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Field Service News in partnership with RealWear, and OverIT have worked together to produce a detailed 22 page Essential Guide to Remote Service.

As part of the research into this Essential Guide, Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief, Field Service News spoke with Alessandro Borzacchi, Senior Project Manager, Rail Cargo Group about their recent implementation of head-mounted computers and augmented reality-based remote service solution as part of our ongoing series of interview in the Field Service News Digital Symposium.

In this excerpt from that exclusive interview Borzacchi explains how the benefits they have already seen having implemented a sophisticated remote service solution that leverages Augmented Reality and Wearable computers has only driven them to look even further in terms of innovation and development.

 

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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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Further Reading:

This interview was undertaken as part of our development of our recently published Essential Guide to Remote Service. This guide offers insight into the important considerations field service companies need to be aware of when selecting remote service solutions suitable for their needs.

The guide looks at both the hardware and software considerations as well as containing a case study from Rail Cargo Group that looks at how they implemented such a solution which has revolutionised their industry.

This essential guide is currently available on our free-forever FSN Standard subscription tier for a limited time as well as being available to our FSN Premium subscribers and our FSN Elite members. If you are on any of these subscription/membership tiers you can access this guide by clicking the button below.

If you are not yet a subscriber, the button will take you to a dedicated registration page for FSN Standard that will give you instant access to this guide as well as access to the other Premium Resources currently available on this tier. 

 

 

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Data usage note: By accessing this content you consent to the contact details submitted when you registered as a subscriber to fieldservicenews.com to be shared with the listed sponsor of this premium content, OverIT and Realwear who may contact you for legitimate business reasons to discuss the content of this report.  

Field Service News in Partnership with ServicePower. have produced an exclusive documentary that explores the role of the blended workforce model in field service operations, the challenges in making it work, the significant benefits it can produce and whether the pandemic and the capacity crisis we face as we turn towards recovery will be a further driver for its wider adoption.

In this excerpt from that documentary, we hear from a collection of experts about how they manage day-to-day operations with the blended workforce model across their field service operations.

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Want to know more?

Field Service News subscribers can access the documentary "The Blended Workforce and the New Normal"  by clicking the button 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 and get instant access to the documentary and other selected resources available on our free forever, FSN Standard subscription tier.

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If you hold either a FSN Premium or FSN Elite subscription you can find the full interviews recorded for the documentary in our Digital Symposium section of the website which is available at www.fieldservicenews.com/digital-symposium

 

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Data usage note: By accessing the documentary you consent to the contact details submitted when you registered as a subscriber to fieldservicenews.com to be shared with the listed sponsor of this premium content, ServicePower who may contact you for legitimate business reasons to discuss the content of this report.  

Field Service News in partnership with RealWear, and OverIT have worked together to produce a detailed 22 page Essential Guide to Remote Service. In this final feature in a series of excerpts from that guide we now turn to a case study from RailCargo Italia who revolutionised their workflow by implementing a sophisticated remote service solution...  

In this final feature of the series, we will look at how Rail Cargo Group have not only improved their engineers workflow by adopting a remote services solution, but how they have revolutionised an entire industry...

Alessandro Borzacchi is the Innovation and Continuous Improvement Manager for Rail Cargo Group, the Italian subsidiary of the second biggest railway undertaking company in Europe.

Having been the senior project manager on the implementation of an augmented reality (AR) based remote service solution, one of the first to bring AR to the field within his sector, he has plenty of key insight into the benefits of introducing such technologies into a field service workflow as well as the pitfalls to avoid during such an implementation.

Speaking in an exclusive interview within the Field Service News Digital Symposium, Borzacchi outlined the project in great detail. Here we bring together the key insights from that interview:

 

The Challenge:

The rail transportation sector is still largely paper based with wagon inspectors completing job sheets manually. It is also a potentially dangerous area to work in as there are constantly moving rail wagons within the environment.

Additionally, as assets are moving locations, if there are challenging issues, often the nearest subject matter expert can be hundreds of kilometres away.

 

The Solution:

Rail Cargo deployed the RealWear HMT-1 running OverIT’s SPACE1 AR application to drive to digitize their workflow, improve the health and safety of their Wagon Inspectors by allowing them to work hands free, and introduce the ability to have remote experts assist on-site inspectors with any critical issues.

