Laryssa Alexander, President of ECI's Field and IT Service Division explores how field service should be automating for success.
ARCHIVE FOR THE ‘future-of-field-service-2’ CATEGORY
Aug 29, 2019 • Features • future of field service • Service Automation
Laryssa Alexander, President of ECI's Field and IT Service Division explores how field service should be automating for success.
Managing customer relationships is critical to driving growth and securing repeat business for field service organisations. CFOs are making critical financial and risk management decisions based on data secured through manual processes which result in inaccurate reporting. This lack of information or equipment knowledge can lead to poor decision-making and can often result in selling contracts that are either over-priced in order to cover unknown costs resulting in a less than favourable position against competition; or under-priced which may help you win the business but is not profitable nor sustainable.
The Value of Data
Do you know how much data your business has at its fingertips? IDC (International Data Corporation) predicts that the collective sum of the world’s data will grow from 33 zettabytes (ZB) this year to a 174 ZB by 2025, with a compound annual growth rate of 61 percent. Amassing a huge amount of data is worthless if you don’t know what to do with it. A complete business management solution enables you to have more insight to make smarter, data-driven decisions. In fact, that is exactly how an enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution is defined. In reality, it is so much more than that; it’s a solution that can dramatically simplify and streamline your operations so you can focus on your core business activities.
Automating Contract Management
Service contracts are at the core of your business and right now, without a complete business management solution you may be using many different solutions, doing everything manually or some combination of the two. This is where automating contact management through an ERP can come in. We have identified 4 steps to improve contract management that can help drive efficiency and profitability:
1. Standardise your contract process
The solution is to eliminate the paper trail and consolidate systems into a single ERP. This will help you prevent bottlenecks by creating standard contracts with automated approvals, renewals, and billing that can be deployed to any number of customers. Data that is entered once flows through the system and is dispersed to the various teams and departments for accuracy, optimised workflow, and increased productivity. Standardising the contract management process will result in 4 major benefits: stronger contracts, compliance and control, fast approvals and valuable business insight.
2. Provide a variety of service maintenance contract options
Once you have standardised your contract management process you can then easily allow for the inevitable variables that are unique to each customer and create more customised service contracts and options that ultimately are still profitable and fit within your desired business objectives. In most cases your customers will have complete service, support, and maintenance packages which you can easily monitor, manage, and maintain using automatic notifications and reporting. If, however they still want the option of hourly or per-service solutions you will be able to easily add them and let the system do the work so you can avoid hours of number crunching.
3. Continually monitor contract and performance
Having standardised service maintenance contracts in place doesn’t mean you can ‘sell it and forget it’ but having a robust business management solution will support every phase of the contract lifecycle from initial quoting to ongoing support and finally renewals. Ensure you enable continuous monitoring, generate regular profitability reporting and automate preventative maintenance calls at each of these stages. Additionally, at the equipment level within each service agreement you should be able to track serialised equipment on job sites, understand profitability by model or system and ensure your field technicians are fully optimising their time.
4. Be proactive with contract management
Proactive monitoring with flexible service contract arrangements allows you to protect your business from loss and address customers’ unforeseen needs and concerns as they arise. Automatically launch the renewal process with all the relevant contract performance data, accessible in one system which provides context for any negotiations or adjustments ensuring your team is prepared efficiently and effectively. This way the sales team can proactively re-engage with the customer, ward off potential competitive threats, and ideally increase customer satisfaction in the process.
Increased Visibility
Your teams don’t exist in silos, sales needs to know what service is doing and finance needs insight into both. The same is true for your business management solutions, if you’re running separate systems or working in multiple spreadsheets, you don’t have true insight in your operation. Having one integrated ERP solution means you can be confident in the data. At a glance, you will be able to know how your business is performing and will be able to make quick business decisions that will enable you to fight shrinking margins, beat your competition, and grow your business.
By collecting all data in one central place; increasing visibility and stardising the contract process with continual and automatic monitoring, field service organisations can ensure contracts are and remain profitable with limited manual intervention.
