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Warwick University will once again become a central hub for field service professionals in the UK in April this year as the Field Service and Spare Parts Summits return. Field Service News will be there to participate in the deep level discussions we have come to expect from these back to back events and Thomas Igou, Editorial Director, Copperberg, gives an overview of what to expect this time around. 

This April, Copperberg is returning to the Warwick Conference Centre for its 4th Annual Field Service Summit and 2nd Annual Spare Parts Summit, bringing over the course of two days 200+ service and parts leaders from the UK manufacturing industry. Chaired by Andy Neely of the Cambridge Service Alliance, both days will be filled with intense group discussions and inspiring keynotes.

First up on 3 April, The Field Service Summit will focus on how to move from a service culture to an experience economy.

The right customer experience directly translates to economic gains and differentiation as premium service. With the growing number of connected devices, easier integration of new sensors and the rise of automation in the field, customers now demand a more memorable experience. The experiences consist of being able to make the customer participate, connect and build a relationship with the service, assuring loyalty in the long term. To be able to shift from a service culture to one based on capabilities and outcomes demands organisations need to go the extra mile in providing prompt, accurate and reliable solutions in the short customer attention span.

This shift requires developing internal competencies and changing leadership style while finding seamless solutions, to make field service memorable customer experiences.

At the 3rd Annual Field Service Summit UK in April 2018, more than 120 field Service Directors gathered to learn how to use the latest advances in software technologies to improve their connection points with their customers and maximise their service operations’ financial performance.

In 2019, The Field Service Summit returns with an even more engaging value proposition: entering the era of the Experience Economy with an outcome based service strategy.

Memorable keynotes will include Rajat Kakar, Vice President, Head of Product Related Services at Fujitsu on Preparing your CEO for the Unprecedented Service Digital Disruption. Other keynotes will include Airstream, IFS, SightCall, Salesforce, ebecs, clicksoftware, and regular Field Service News contributor, Bill Pollock from Strategies for Growth.

The highpoint of the event, though, will be the idea blitzes: 16 group discussions on distinct and dedicated topics within field service management that will run four times throughout the day, for intense discussions.

Then on 4 April, the 2nd Annual Spare Parts Summit will take place, focusing on putting availability at the core of a manufacturer’s strategy.

Spare Parts is the money-maker of a service division; however, in a time of great uncertainty, where the boundaries of competition are crushed wide open by tech giants and technological breakthroughs, and where global trade agreements are under constant threat by protectionist governments, the need for change and innovation is more important than ever.

"Spare Parts is the money-maker of a service division..."

The 2nd Annual Spare Parts Summit will guide you through the most modern tools and strategies to ensure that your customers’ expectations, availability, is ensured. The event will offer engaging peer discussions to discuss how to not only digitize service offerings for the benefit of customers and profit margins but how digitalisation will impact spare parts businesses and the industry as a whole.

The event will also look at pricing strategy as a key to business growth, and how to be coherent in pricing approaches in an omnichannel environment where ecommerce becomes a vital tool to lock in customers and fend off competition.

Finally, the event will also showcase innovations in warehouse management, supply chain optimization, and how to use IoT for parts failure predictions in order to ensure that manufacturers always deliver the right part at the right time.

Some keynotes to look out for: the Increasing Influence of Ecommerce in The Industrial Aftermarket by Carl Daintree from Sandvik. In this session, Carl will highlight Consumer/Customer behaviour analysis, and their new expectations regarding a seamless online experience with 24/7 access to information as well as why manufacturers are now working towards utilising Ecommerce as their primary sales channel, and exploring the benefits of this strategy.

Another keynote to look forward to: When reality trumps value-based pricing of spare parts - Moving beyond from Price Setting to Price Getting by Matias Mäkelä, Pricing Manager at Kalmar Services.

The session will focus on how even state-of-the-art product segmentation, carefully built value-based price structures maintained by modern pricing tool do not always guarantee the optimal result in final net prices. Matias will share his hands-on experiences on tackling margin erosion due to various indirect factors affecting net price getting.

With over 200+ service and parts leader in attendance over two days, the Warwick Conference Centre will once again be host to the UK’s largest business conference for service leaders in the UK, with a unique format putting delegates at the forefront of the program with the idea blitzes.

You can register for the Field Service Summit here and the Spare Parts Summit here. 