 

The Results:

• Improved health and safety for Wagon Inspectors
• Wagon Inspectors are able to immediately receive assistance of an expert to help resolve emergency situations
• Establishment of a knowledge-base by utilising remote assistance calls
• Identification and tracking of key metrics for better business improvement

Industrial Innovation:

“Immediately after working on this project, we started to see the potential of the solution,” explains Borzacchi. “We started to think about connecting all the carriers around Europe, around this solution and the data it can provide.

“Our vision is to be able to provide a damage report, produced in the field, in almost real time, and these being immediately shared among all the stakeholders across Europe. In our industry, this type of clear visibility would be a real game changer,” Borzacchi reflects.

 

Safety First:

As with so many digital transformation projects, the clear benefit of providing a safer workflow for their team in the field was one of the key drivers at the outset of the project.

“With regards to the safety of our field team, the ability to work hands-free in the field is priceless,” Borzacchi explains.

“A Wagon Inspector has to often work between two trains, has to work in an environment where trains that are moving, they have to go below the rail car, to do the maintenance. These are tasks when you need both hands, these are tasks where you need gloves. It is impossible to check a rail car, then take off gloves to fill a out the paperwork, it is just so impractical. So as a driver for us improving safety was critical, and implementing the SPACE1 solution, was a huge game changer regarding these issues.”

 

Remote Support:

The remote expert aspect of the solution Rail Cargo implemented was another key benefit that Borzacchi enthusiastically spoke about during the interview.

“Another driver for the adoption was the ability to assist a technical inspector by remote experts,” he explains.

“There are many occasions where the ability to bring in a remote expert to assist the Wagon Inspector in real-time is needed, for example, in emergency situations.

“For the Wagon Inspector, being able to immediately have the assistance of an expert that is sitting hundreds of kilometres away and to get his feedback and get his advice on a solution can make a massive difference in how they can perform their job best.

“In the railway industry this is massively important, because there are some times where you need to find a solution within minutes and you can’t wait for someone coming from 200 kilometres Remote assistance is going to be solution that can really overcome this challenge.”

 

Knowledge Base:

Borzacchi also outlined how the technology allows for them to begin building out a knowledge library that can play an essential part in both competence management and the training of new recruits, reducing the time it takes to get them working in an active and productive role in the field that brings value to the organization.

“Since we implemented the solution we have realized that we can now produce a lot of additional educational materials and a lot of operational productivity materials as well,” Borzacchi comments.

“We are able to create recordings of every call where a remote expert can help a Wagon Inspector in the field, for example. Also, we have created a lot of check-lists, captured many images.

“A lot of this can be used in our training and also in our competence management.”

 

Improved Performance Tracking:

One of the biggest beneficial outcomes of implementing the solution for RailCargo Italia was that they are now placed to introduce performance tracking metrics to be able to move along a path of continuous improvement.

“Before we implemented this solution, these were unstructured business processes because they were completely untracked,” Borzacchi explains.

“There were no metrics available so we couldn’t track anything. Now we can really start monitoring performance. We can now start tracking these metrics, and we can begin to drive value from these business operations.

“With regards to Augmented Reality, it is a very exciting technology. Yes, there is a lot of hype around such tools at the moment, but the benefits we’ve seen are very much real.

“Another thing I would add is that is going to help our company to attract new people into our workforce, it will add an attraction to this job position because the new generation will see our inspectors working with smart glasses in the field . This could really generate more interest about these positions,” he adds.

 

Change Management:

It goes without saying that there will be lessons learnt along the way when working with such an innovative project. What were some of the pitfalls that Borzacchi advises other companies following in their footsteps to avoid?

“There’s a huge process involving the end-users that are that are used to working in a more ‘traditional’ way. You need to be able to involve them in the development. So while you have to high-level plan of the solution, you still have to engage with the end-users. You have to convince them that it is going to be a win-win solution.

“You have to show them that this new way of working is going to be better.

“Better, for their safety, better for their productivity, and also that it will be better for their colleagues in the back office. There is no point in developing a solution, to go through that whole process and then have the end-users not happy about what you have created.

“It has to be a parallel development which involves gathering a lot of feedback from the end users. Don’t make the error of keeping them out of the discussion until the roll out. Don’t present them with the solutions without them having never seen it. Our approach was let’s develop it together,” Borzacchi adds.

“Another pitfall to avoid is to implement everything in the same time,” he continues.

“Start small, start with basic functionalities and start with a very simple user interface - then when you have feedback, when you have results, start adding other functionalities one at a time.”