Laryssa Alexander, President of ECI's Field and IT Service Division
Aug 28, 2019 • Features • Augmented Reality • future of field service • OverIT
Francesco Benvenuto, OverIT gives us his expert insight on AR in field service...In the Era of Digital Transformation most businesses have begun to be acquainted with the tremendous potential of Augmented Reality (AR). As more enterprise-focused...
Francesco Benvenuto, OverIT gives us his expert insight on AR in field service...
In the Era of Digital Transformation most businesses have begun to be acquainted with the tremendous potential of Augmented Reality (AR). As more enterprise-focused case studies are emerging proving the effectiveness of such technology, today companies are increasingly implementing AR as a strategic part of their technology stack. Enterprises are deploying Augmented, Mixed and Virtual Reality across a variety of sectors, including maintenance, repair, manufacturing, field service, and training.
Whether converting paper instructions into digital AR workflows or quickly enabling a remote technician to get the expert support needed through an AR-enabled live collaboration call, an AR solution always delivers unprecedented levels of knowledge sharing. AR products lead to improved workforce efficiency and safety, as well as reduced errors and equipment downtime. But with so many possible use cases, how can field service organizations easily get started? Field Service Managers are looking for gaining competitive advantages by deploying AR, MR and VR solutions to improve key service metrics, such as first-time fix rates, average repair time, SLAs compliance, and equipment downtime.
Field Service technicians and engineers frequently need to consult technical documents and manuals. Allowing them to visualize pertinent information hands-free during all phases of the work order debriefing is a key element leading to a huge increase in productivity.
The availability of digital and work-related information allows the user to have immediate access to the documentation needed to solve the problem, both reducing the time required to access it and increasing first-time fix rate.
Thanks to the ability to display Digital Twins and the related animations, the user can efficiently disassemble any assets. Error minimization - The availability of work instructions guiding the user step by step drastically reduces errors.
For industrial operators performing complex tasks with both hands, the need for a hands-free experience is paramount. Visualizing workflows supporting them in the execution prevents accidents resulting from unnecessary and potentially dangerous activities.
By viewing assets in 3D and configuring animations, enterprises are able to organize training sessions for employees in a safe environment. SPACE1 – Extended Field Solution goes beyond the conventional Field Service concept improving the efficiency of technicians by:
• Positively impacting recruitment, training, procedure documentation, knowledge management, resource allocation, and much more;
• Efficiently capturing and transferring service knowledge;
• Building and enhancing field operators’ knowledge and skills.
Although AR has proven benefits as well as an undiscussed potential across a wide variety of industries, there are still challenges to be addressed.
Despite successful application, hardware volatility characterizes the AR market as new hardware emerges. Partnering with a provider who follows a hardware agnostic approach will empower your company to immediately deploy AR applications on the devices currently used.
In order to make the most of the full potential of AR, lots of digital content is required. The ideal product has easy-to-author workflows accessing data and content from existing integrated systems, as well as easy-tonavigate instructions allowing the video guidance and/or the remote mentor assistance. It captures the metadata related to the workflow execution, such as the technician who performed a step, the time when the step was performed and its duration, making such information accessible for Analytics and for measuring the execution compliance.
Choosing an integrated platform which is flexible and easy to connect with existing systems, such as ERP and IoT, will allow you to quickly get up and running with AR applications to start reaping the benefits such technology can offer. In order to successfully implement this game-changing technology, companies should rely on providers showing already valuable use cases and customers in their portfolio. Moreover, an experienced AR partner will always provide customers with features that are always in step with the latest technological innovations, safeguarding their investments.
AR, MR, VR are here to stay. Such technologies bring information to life and enable users in remote locations to feel like they are interacting with experts on the scene, thus helping field service companies to drive improved customer satisfaction and loyalty.