Copperberg's annual field service survey report suggests visual technologies such as Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) could bridge the gap between experienced engineers and new sector entrants.

The survey gathered comment from over 125 Field Service Directors from global manufacturing firms, and revealed visual-based technologies including VR, AR, Visual Assistance and Video Calling could address the growing disparity between mature field service engineers and less experienced workers.

Commenting, Field Service News contributor and BBA Consulting President Jim Baston said: ‘‘As they [experienced engineers] rely more on their tools to troubleshoot and repair and less on their experience, it opens up the door for less qualified individuals who will be able to give comparable levels of technical service.’’

The survey also identified the need for an open digital eco-system between partners, suppliers and customers to encourage collaboration.

You can download the report's findings here.

This year's Aftermarket Business Platform was once again a hive of information as senior leaders from across the European continent and beyond came together to share their insight, learn from their peers and see first hand the technology that is shaping the sector.

The conference was packed with the leading thinkers within the industry from both the practitioner and solution provider side and in this second in a series of articles with those key speakers Coppperberg's Mark McCord joins reflects on his discussion with Thomas Radau of German firm Titan following his presentation...

 

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The schedule for Aftermarket 2019 is already being put together and it promises to be a key date in the calendar once again. This is an event that almost always sells out so head over to aftermarketeurope.com now and secure your place at this important industry event...

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In a distinguished career in engineering services, Thomas Radau has seen a lot of change. The biggest, however, has been industry’s attitude towards the customer.

No longer just the endpoint in a supply and process chain, manufacturers increasingly see customers as long-term partners.

“There’s been a revolution in thought,” says Radau, service manager for German packaging and strap-making firm Titan.

“In the past, the customer was paid lip service to and customer-focus was more an attitude than a practice. But now it’s key to our business.”

It’s no longer enough simply to offer customers a product, Radau says.

 

"You have to be very focused to say ‘am I understanding you correctly, this is the problem, that’s where I can help you..."

 

“You have to be very focused to say ‘am I understanding you correctly, this is the problem, that’s where I can help you’.”

Radau began his career as a service technician and electronics expert and was posted in various locations around the world. He gained an up-close understanding of the importance of aftermarket service provision while working within the compressed air and gas purification industry, where the smooth running of equipment and minimisation of downtime are critical.

He later moved to DEUTZ, a manufacturer of industrial diesel engines before joining Titan in 2015.

In an engrossing presentation at Aftermarket 2018, Radau stressed the importance of customer focus by personalising his customer base to an idealised character called “Paul”.

“You have to think forward, and ask how do I help Paul meet his projects,” Radau told the delegates in Berlin. “If what we do doesn’t add value to Paul, then it’s useless.”

In an increasingly competitive world, it’s important for companies to put aftermarket services at the forefront because that wins customer loyalty and satisfaction, Radua argues.

“It’s now more difficult to sell things because everybody wants to sell products – it’s difficult to get customers’ attention,” Radau adds. “We must now do things where in the past the customer had to do it themselves.”

While Radau jokes that aftermarket service is like a social service, he believes he is in the business of making life better for his customers.

“We release them from the monkey work – that’s what the product as a service is all about,” he says animatedly. “It’s a lifestyle pitch.”

“In today’s life – everybody has more and more responsibility and everybody is more and more involved in lots of things, so if we are able to ease their lives and save them time and energy, they’re able to do their work better and easier.”

 

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In an age of servitization and advanced services, spare parts management has become something of a difficult beast to fully grasp for many companies who are offer aftermarket services.

For example, in a world of guaranteed up-times, the cost of failure to keep an asset running can often far outweigh the lost revenue from the sale of the replacement part needed to get the asset back up and running and fully functional again.

Yet, the path to servitization is not an easy one to tread - so is it worth cannibalising what for many service companies is a reliable, consistent and strong revenue stream in its pursuit?

Whichever route companies ultimately turn to, one thing is certain, spare parts management is going to be a crucial aspect within the service delivery sector and as with mobile workforce management, there are a number of technologies and innovations that are emerging that could change the way we approach parts management in the future.

Therefore it was with great interest that we took a look at the insights from a recent research project undertaken by Copperberg. The research was conducted online across the last month primarily to Copperberg’s own audience of conference delegates.