 

Implementation Advice:

Finally, what learnings can Borzacchi take away from the piloting and implementation process that could help others trying to introduce such a solution?

Borzacchi outlines a process that is based around small, and rapidly undertaken iterations. The beginning of the implementation process for RailCargo was to identify a vital member of the field team who was positioned to work with the project management group and provide direct insight from the perspective of the field.

“We started with a technical instructor,” explains Borzacchi.

“This was someone that had a tremendous amount of knowledge of the role and was a specialist in their job. However, they were also someone that was quite technology aware, so was someone who could see the benefits early on of what we were trying to achieve.

“We developed the first solution with him, taking on board his feedback while also getting marginal feedbacks from other users. In the second phase, we selected a pool of train inspectors, but also always keeping in mind about the technology awareness because it is going to be a little bit more challenging with people who are less technology aware.

“At this point, the aim to test the potential and to develop the first minimum viable product. We wanted to have a pool of inspectors who were able to give us feedback in a very quick manner,” he adds.

To find out more you can watch the full interview in the Field Service News Digital Symposium where Borzacchi expands on that future roadmap, while also further outlining the pitfalls to avoid and gives his advice for service organizations who may also wish to follow Rail Cargo down this innovative path towards the future.

 

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Further Reading:

This interview was undertaken as part of our development of our recently published Essential Guide to Remote Service. This guide offers insight into the important considerations field service companies need to be aware of when selecting remote service solutions suitable for their needs.

The guide looks at both the hardware and software considerations as well as containing a case study from Rail Cargo Group that looks at how they implemented such a solution which has revolutionised their industry.

This essential guide is currently available on our free-forever FSN Standard subscription tier for a limited time as well as being available to our FSN Premium subscribers and our FSN Elite members. If you are on any of these subscription/membership tiers you can access this guide by clicking the button below.

If you are not yet a subscriber, the button will take you to a dedicated registration page for FSN Standard that will give you instant access to this guide as well as access to the other Premium Resources currently available on this tier. 

 

 

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Data usage note: By accessing this content you consent to the contact details submitted when you registered as a subscriber to fieldservicenews.com to be shared with the listed sponsor of this premium content, OverIT and Realwear who may contact you for legitimate business reasons to discuss the content of this report.  

In the latest of our excerpts from a new and exclusive Field Service News Essential Guide published in partnership with ServicePower we take a look at day-to-day operations for field service organisations that have embraced a blended workforce model. 

So far in this series, we’ve seen that there are numerous benefits to the blended workforce approach. However, what does the blended workforce look like in day to day operations? How have those companies that have embraced this concept harness the external elements of the blended workforce model?

While there are many benefits to the blended workforce model, as the old adage goes, if it was easy, everybody would be doing it. There is undoubtedly a great deal of complexity involved in the application of multiple third-party elements being introduced into a field workforce.

As Ericsson’s Gordon explains, “When you enter into partnerships with the blended workforce, the complexity is in how you utilize that third party workforce in your workforce management tool.”

“At Ericsson, the flow we use internally is the same across all our external suppliers. We do this by bringing them into our workforce management tool and we can then either dispatch work directly to an engineer in the suppliers’ organization, or we can transfer that ticket to our suppliers service desk for them to dispatch it to their best-placed engineer.

“Where the complexity exists is in ensuring an end-to-end process of work order creation, execution, and closure. The critical element is to maintain one single workflow rather than having three or four different approaches that depend on which supplier we’re using.

“When we tender for a third-party worker, one of the key aspects for us is their tools and processes. We go through this with all suppliers at the onset of the relationship and we also offer them help them and support where needed..”

At Electrolux, multiple factors are considered in terms of dispatching across their blended-workforce. However, the end goal is always to resolve the customer problem as effectively a possible.

“We just look at the whole picture as one skill level,” explains Steve Zannos, Senior Director Service Delivery, Electrolux. 

“We have technicians across the country, whether they’re independent technicians or factory service technicians and our general perspective is we have a job to do, there’s a consumer with an appliance that’s not working correctly, and we need to dispatch a technician to resolve that.”

However, Electrolux do not just opt for the closest technician available, they have a sophisticated understanding of how each of their third-party partners is performing. They then leverage this data effectively to identify who can do the job fastest but will also be most likely to delight the customer.

“We make our selections based on a few criteria, including availability and customer service record,” explains Zannos. “We track a lot information, and we do rank, rack and stack are our service providers based on their abilities and their previous history in terms of customer service.”

