine what they need to succeed and start guiding the project to be as successful as possible. Throughout the duration of the implementation, your stakeholders will give you quick feedback and deeper insights — both necessary for a successful end result. Don’t forget to get back to basics by assigning tasks, due dates, and keeping everyone (equally) informed with regular check-ins. In short, don’t let any one group feel left out.
3. Perform a data reality check: There’s no such thing as good or bad data — only existing data and what you make of it. In most companies, IT and business departments will need to work in tandem: the first gathers the data, and the latter interprets it. For a successful implementation, both parties need to have an understanding of what data exists, and how they’d like to use it to achieve results. The AI vendor can further analyze and interpret. One last note here, don’t worry that your data is too messy or that your company doesn’t have enough data. The starting point should be simply assessing what’s available.
4. Agree on realistic project expectations: We’ve heard the horror stories when it comes to AI implementations — complexities, escalating timescales, and spiraling costs can run rampant. For these reasons and more, companies tend to label large-scale implementations as confusing and risky. However, keep in mind that artificial intelligence is a “living” tool — one whose capabilities expand and contract as it absorbs more data. You should not expect your AI to work at 100% efficacy right out the gate, but rather, remember that its accuracy will increase as it learns how to utilize your organization’s data. That means that project expectations should start small and grow in relation to the project. Don’t forget, implementation is the first step, then comes full user adoption, and that’s when results will really take off.

Once you hit these pre-project milestones, it will be easier to move forward gaining approvals and rolling out the projects.

need some inspiration?

We built the checklist so you don’t have to.

To accelerate your project, Aquant created The Ultimate Guide to Tech Deployments, a comprehensive list designed to help you fully define the benefits of AI and leverage its power within your organization. We know it can be overwhelming to consider the many puzzle pieces, so you can use our checklist to take your deployment to the next level, or simply use it as a guide.

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Further Reading:

• Read more about Aquant on Field Service News @ www.fieldservicenews.com/aquant
• Read more about Digital Transformation @ www.fieldservicenews.com/digital-transformation
• Watch the Aquant Service Leaders Spring Break sessions @ view.aquant.io/servicespringbreak/
• Download Aquant's Ultimate Guide to Tech Deployments @ www2.aquant.io/ai-deployment-checklist
• Learn more about Aquant @ www.aquant.io
• Follow Aquant on Twitter @ twitter.com/Aquant_io

 

IFS today launches IFS Cloud™, a single platform that innately connects all its products to deliver the end-to-end capabilities a company needs to orchestrate its customers, people and assets and deliver amazing Moments of Service.

Customers can choose to deploy best-of-breed or leverage the power of connecting their value chains across capabilities such as enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), human capital management (HCM), asset management (EAM) and field service (FSM).

With IFS Cloud, IFS offers a unique and single technology platform with one common user experience, one data model and one consistent support offering. IFS Cloud brings simplicity, choice and innovation to organizations that need to evolve to new business models, control costs, expand faster and serve their customers better. By implementing IFS Cloud, companies can easily scale and simply switch on new functionality (such as additional modules or new innovative capabilities) when the time is right for their business.

IFS CLOUD MAKES IT PRACTICAL AND AFFORDABLE FOR CUSTOMERS TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE NEWEST TECHNOLOGIES

Likewise, customers can choose how and where they deploy IFS Cloud, which has been engineered for the cloud but can be deployed on-premises with a choice of residency. Unlike many offerings, IFS customers will benefit from the same solution functionality and delightful user experiences, regardless of their deployment choice, without compromise.

As a departure from competing, legacy suites and software portfolios that rely on complex and costly integrations, IFS Cloud is designed to make it easier and more cost-effective for customers to buy, deploy, run, and update their enterprise software. IFS Cloud marks the start of twice-yearly feature releases, giving customers the choice to move to the latest version as and when their business is ready.

Darren Roos, IFS CEO, commented, “The path to digital transformation is not a simple one. Most businesses are complex and have intricate value chains, which is why few organizations succeed and even fewer vendors provide the tools to truly enable it. At IFS, our single most important goal is to deliver value to our customers, and we want to provide a clear path for them to evolve to new business models, compete and win. 

Roos continued, “Customers have told me that their main goals are to drive efficiency, control costs and to develop better products and services. We know that to achieve this, cloud is a pre-requisite. Digital innovations need to be easily consumable and embedded into daily business operations, which is why I am confident that IFS will succeed where others have not. IFS Cloud is unique and delivers on customer centricity and experience as well as capabilities. I am proud to say we are again keeping our promise to deliver value so that customers can deliver on their Moment of Service.”