In total the there were 65 responses to the survey and these representatives were all professionals within the sector ranging in seniority from parts managers through to Managing Directors - although the main body of respondents were at the division head/director level on a national scale.

The majority of respondents were from Europe although other regions, including China, were represented. The respondents were largely from manufacturing verticals, which would be anticipated given Copperberg’s flagship event the Aftermarket Business Platform is also a manufacturing dominated event. However, there were a number verticals within the manufacturing sector represented including heavy machinery, medical and automotive.

So let us take a brief look at what trends the research revealed...

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Want to know more? Click here to Visit Copperberg's website to register for an exclusive white paper based on this research!

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Inventory Management:

Inventory Management sits at the heart of good parts management as without the ability to track components and parts at any given time as they move from depot to the field (and potentially back again depending on a companies approach to repair and reverse logistics) everything else within in the equation becomes open to inaccuracies and subject to guesswork.

Indeed, the importance of inventory management appears to be hugely important within the organisations represented within Copperberg’s research with 91% of the respondents ranking it as being either four, five or six on a scale on to six with six being very important. In fact, almost half of the respondents (43%) listed Inventory Management as very important (6) - further emphasising the significance of inventory management in the context of spare parts management.

So it is absolutely shown to be clear in the research that the focus on inventory management remains one of utmost importance for the vast majority of companies.

 

Parts Pricing and eCommerce:

Parts pricing is also another area that was unanimously outlined as being important to the survey respondents.

This is particularly interesting as the fact that so many companies still view parts pricing as being highly important to them could be viewed as an indicator that the revenue streams that come from spare parts sales is still very much a critical part of the aftermarket landscape.

In fact, 86% of respondents stated that they felt parts pricing was at least a four on the same scale as listed above, however, here it was just under a third of respondents (32%) that felt this issue was very important.

eCommerce is of course another area that is heavily linked with parts pricing and there are indeed some correlations between the two areas, yet in terms of responses, eCommerce remains somewhat less of a priority than pricing.

With regards to eCommerce, exactly two-thirds of the respondents (66%) listed it as a four, five or six with only 16% seeing it as being very important (6).

This is quite an interesting difference between the two as we might have anticipated these results being more closely aligned.

One assumption, however, may be that with regards to eCommerce the solutions have now matured and so most manufacturers in 2018 may have at least some form of eCommerce solution in place - perhaps this explains why it is viewed as less of a priority?

This is certainly though an area for further discussion - something that will be surely had at the Copperberg Spare Parts Business Platforms which are running in Q1 next year.

 

Digitalisation:

Digitalisation is the key buzzword of the last few years although given that it encompasses a number of important shifts within the current evolution of business processes this is perhaps to be expected and there is no denying the importance of digitalisation within the field service sector and it is also a major consideration within the closely related function of parts management as the research reveals.

Digitalisation was ranked was 71% of the respondents to the Copperberg survey as being listed as either a four, five or six on their scale of importance, with 22% of respondents listing it as a six i.e. very important.

This places digitalisation as being deemed to be not quite as important to the respondent base as Inventory Management and Parts Pricing but more important than eCommerce.

What is interesting to note here is that these two very specific niche challenges seem to be in some-ways the eternal, perennial headaches of the sector, whilst broader, business-wide concerns such as digitalisation are possibly more likely to appear as an issue to overcome in the short-term which in themselves could lead to improvements in other areas - such as improved inventory management for example.

Which leads us neatly into...

 

3D Printing & Artificial Intelligence:

Two perfect examples of exciting new technologies that are emerging would be 3D Printing and Artificial Intelligence (AI) - with one set to play a hugely significant role in the niche of spare parts management, whilst the other will play a broad role in almost all sectors, including spare parts management.

So how do the industry experts who made up the Copperberg respondent base see each of these exciting technologies impacting the spare parts management sector?

With regards to AI just over a third of respondents (35% ) thought it would be important to some degree (again listing it as either a four, five or six).

However, less than a tenth of the respondents (9%) felt that AI was currently very important for them.

In terms of 3D printing, surprisingly the numbers were even lower.

In fact, less than a third of companies listed 3D Printing at a four or higher and only 8% of respondents felt that 3D Printing was very important in the sector currently.

 

Parts Logistics:

One area, however, that was overwhelmingly listed as being important within the field of spare parts management across the next 12 months was that of parts logistics.