“We also consider whether the service provider takes two or more visits to make a repair. We look at whether they use multiple parts. Do they do the correct triage and know what part they need or do they take a selection of parts because they’re not sure and so are shot-gunning it a little bit?

“However, while we take all these factors into account, at the end of the day, we always dispatch based on the customer’s needs. Does the customer need a technician ASAP, or do they need someone next Tuesday, because that’s when they are off work and available?

 

"The biggest element is ensuring it is a seamless delivery of service. You do not want two standards of delivery. It’s got to be the same standards across the board..."

 

For Ideal Boilers, delivering a seamless customer experience across the blended workforce relies on two key factors, planning and partnership.

“It is all about planning,” explains Chris Jessop, Customer Service Director, Ideal Boilers, “don’t settle for second best with the partners that you’re dealing with, ensure you select the right partners and ensure you build good relationships with them.

“If you do so and you are clear on the model that you’re looking to deliver, you will be successful. If you don’t, then you will fail. The biggest element is ensuring it is a seamless delivery of service. You do not want two standards of delivery. It’s got to be the same standards across the board. Again, that to me is the critical element for us that allows us to be successful.”

Of course, achieving such consistency across a network of third-party partners can be daunting and complex task. As is often the case, the key to solving complex problems is often based around keeping processes simple, communications clear and ideas concise.

This is why, for Adam Gordon, Head of Network Planning and Operations, Ericsson, their approach of clearly defining processes is critical.

“When people hear processes, they often think about red tape,” he explains. However, at Ericsson, we utilize process to create a level of quality that can be repeatable. If you follow the process, you’re going to maintain the quality.

“You can’t write a process if there are hundreds of ways to do something. If there is one primary way to do 95% of the work in a single process that is then repeatable. In general, if you can repeat the process over and over, you will maintain that quality.

“This will give you a much better ability to increase the quality because you have to only improve one process, not fifty.”

The key take aways here are that the blended workforce model is reliant on strong partnerships where both parties put serving the customer at the top of tree in terms of priorities. Consistency across the entire partner network is also critical and while it can be a complex operation, it is achievable through simple and refined processes alongside clear communications.

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Want to know more?

Field Service News subscribers can access the Essential Guide to the Blended Workforce instantly by clicking the button 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 and get instant access to the documentary and other selected resources available on our free forever, FSN Standard subscription tier.

 

 

 

 

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If you hold either a FSN Premium or FSN Elite subscription you can find the full interviews of those service leaders featured in this guide in our Digital Symposium section of the website which is available @ www.fieldservicenews.com/digital-symposium

 

 

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Data usage note: By accessing this Essential Guide you consent to the contact details submitted when you registered as a subscriber to fieldservicenews.com to be shared with the listed sponsor of this premium content, ServicePower who may contact you for legitimate business reasons to discuss the content of this report.  

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Further Reading:

• Read more about managing the mobile workforce @ https://www.fieldservicenews.com/blog/tag/managing-the-mobile-workforce
• Read more about the blended workforce @ https://www.fieldservicenews.com/hs-search-results?term=blended+workforce
• Read more about the impact of the pandemic on the field service sector @ https://www.fieldservicenews.com/en-gb/covid-19
• Discover this months selection of available resources on our FSN Standard subscription tier @ https://www.fieldservicenews.com/fsn-standard-resources
• Find out more about the solutions ServicePower offer @ www.servicepower.com/

Field Service News in partnership with RealWear, and OverIT have worked together to produce a detailed 22 page Essential Guide to Remote Service.

As part of the research into this Essential Guide, Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief, Field Service News spoke with Alessandro Borzacchi, Senior Project Manager, Rail Cargo Group about their recent implementation of head-mounted computers and augmented reality-based remote service solution as part of our ongoing series of interview in the Field Service News Digital Symposium.

In this segment of the interview Borzacchi discusses in detail how the RailCargo Italia team approached rolling out a comprehensive software and hardware solution to empower their field workers with a remote service system.

 

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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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Further Reading:

This interview was undertaken as part of our development of our recently published Essential Guide to Remote Service. This guide offers insight into the important considerations field service companies need to be aware of when selecting remote service solutions suitable for their needs.

The guide looks at both the hardware and software considerations as well as containing a case study from Rail Cargo Group that looks at how they implemented such a solution which has revolutionised their industry.