With digital innovations embedded, IFS Cloud’s architecture also includes new and improved application services for intelligent and autonomous business that can be natively leveraged across IFS products and across industries. This makes it practical and affordable for customers to take advantage of technologies such as machine learning (ML), augmented and mixed reality (AR/MR), artificial intelligence (AI), and internet of things (IoT), ready to use ‘out of the box’.  

IFS Cloud is being adopted by a number of pioneer customers across IFS’s focus markets of Aerospace & Defense, Construction & Infrastructure, Energy & Utilities, Manufacturing, and Service industries. One such customer is Cimcorp Group, a world-leading manufacturer of robotics and automation systems.

Commenting on the benefits of IFS Cloud, Cimcorp Technology Director Jyrki Anttonen said, “The manufacturing and manufacturing service industries are very dynamic and highly competitive, which means we are constantly looking for technologies that will allow us to work smarter and faster than our competitors. Company growth is certainly a goal, but we are a global business and therefore we need to have visibility into our operations globally so that we can target efficiencies, control costs and devise news ways to create value for our customers. IFS Cloud is a platform with next-generation technology built for our industry and this gives us the confidence we need to achieve this and flank the competition.”

IFS Chief Product Officer Christian Pedersen said, “IFS Cloud was designed and built to respond to customers’ needs when shifting to digital business models; something we never lost sight of over the last two years.” Pedersen continued, “We recognize that IFS Cloud will be pivotal in bringing success in a customer’s business and this shaped our approach in several areas: being able to make fast and informed decisions based on a single data model, being completely open with native APIs and providing one single upgrade experience so that customers can focus on what is important, which is to deliver exceptional moments of service to their customers.”

Also released today is the first instalment of IFS’s application lifecycle management capability, IFS Lifecycle Experience. IFS Lifecycle Experience features a portal that puts users in control of their application by fusing multiple touch points, to give them access to information, tooling, code, and permissions.

Learn more about IFS Cloud at www.ifs.com/corp/ifs-cloud/ifs-cloud-overview.

Hear what IFS customers have to say during the digital launch event: www.ifs.com/possibilities.

For additional information on IFS Cloud, read blogs from Antony Bourne, Christian Pedersen, Dan Matthews, Michael Ouissi, Riccardo Bocci and Raymond Jones.

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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 the launch of IFS Cloud @ ifs.com/possibilities 
• Follow IFS on Twitter @ https://twitter.com/ifs

 

The human factor is widely recognized as an essential component to digital transformation success. In fact, over a quarter (27 percent) of companies acknowledge that despite being key, people are often overlooked when planning and executing transformative projects, according to a research study from global enterprise applications company IFS.

The study goes on to identify poor change management as one of the key reasons digital transformation projects fail. When implementing new digital transformation projects, businesses are focused on implementing the key technology and solutions but aren’t considering the importance of staff buy-in and acceptance of the project, which is intrinsically linked to its overall success.

INNOVATION IS THE KEY TO BUSINESS RESILIENCE

When asked about the reasons for failure in past projects, businesses also cited lack of employee engagement among the top four reasons. In addition, respondents named past experiences of low employee buy-in as one of the top two reasons for hesitating to launch new digital transformation projects. This can potentially have a great impact on the overall development of a business, as in times of downturn many believe innovation is the key to business resilience.

The broad focus on people-related considerations among companies goes hand in hand with a widely held concern for soft values such as vendor culture and ethics, which was revealed by a previous IFS study.

Although one third of respondents identified involving the human resources (HR) department from the beginning to ensure employee awareness as key to digital transformation success, one quarter of companies admitted that they have been guilty of not doing so in the past. Furthermore, 21 percent of companies expressed that employee engagement is more of a “tick-box” exercise, as opposed to being critical for success, revealing an obvious mismatch between recognition and actual execution.

 

 

From an HR perspective, there is ample proof that digital transformation makes good business sense. 29 percent of respondents stated that employee retention would be higher if the business could offer more exciting technology to its people, indicating that technology does have employee retention possibilities. Furthermore, 39 percent said that technology provides the ideal opportunity to retrain and upskill existing staff, thereby bridging the skills gap that is a major pain point in many industries.

“Through continuous dialog with our customers as well as first-hand experiences from our own digital transformation, we have always known that people can act as both an enabler and a barrier in transformation projects,” IFS Chief Human Resources Officer Jane Keith said. “This report drives home the point that if digital transformation is kept human centric and if change management is handled effectively and employees are aware and inspired to support the transformation, the business is much more likely to reap success. Staff involvement should not be seen as a just a tick-box exercise but as the secret sauce that will ultimately determine the outcome.”

 

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Download a complimentary copy of Digital Transformation Investment in 2020 and Beyond: The Undeniable People Factor.