94% of respondents listed parts logistics as being at least a four in the scale of importance with over a third (35%) going on to state that they felt parts logistics was important enough to warrant being listed as a six.

This makes parts logistics one of the most important areas in the spare parts sector across the next twelve months according to this respondent base, although Inventory Management is very important to more companies.

 

Conclusions:

The results of the survey bring us some interesting conclusions - particularly when we stand them alongside the trends we are seeing from within the field service sector.

Of course, field service and parts management are two leaves on the same branch with deeply symbiotic relationships between the two.

Yet, from this research at least, it does seem that many of the forward-looking discussions we have been having within the field service sector, particularly around emerging technologies such as AI, IoT and Augmented Reality as well as the wider topic of servitization as a strategy for business growth - may be further down the line than their equivalent discussions with our spare parts colleagues - and in some companies that may be significantly so.

Perhaps, part of the reason for this is that parts management is a highly complex beast with a huge amount of moving parts (literally) and even if solutions such as inventory management systems have been put in place it may take time for the benefits there to be truly felt.

However, the simple fact is that no matter how efficient field service management is - it all falls out of the window if parts management is poor - and this is perhaps the greatest learning from the research - that the focus of professionals within the parts management sector currently remains on efficiencies - and for that, we in field service should be hugely grateful.

 

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Want to know more? Click here to Visit Copperberg's website to register for an exclusive white paper based on this research!

 

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Every year, the team at Copperberg AB, producers of the forthcoming Aftermarket Business Platform gather the brightest service leaders from the largest manufacturing companies and from all corners of Europe to dissect the ongoing service transformation and share the key to a successful servitization journey.

It is a networking experience which has proven to be critical for defining new business models that can allow field service companies to respond to changing customer expectations, which are moving from ownership to outcome-based solutions.

One such service leader is Carl-Henrik Sjölund, Global Consultancy Service Director at SECO TOOLS, whom Copperberg recently interviewed for a new eBook in order to put together an eBook on Servitization that shares some practical steps towards a successful servitization journey.

Here, we take a look at some of that advice...

 

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Want to know more? Register to access Copperberg's Servitization eBook @ http://fs-ne.ws/CAjc30lXctz

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10 steps to servitization success... 

Within the eBook Sjölund outlines what he sees as 10 key steps that field service companies should consider when approaching shifting to a servitized business model.

These are:

1. Define the customer process where your product is in use
2. Define the components in the close world around your product
3. Define the challenges for efficient use, and cost of inefficient use
4. If necessary, define your own core competence (know-how, not product)
5. Match the customers’ challenges with the biggest cost of “inefficient use of components” with your best core competence to “fix it"
6. Check customer interest of your new service by using real proof of concept. Could be fake landing pages for services where people can click for interest to buy, subscribe or just know more.
7. If you find good interest for your new service, make a business case for profitability and start
8. Build a service organization by parallel “selling and recruiting”
9. Use Aftermarket Business Platform to communicate your strategy and you get many interested system suppliers that can help you to enable and control the business
10. Enjoy the success!

 

Hindsight with 20/20 vision:

Reflecting back on his own journey, one of the core challenges in making a transition to a business strategy he had experienced was the difference between the traditional sales approach found in product-focused sales compared to the more nuanced approach required to sell complicated, yet highly profitable outcome-based service-centric contracts. As Sjölund commented:

"The journey was more or less OK except that we had too much trust in the existing product sales organization to sell the new services."

"They just didn’t understand it, he added. "Instead we found a few of our own salespeople for service sales with different backgrounds to understand the complete customer journey (challenge) and communicate with the highest management level about this. It’s important to bring people from the product service organization along to learn and pick the best.

 

The major trends of Servitization:

The eBook also draws on the wider pool of senior Service Professionals that attend the Aftermarket Business Platform and as such outlines some of the key trends that are becoming prevalent amongst Manufacturers across Europe.

These include:

• Manufacturing companies are faced with smaller and smaller batch sizes because of faster and faster development cycles.
• This leads to challenges to estimate costs earlier, prepare for the unknown and have very fast set-up of machine. Added to that, the need to produce good parts directly when there are orders means there is no time for optimization.
• Companies lack staff with the right skills and working methods for this.
• Many suppliers are promising industry 4.0 ready-to-use solutions without success support and this leads to bad experiences.