This essential guide is currently available on our free-forever FSN Standard subscription tier for a limited time as well as being available to our FSN Premium subscribers and our FSN Elite members. If you are on any of these subscription/membership tiers you can access this guide by clicking the button below.

If you are not yet a subscriber, the button will take you to a dedicated registration page for FSN Standard that will give you instant access to this guide as well as access to the other Premium Resources currently available on this tier. 

 

 

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Data usage note: By accessing this content you consent to the contact details submitted when you registered as a subscriber to fieldservicenews.com to be shared with the listed sponsor of this premium content, OverIT and Realwear who may contact you for legitimate business reasons to discuss the content of this report.  

As part of a series of interviews for an exclusive Field Service News Documentary on the Blended Workforce in the Field Service sector, produced in partnership with ServicePower Kris Oldland, Editor in Chief spoke with Adam Gordon, Head of Network Planning & Optimisation, Ericcson

In this opening excerpt from a series of segments from that interview, Gordon discusses if there is any one over-riding driver for Ericcson when it comes to why they have harnessed the blended workforce model.

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Want to know more?

Field Service News subscribers can access the documentary "The Blended Workforce and the New Normal"  by clicking the button 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 and get instant access to the documentary and other selected resources available on our free forever, FSN Standard subscription tier.

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If you hold either a FSN Premium or FSN Elite subscription you can find the full interview with Gordon in our Digital Symposium section of the website which is available at www.fieldservicenews.com/digital-symposium

 

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Data usage note: By accessing this content you consent to the contact details submitted when you registered as a subscriber to fieldservicenews.com to be shared with the listed sponsor of this premium content, ServicePower who may contact you for legitimate business reasons to discuss the content of this report.  

Field Service News in partnership with RealWear, and OverIT have worked together to produce a detailed 22 page Essential Guide to Remote Service. In this features in a series of excerpts from that guide we now turn to look at some of the important considerations that should be made when selecting software for a remote service solution... 

As with hardware, there are many different software solutions available that can help field service organisations accomplish effective remote-service capabilities. With a number of options to choose here are some of the key considerations to find the solution that fits your needs best...

 

Bandwidth Reliance:

When we talk about remote service delivery, perhaps one of the most important aspects to factor into your thinking regarding the software solution you select is not necessarily the remote expert’s location, but instead the remoteness of the on-site engineer’s location. The ‘remote-expert’ will almost certainly be working from an urban location, with a strong wifi connection and ample bandwidth for them to perform their role. They will be in an environment that is controllable and set up for the task.

We cannot assume the same for the engineer working in the field.

Of course, depending on the vertical sector, this may be a lesser or greater problem. For example, a field tech working in the print/copy sector, whose work is going to be entirely conducted in an office-based environment, will have fewer troubles with connectivity than an engineer in the mining and aggregates sector whose primary workplace will be very remote and one where they could likely face issues around poor connectivity.

Even in an urban environment, connectivity dead spots can exist, so it is important to consider how a remote service solution handles low bandwidth situations. Some solutions, such as SPACE1 have specifically designed low-bandwidth modes for this exact reason. It is essential to understand the capabilities of the solution when operating within such modes and how this may affect the solution’s use.

For example, the SPACE1 solution reduces frame rates in a video call without affecting the quality of images, which allows for minimal disruption to the workflow even in low bandwidth scenarios. Understanding how any remote service solution is capable of handling worst-case scenario environments with regards to bandwidth is one of the most critical considerations when exploring whether a solution is suitable for your specific use case.

 

Ease of integration into existing systems and workflows

When we are trying to improve the workflow and improve efficiency in processes by introducing remote service technology, it is prudent to understand how the introduction of this technology will sit within the field service engineers current day-to-day and job-to-job workflow.

Some solutions have native integration with dedicated field service management solutions (FSM). For example, SPACE1 is the remote service and augmented reality capability developed by OverIT, and the integration of it is native with OverIT’s FSM solution, and near seamless with other FSM solutions.

Of course, the reality is that most field service companies will already have a current FSM in place and be looking for a solution that can integrate into that.

In today’s modern world of APIs, such compatibility is likely not to prove an issue, although the integration levels may vary.

In an ideal world, the engineer’s optimum flow is for him not to have to leave an FSM app and enter a second remote-service app but instead for the two to work seamlessly as part of a holistic workflow that allows the engineer to move effortlessly from work order to remote guidance and back to job completion.

 

Is the solution future proofed?