OverIT is the pioneer of enterprise-class Augmented Reality, revolutionizing the way field service companies work and collaborate thanks to an integrated AR product providing more effective and efficient knowledge-sharing to conduct complex remote tasks, employee training, product and equipment assembly, maintenance and repair, field and customer support, and much more. Leading enterprises like Cobo Group, Nice, ABS, to name just a few are employing SPACE1 to quickly scale their use of AR
In the Era of Digital Transformation most businesses have begun to be acquainted with the tremendous potential of Augmented Reality (AR). As more enterprise-focused case studies are emerging proving the effectiveness of such technology, today companies are increasingly implementing AR as a strategic part of their technology stack. Enterprises are deploying Augmented, Mixed and Virtual Reality across a variety of sectors, including maintenance, repair, manufacturing, field service, and training.
Whether converting paper instructions into digital AR workflows or quickly enabling a remote technician to get the expert support needed through an AR-enabled live collaboration call, an AR solution always delivers unprecedented levels of knowledge sharing. AR products lead to improved workforce efficiency and safety, as well as reduced errors and equipment downtime. But with so many possible use cases, how can field service organizations easily get started? Field Service Managers are looking for gaining competitive advantages by deploying AR, MR and VR solutions to improve key service metrics, such as first-time fix rates, average repair time, SLAs compliance, and equipment downtime.
BENEFITS
The value of AR in the workplace is not just claimed, but proven thanks to longitudinal data coming from actual deployments. At OverIT, thanks to the SPACE1 Extended Field Solution, we have seen our customers increase productivity by as much as 43% and decrease their error rates by as much as 30%. Benefits can be seen in terms of:Knowledge Transfer
Experienced technicians with decades of institutional knowledge are reaching retirement age and many industries are coping with a lack of younger employees.The support of a remote expert through Virtual Collaboration can therefore facilitate and accelerate the process of transferring knowledge and know-how.
Increase in efficiency and productivity
Field Service technicians and engineers frequently need to consult technical documents and manuals. Allowing them to visualize pertinent information hands-free during all phases of the work order debriefing is a key element leading to a huge increase in productivity.
Increase in first-time fix
The availability of digital and work-related information allows the user to have immediate access to the documentation needed to solve the problem, both reducing the time required to access it and increasing first-time fix rate.
Lower disassembly time
Thanks to the ability to display Digital Twins and the related animations, the user can efficiently disassemble any assets. Error minimization - The availability of work instructions guiding the user step by step drastically reduces errors.
Accident prevention
For industrial operators performing complex tasks with both hands, the need for a hands-free experience is paramount. Visualizing workflows supporting them in the execution prevents accidents resulting from unnecessary and potentially dangerous activities. By viewing assets in 3D and configuring animations, enterprises are able to organize training sessions for employees in a safe environment. SPACE1 – Extended Field Solution goes beyond the conventional Field Service concept improving the efficiency of technicians by:
• Positively impacting recruitment, training, procedure documentation, knowledge management, resource allocation, and much more;
• Efficiently capturing and transferring service knowledge;
• Building and enhancing field operators’ knowledge and skills.
CHALLENGES
Although AR has proven benefits as well as an undiscussed potential across a wide variety of industries, there are still challenges to be addressed.
Hardware
Despite successful application, hardware volatility characterizes the AR market as new hardware emerges. Partnering with a provider who follows a hardware agnostic approach will empower your company to immediately deploy AR applications on the devices currently used.
Digital Content
In order to make the most of the full potential of AR, lots of digital content is required. The ideal product has easy-to-author workflows accessing data and content from existing integrated systems, as well as easy-tonavigate instructions allowing the video guidance and/or the remote mentor assistance. It captures the metadata related to the workflow execution, such as the technician who performed a step, the time when the step was performed and its duration, making such information accessible for Analytics and for measuring the execution compliance.
Integration
Choosing an integrated platform which is flexible and easy to connect with existing systems, such as ERP and IoT, will allow you to quickly get up and running with AR applications to start reaping the benefits such technology can offer. In order to successfully implement this game-changing technology, companies should rely on providers showing already valuable use cases and customers in their portfolio. Moreover, an experienced AR partner will always provide customers with features that are always in step with the latest technological innovations, safeguarding their investments.