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Further Reading:

• Read more about Digital Transformation @ www.fieldservicenews.com/digital-transformation
• Learn more about IFS @ www.ifs.com
• Download a complimentary copy of the IFS study here
• Read more about IFS on Field Service News @ www.fieldservicenews.com/IFS
• Follow IFS on Twitter @ twitter.com/ifsuk

The power of technology-enhanced remote assistance has become a mainstream concept in 2020 as we adapted to the needs of zero-touch service delivery during lockdown, yet the benefits of such tools go way beyond the confines of the pandemic. However, for those of us only just getting up to speed on this technology OverIT's Alberto Battistutti is outlines the core distinctions of some of the technologies at play... 

Augmented Reality (AR) can be seen as an extension of the user’s environment, which gets enriched in real time with superimposed digital models and information, such as texts, graphics and multimedia. The aim of this technology is to “augment” or, in other words, to improve the physical world with contextual, significant and relevant information.

The antithesis of AR is Virtual Reality (VR), a technology radically changing the users’ perception of the world as it immerses them into an artificial, unreal and computer-generated environment. Elements are then separated from the actual world and replicated into a virtual one, in which users rely on their five senses to interact with objects and places.

Merged Reality (MR) can be positioned in the middle, as it integrates digital models into the physical world, enabling users to interact with them while remaining aware of the real environment around them.

The main differences are about the devices used and, therefore, the functions provided and the sector where such functions can be employed.

The rapid deployment of supporting technology and the fall in prices of wearable devices (as already happened to handheld ones) will increase the spread of AR, MR and VR solutions, now expected to be a “can’t-live-without tech” for every company.

 

BENEFITS AND APPLICABILITY OF THE THREE TECHNOLOGIES

AR, MR and VR apply to a wide range of business opportunities, way beyond the initial expectations of the general public, which were limited to the entertainment and video game industry. Indeed, they have marked a turning point in many different business processes, from sales and marketing activities to Field Service and remote support, from training & learning to the manufacturing sector.

AR, MR and VR have proven to bring value to the business of those companies adopting them, both in terms of reduced time for work execution, thanks to faster maintenance procedures, improved staff productivity and efficiency, as well as of increased workforce safety, thanks to hands-free activity, remote training and collaboration.

Products based on such technologies are key factors for all companies, regardless of the sector they are operating in, their size and business turnover. Utility and Industrial Manufacturing sectors are currently leading the way in this digitalization process, due to the intrinsic nature of the activities their operators are always exposed to. AR, MR and VR are able to “extend” the resources’ capabilities. supporting them through guided procedures while carrying out maintenance activities on production lines, arming them with pertinent information on plant assets and, last but not least, connecting them with other colleagues to receive or give real-time assistance. The continuous transfer of corporate knowledge is therefore now a reality.

 

TYPICAL USE OF AR, MR AND VR IN BUSINESS

Very common cases where such technologies have a staggering potential are: remote execution of maintenance activities, virtual collaboration, training and product presentation.

On-field resources often face unknown assets, thus asking the company to send an expert on site. It goes without saying that such procedure is costly and time-consuming; in short, inefficient. Likewise, maintenance and repairing interventions nowadays represent the most critical processes for companies. Augmented Reality can bridge the skills gap and reduce errors made by technicians, thus ensuring a rapid and efficient sharing of know-how as well as increasing the percentage of first-time fixes and giving more accurate diagnoses. By harnessing the power of a shared, Artificial Intelligence-driven knowledge base, the application automatically suggests all possible solutions generated from learning the procedures of previous interventions.

The information provided can be integrated with the Geographic Information System data, thus allowing users to view networks, assets and technical data, as to assess in advance the impact caused by the creation of plants and networks, while cutting down the time required to identify assets over the territory.

 

"Expert maintenance technicians are extremely rare to find and are usually forced to move across the world to respond to growing requests for intervention..."

 

Moreover, the assets’ digital twins can be manipulated in real time and enriched with further details, by anchoring notes shared by those remote users with the skills necessary to support the execution of field activities. Such functions extend competences and allow to complete maintenance and assistance interventions rapidly and efficiently.

The technology breakthrough reflects into increasingly sophisticated machines, requiring maintenance interventions performed by resources with a higher degree of specialization. Expert maintenance technicians are extremely rare to find and are usually forced to move across the world to respond to growing requests for intervention, thus extending machine downtime and increasing expenses for companies. In this regard, remote training on new procedures or complex activities is becoming more and more important. Implementing these functionalities proves to be game-changing for situations which are difficult or too expensive to recreate in reality.

It is worth noting how the current global emergency situation and the resulting restrictions have boomed sectors concerning remote collaboration and product presentation. These two particular uses of technology allow to minimize travels of personnel, both in case of operational and commercial activities, thus taking digital information wherever the business requires it, in total safety, and with even higher results than those achievable with traditional methods.

 

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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
• Connect with Alberto Battistutti @ https://www.linkedin.com/in/abattistutti/