Understanding how any given remote service tool will work within your engineers’ existing workflow and how it can integrate into your existing FSM systems is an important consideration when identifying the right remote service solution for your organisation.

While the very concept of remote service and AR in one sense feels like something from the future, the truth is that we are currently living throughout an exceptional period of innovation and technological advancement.

Understanding how such an evolving technological period will shape the future of how we work is therefore absolutely critical when selecting any new software that will form the backbone of the mission-critical role that is field service operations.

This is particularly true of remote service solutions, which, as we have explored in the opening segment of this paper are set to be a fundamental pillar of service delivery as we move forwards into a post-pandemic world.

 

"When it comes to AI, we are already seeing relatively sophisticated examples of this technology being embedded within AR systems..."

 

AR is undoubtedly going to be one of the technologies that reshape the very way we think about field service. However, of equal importance will be the Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) The future of the field service engineer’s workflow may not only involve an AR interface that allows him to get real-time feedback from a remote expert, but, as we begin to expand further what is possible with IoT, the engineer will likely be able to see an overlay of the core metrics coming from an asset in real-time in the same AR display. This could have a significant impact on improving onsite triage of problems, for example.

When it comes to AI, we are already seeing relatively sophisticated examples of this technology being embedded within AR systems.

SPACE1, for example, already has native AI built within it that adds a wealth of depth to the functionality of the tool from parts identification through to tagging of relevant elements within an image or video feed.

This latter feature can help the field service engineer with triage when on-site and surface relevant support materials within a knowledge base to help them resolve the issue and appropriately categorise any recordings where remote guidance is activated to add to the knowledge base continuously.

 

Will the solution work across multiple regions?

Again, referencing one of the most key benefits of remote service solutions we outlined in this guide’s opening segment, i.e. geographical expansion, another area to factor in when deciding which solution is a fit for your business is to assess whether it is capable of being deployed in multiple languages.

For an engineer working on-site receiving directions on how to resolve the issue at hand, the very fact that an AR solution is in place can dramatically improve the communication process.

However, if the engineer is required to control a head-mounted device via voice commands, having the ability to do so in a native language will undoubtedly make adoption rates smoother and result in fewer user errors.

Therefore, while it may not be a deal-breaker, having a solution that can work in multiple languages is undoubtedly a big tick in the box for any solution provider who can offer such functionality if your organisation has an international footprint.

 

What is the vendor’s track record?

Finally, it is important to look at any solutions providers’ track record working with other companies on similar projects to that which you are planning.

This is important in two ways and it is important to remember that introducing a remote service solution isn’t merely digitalising new processes. It is introducing an entirely new way of working.

Suppose a solution provider has experience working with other field service organisations on similar projects. In that case, they will first be able to help provide you with the key learnings from their own experiences in implementing other projects with similar clients.

This can be invaluable as the transition to incorporating a remote service element within your service delivery portfolio will involve much strategic thinking as you redefine many processes that have been fundamental to your field service operations before this implementation.

Having an experienced head in the conversation who has been through this process before and who can tell you what has worked and what are the pitfalls to avoid, could be the difference between a smooth and effective transition that sees a quick return on investment or one that takes many wrong turns and delays the improvements in productivity and efficiency that adopting a remote service solution promises.

Secondly, because there is so much strategic thinking required to adopt remote-service delivery within your existing workflow, many of the refinements needed to achieve optimal results will come from adopting a co-creation approach. In such a close working relationship, again a partner who has experience working in such a manner and a track record of achieving success in similar projects with other clients is an essential ingredient in the mix to look for when selecting the solution right for you.

 

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In the next article in this series we will look at three more benefits of remote service; empowering the blended workforce, embracing the tools for outcome-based services and differentiating your service against that of your competition...

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Further Reading:

This interview was undertaken as part of our development of our recently published Essential Guide to Remote Service. This guide offers insight into the important considerations field service companies need to be aware of when selecting remote service solutions suitable for their needs.

The guide looks at both the hardware and software considerations as well as containing a case study from Rail Cargo Group that looks at how they implemented such a solution which has revolutionised their industry.

This essential guide is currently available on our free-forever FSN Standard subscription tier for a limited time as well as being available to our FSN Premium subscribers and our FSN Elite members. If you are on any of these subscription/membership tiers you can access this guide by clicking the button below.

If you are not yet a subscriber, the button will take you to a dedicated registration page for FSN Standard that will give you instant access to this guide as well as access to the other Premium Resources currently available on this tier. 

 

 

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