 

The technology of Servitization: 

Of course, as we have discussed many times here at fieldservicenews.com technology is a major factor in enabling the growth of servitized business strategies and models.

However, for Sjölund, the sheer volume of innovative technology that is empowering field service organisations to push ever further the boundaries of service excellence, a path that logically leads towards servitization, can be something of a double-edged sword.

"Technology is part of the problem: what is good and what to do?" He asks. "We already tried out a lot of technology (AI, Robotics, 3D Printing, AR/VR) to know what is usable and what is not."

"Most important change according to my experience so far is the use of big data mining to predict the future and access virtual good advices combined with virtual collaboration between users for “reality checks” and confirmation between professionals," Sjölund continues.

"This needs, however, data generating systems (IoT) in the workshop and well managed virtual communities. This is today not yet spread and partly not even available."

 

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Want to know more? Register to access Copperberg's Servitization eBook @ http://fs-ne.ws/CAjc30lXctz

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As a cash cow of the service division, how prepared is your spare parts business to embrace increasing pressure from customer expectations, changing trade agreements, and intra-connected new technologies?  How will these and more affect your parts pricing strategies, logistics network, and warehousing management?

If you can take this 3-minute survey to help us build an accurate picture of current industry sentiment and the key trends in this area it would be hugely appreciated. Please take a few minutes to take @  https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/parts2019

Upon closure of the survey, we will be working alongside Coppeberg who produce the excellent Spare Parts Business Forums both within the UK and Europe to create an ebook of the survey results, with expert commentary from industry insiders, as a benchmarking tool for you to evaluate the direction of your spare parts business - so take part now and keep your eyes out for this exciting forthcoming report!

 

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Ahead of the forthcoming inaugural Spare Parts Summit being held in Warwick, UK on April 12th, Field Service News Editor-in-Chief, Kris Oldland talks to Thomas Igou, Content Director, Copperberg about the impact the growing trend of servitization will have upon the spare parts sector...

In his role as Content Director with conference producer Copperberg, Thomas Igou has been at the heart of conversations in both the Field Service and Spare Parts sectors for many years now. So who better to assess how the continued trend of servitization is impacting on both sectors?

With Copperberg launching a new UK focused version of their highly respected European Spare Parts Forum I was keen to get his view of what the key issues facing those working in the Spare Parts sector were and if the introduction of outcome-based contracts would require a rethink of how manufacturers align there field service and spare parts operations.

“There are three main themes on the macro level looking at how digital transformation is impacting organisations and more importantly the service business,” explains Igou.

Most manufacturers today are going through some form of servitization process moving from a purely transactional business to a more servitized model“Most manufacturers today are going through some form of servitization process moving from a purely transactional business to a more servitized model. That creates both great opportunities but also some sizeable challenges from a spare parts perspective and then to add to those challenges there are a number of other disruptive factors in the market at the moment as well.”

“eCommerce, AI, 3D printing and so on are all necessitating transformation in the spare parts sector, which has tended to be the cash cow within a service businesses because of the purely transactional nature of the business - the customer needs the spare part, he orders it, pays for it, gets it delivered.”

“Whereas on the flip side, when you look at field service it’s actually the opposite - field service directors are looking at how to move from being a cost centre to being a profit centre, and servitization plays a role in facilitating that shift. “

“However, the impact that is being seen in spare parts operations as companies move towards an outcome-based model, is that companies actually, start to cannibalise some of their spare parts revenue - because instead of being purely transactional, spare parts orders and deliveries start being included in SLAs, so actually, you will make less money from the sale of spare parts.”

“Essentially, it is something of a contradictory development because companies have to take away from one side to add value to the other.”

As Igou mentions for the spare parts executive there are additional external challenges to be contended with as well as the internal questions being raised by outcome-based contracts. Not least of these is eCommerce.

“eCommerce is another very significant topic of conversation at the moment, especially regarding competition from China where quality is getting better and better but as Chinese organisations have access to much cheaper raw materials they are able to be far more price competitive compared to European or North American organisations,” Igou explains.

“And that is before we even get to challenges centred around pirated parts - there are even growing fears around how companies like Amazon or Google could enter the sector and take a large share of the market revenue quite easily as they have done in other industries and sectors.”

Indeed, the Spare Parts sector is perhaps facing some of its most testing times ahead, but there remain plenty of opportunities also - many of which lie in tightening up efficiencies in two of the sectors mainstay topics - pricing and logistics.

The main aim with the spare parts sector is tackling how to deliver the right part, at the right time and at the right price“The main aim with the spare parts sector is tackling how to deliver the right part, at the right time and at the right price,” Igou explains.

“Most companies are now trying to move away from the cost plus model (i.e. how much does it cost to produce the part and then adding the profit on top) towards a more value-based approach, or if a company is entering a new market, they may prefer a market-based pricing strategy. Here, of course, eCommerce is again having an impact because prices are becoming more transparent - anyone can go on eBay or the internet and see on your website how much it costs to buy a part from China compared to say Egypt and then compared to the US or Europe.”

“If you have price differences it can be awfully bad for businesses so companies are facing a need to standardise prices across the board.” “In terms of logistics, the big discussion remains centred around whether companies should have a centralised warehouse management solution (where you have one big warehouse holding all of the stock and service all of Europe) or whether they opt for a decentralised strategy, operating multiple smaller warehouses which are closer to their customers, but which cannot stock as much inventory per warehouse.”

“In addition to that, there is a new consideration emerging,” Igou adds.

”We had a great session at this year’s European Spare Parts Forum from Schneider Electric about segmenting logistics depending on customer segments. Schneider found that customers in each of the differing sectors they service have different behaviours and expectations. For example, in one industry it may be that their customers need a very rapid solution and the key issue for that industry may be availability, so their logistics channel needs to be very good and very flexible and agile.”

“Whereas, another customer segment might be more demanding of uptime or more price sensitive etc, so segmenting your service supply chain based on your customer segment and the specific needs of that sector is another consideration that is beginning to enter the conversation.”

Of course, as Igou mentions, as companies move towards outcome-based solutions there is a danger of spare parts revenue being cannibalised as part of the wider service offering.

So where does he see the future of Spare Parts Management - will it ultimately become swallowed up as a subdivision of field service operations perhaps?

“It’s a great question and one I’ve been giving quite a bit of thought to,” replies Igou when I put this to him.

Whilst yes, servitization will mean some cannibalisation of the spare parts revenue, I don’t see that it’s going to destroy the spare parts business“With some of the larger organisations that were involved at our Aftermarket Conference at the end of October last year, we saw that even with companies such as SKF and GE Healthcare, i.e. major multi-national companies who have been working towards outcome-based services for some time now, still only about a third of their customers are on outcome based contracts and these are the organisations that are really at the forefront of this shift.”

“So whilst yes, servitization will mean some cannibalisation of the spare parts revenue, I don’t see that it’s going to destroy the spare parts business. There are always going to be some customers who won’t want these long term contracts and who will be happy to continue on a more transactional type of arrangement.”

“So I think the Spare Parts business will always have that transactional element and it will always be a profit centre. There will however, perhaps be a need for establishing some different internal relationships and some different processes may need to be considered moving forwards.”

The inaugural UK Spare Parts Summit will run on the 11th of April and will mirror the highly interactive peer-to-peer format of Copperberg’s UK focused field service event The Field Service Summit.

For more information on this event visit and last minute for registration opportunities visit: www.sparepartssummit.co.uk

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Will self-service for customers be the answer to the dwindling number of available field service technicians? Prudence Kolong, Editorial Director, Copperberg, joins the ranks of Field Service News associate columnists and in her first feature tackles this important topic.

Join Copperberg and Field Service News in Warwick, UK for the Field Service Summit in April and in Amsterdam, Netherlands in May for the Field Service Forum.

A recent survey by the Service Council showed that 70% of global manufacturing companies with small to large service operations are increasingly concerned with the lack of prospects to replace their retiring workforce.

However, less than half have implemented human capital management strategies capable of addressing talent shortage and competence development. It does not help either that scores of new STEM graduates and millennials, who in a perfect world should be lining up to join the ranks of highly skilled service teams within seemingly economically stable firms, see manufacturing jobs as old fashioned and dated and therefore not appealing.

On the technology front, deep shifts in customer demands drive innovation at a riveting speed. Many service organisations now look into technology as a potential avenue to circumvent the lack of prospects to renew their existing human resources.

On the technology front, deep shifts in customer demands drive innovation at a riveting speed. Since Industrial IoT and digitalisation have stopped being buzzwords meant for technologists, they have quietly slipped into the day-to-day dealings of service directors. The future landscape of field service operations for traditional or advanced manufacturing products will integrate a wide range of technological advancements.

The use of robots, artificial intelligence or automated supports on the production line is not new. However, their utilisation to enhance service lifecycle performance constitutes a new set of challenges for which very few are equipped.

Market leaders are now prototyping innovative solutions, with pilot projects, to engage clients and benefit from value-added technologies ranging from Industrial artificial intelligence, automation, machine learning, robotics processes and big data.

An abundance of opportunities opens with IoT, including hyper-personalised data mining solutions that enable targeted customer response with mission-critical predictive maintenance, optimised time management and strategic deployment of multi-skilled fleets.

The question that remains open is how can an industry slated to generate up to 4,45 billion dollars by 2020, thrive without sufficient manpower? Can it rely solely on progress in technology?To ensure that the right people maintain the effectiveness of their enhanced service ecosystems, smart service directors engage in constant skillset assessment, retraining, reallocation and reassignment. However, the question that remains open is how can an industry slated to generate up to 4,45 billion dollars by 2020, thrive without sufficient manpower? Can it rely solely on progress in technology?

The race for market share has service directors drastically redefining their KPIs, readjusting their resource strategies and the means to achieve them.

Furthermore, a new trend is sweeping the industry: crowdsourced field service. In this instance, the very concept of field service management is revolutionised. Fleet ownership, task scheduling, work order management and SLA’s compliance are no longer the sole prerogative of the product manufacturer and its service department.

In layman terms, the “Uber” business model has come and conquered the field service arena; now anyone can order and/or deliver turnkey maintenance operations and end-to-end field service.  At the onset, uberized field service seems like a palliative solution to workforce shortage, a momentary placebo that may serve its short-term purpose. So how about a realistic solution that identifies the root cause, and just like preventative maintenance addresses issues before they occur.

Gartner predicts that within the coming 5 years, 10% of emergency field service work will be managed by artificial intelligence, implying less use or need of manpower on the horizons.  Nonetheless, service organisations need to invest in out of the box approaches to talent acquisition with hybrid skillsets and become more proactive in handling their single most important asset: people.

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Who are the most influential people in the global field service sector that you need to pay attention to in 2017?

The Field Service News #FSN20 is our list of the individuals we believe will be key influencers in our industry across the next twelve months. Those included in the list have been selected by our own panel of industry insiders, who were given the simple criteria of identifying people who will have a significant impact on field service thinking.

However, more than just an annual list of 20 individuals the #FSN20 has grown since it’s launch to become a true celebration of excellence and innovation within our industry.

There are some familiar names and some new faces on this years list and as always we don’t expect everyone to agree with our selection - at it’s heart the #FSN20 was conceived as a tool to get everyone in our industry thinking about who it is that they have come across in the global field service sector that has made them think, who has made them question the accepted paradigms, who has inspired them to do just one little thing more in their own day to day role.

The #FSN20 is not just about the list our panel has put together. It is about fostering discussion that celebrates the unsung heroes of the field service sector. So look out for the online version of this list as well to take part in the debate.

But for now, ladies and gentleman and without further a do, in no particular order, we are pleased to introduce the #FSN20 of 2017...

Mark Brewer, Global Industry Director - Service Management

Brewer is a new entry to the #FSN20 having recently moved to IFS from PTC.

The message from the IFS hierarchy was loud and clear when they held their last World Conference in Gothenburg towards the end of last year. Field Service was a key priority moving forward and their new owners EQT had every intention of pushing the Swedish company to keep doing what has made them a well respected brand within manufacturing and field service management circles - but do it bigger, better and to get to there faster.

Having taken the reigns of the service management division globally Brewer is set to figure prominently in the industry across the next twelve months.

 

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Professor Tim Baines, Group Director of the Aston Centre for Servitization Research and Practice

Baines retains his place on this years list and is perhaps he one person that has appeared multiple times on the list whose entry becomes even more deserved each year.

Baines has been at the centre of the servitization movement for as long as anyone and although many of his peers such as Neely and Lightfoot should share equal status for being the Godfathers of Servitization, it is fair to say that Baines’ work as a leading proponent of the servitization movement is as unparalleled as it is inexhaustible. The Aston Spring Servitization Conference which is the show-piece of the Aston Centre for Research and Practice continues to grow in terms of both audience and importance each year and it’s location in Lucerne, Switzerland this year is a testament to it’s growing status on the international industrial map. Whilst Baines’ would humbly point to the great team he has working with him at Aston, his role in the global shift towards servitization simply cannot be overlooked.

 

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Bill Pollock, President and Principal Consultant, Strategies for GrowthSM

Another that has been ever present on the #FSN20 since it’s inception and someone who is likely to remain on the list until the day comes where he retires, which given Pollock’s passion for the industry and seemingly eternal youth may won’t be any time soon!

Pollock is not only still a key commentator and analyst within our sector whose papers and features are not only widely read but also hugely respected, but he has been a mentor for a number of key figures within the global field service industry, including a number of other #FSN20 members, and also Field Service News’ own highly respected Editor-in-Chief, Kris Oldland.

However, Pollock’s inclusion on the #FSN20 isn’t just based on his past merits, his organisation Strategies for GrowthSM continues to provide some of the most detailed research and insightful analysis for the field service sector that is essential reading for any field service executives that wish to stay in touch with what is driving our industry forward.

 

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Thomas Igou, Editorial Director, Copperberg

Igou has been integral to Copperberg’s continued success and growth in the European field service conference circuit, In fact with five industry focussed events now running across the continent that should be of interest to senior field service and aftermarket executives, Copperberg are firmly established central pillar within the European field service community, and Igou sits proudly at the heart of that. In his role as Editorial Director, Igou is responsible for making sure the key topics in the industry are raised and the leading thinkers within our space are given a voice.

A key influencer within our industry.

 

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Mark Holleran, COO, Xplore Technologies

Under Holleran’s leadership Xplore Technologies acquired Motion Computing and became the 2nd largest manufacturer of rugged tablets in the world.

Holleran is a man who not only truly understands the different sectors his clients operate in but also who truly appreciates the importance of understanding his customers’ work-flows and therefore their technological needs.

A perfect case in point being the inclusion of a HDMI in on their XSLATE D10 rugged tablet, which makes it a perfect device for Telco and Pay TV engineers needing to test signals - which is exactly why it is there.

We don’t expect anything other than rugged tablets to be coming out of Xplore, but we do expect them to keep delivering best-in-class products in this form factor. As Holleran says “that’s what we do and we are the worlds best at it.

 

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Dr John Erkoyuncu, Through-life Engineering Services Institute, Cranfield University

Erkoyuncu takes over from Professor Howard Lightfoot as a representative of Cranfield University in the #FSN20 this year, however it isn’t just a straight like for like swap. Whilst the two worked together at the Through Life Services Institute, Erkoyuncu’s place on this year list is based primarily around the work he is doing in both industrial maintenance simulation and also augmented reality, and as such we believe he will be a key commentator and influencer on our sector in the years to come.

 

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Jonathan Massoud, Divisional Director & Market Analyst Field Service, WBR

Massoud’s role as Divisional Director at WBR puts him in control of a number of the industry’s key events including Field Service USA which is the jewel in the crown as the key point in the USA field service calender.

In addition to Field Service USA, WBR also run a number of important industry focussed events including Field Service Medical and Field Service Europe and in his role as Divisional Director Massoud is directly involved with each of the events and responsible for delivering industry leading content to keep field service professionals up to date with the key trends with in the industry. Massoud is also responsible for overseeing WBR’s research and a respected analyst within the sector

 

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Sumair Dutta, Customer Satisfaction Officer, The Service Council

Chief Customer Officer for The Service Council™ Dutta is responsible for new member acquisition, member engagement, community expansion, as well as the development and expansion of TSC’s Smarter Services oriented research agenda and portfolio.

He is also heavily involved in The Service Council’s ability to provide service executives the ability to benchmark their operations and also provide guided insight to improve service organisation performance through dedicated research programs. Dutta also plays a key role in building out TSC’s community platform focused on becoming the single source of information and networking for service executives globally and is a prolific author on the matter of field service.

 

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Click here to see page two of the 2017 #FSN20

 

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