THINK ABOUT THE FUTURE
AR, MR, VR are here to stay. Such technologies bring information to life and enable users in remote locations to feel like they are interacting with experts on the scene, thus helping field service companies to drive improved customer satisfaction and loyalty.
OverIT is the pioneer of enterprise-class Augmented Reality, revolutionizing the way field service companies work and collaborate thanks to an integrated AR product providing more effective and efficient knowledge-sharing to conduct complex remote tasks, employee training, product and equipment assembly, maintenance and repair, field and customer support, and much more. Leading enterprises like Cobo Group, Nice, ABS, to name just a few are employing SPACE1 to quickly scale their use of AR
Aug 28, 2019 • News • future of field service • Cyber Security • Security • F-secure
F-Secure discovers security flaw with the potential to turn hundreds of thousands of load balancers into beachheads for cyber attacks.
F-Secure discovers security flaw with the potential to turn hundreds of thousands of load balancers into beachheads for cyber attacks.
Cyber security provider F-Secure is advising organizations using F5 Networks’ BIG-IP load balancer, which is popular amongst governments, banks, and other large corporations, to address security issues in some common configurations of the product. Adversaries can exploit these insecurely configured load balancers to penetrate networks and perform a wide variety of attacks against organizations, or individuals using web services managed by a compromised device.
The security issue is present in the Tcl programming language that BIG-IP’s iRules (the feature that BIG-IP uses to direct incoming web traffic) are written in. Certain coding practices allow attackers to inject arbitrary Tcl commands which could be executed in the security context of the target Tcl script.
Adversaries that successfully exploit such insecurely configured iRules can use the compromised BIG-IP device as a beachhead to launch further attacks, resulting in a potentially severe breach for an organization. They could also intercept and manipulate web traffic, leading to the exposure of sensitive information, including authentication credentials and application secrets, as well as allowing the users of an organization’s web services to be targeted and attacked.
In some cases, exploiting a vulnerable system can be as simple as submitting a command or piece of code as part of a web request, that the technology will execute for the attacker. To make matters worse, there are cases where the compromised device will not record the adversaries’ actions, meaning there would be no evidence that an attack took place. In other cases, an attacker could delete logs that contain evidence of their post-exploit activities – severely hindering any incident investigations.
“This configuration issue is really quite severe because it’s stealthy enough for an attacker to get in, achieve a wide variety of objectives, and then cover their tracks. Plus, many organizations aren’t prepared to find or fix issues that are buried deep in software supply chains, which adds up to a potentially big security problem,” explains F-Secure Senior Security Consultant Christoffer Jerkeby. “Unless you know what to look for, it’s tough to foresee this problem occurring, and even harder to deal with in an actual attack.”
Jerkeby discovered over 300,000 active BIG-IP implementations on the internet during the course of his research, but due to methodological limitations, suspects the real number could be higher. Approximately 60 percent of the BIG-IP instances he found were in the United States.
The coding flaw and class of vulnerability is not novel and has been known, along with other command injection vulnerabilities in other popular languages, for some time. Not everyone using BIG-IP will be affected, but the load balancer’s popularity amongst banks, governments, and other entities that provide online services to large numbers of people, combined with the relative obscurity of the underlying security issues with Tcl, means any organization using BIG-IP needs to investigate and assess their exposure.
“Unless an organization has done an in-depth investigation of this technology, there’s a strong chance they’ve got this problem,” continues Jerkeby. “Even someone incredibly knowledgeable about security that works at a well-resourced company can make this mistake. So, spreading awareness about the issue is really important if we want to help organizations better protect themselves from a potential breach scenario.”
Aug 27, 2019 • Features • Augmented Reality • future of field service • Augmentir
Russ Fadel, CEO and Co-Founder, Augmentir outlines why the next wave of AR implementations in our sector must harness Artificial Intelligence as well...
Russ Fadel, CEO and Co-Founder, Augmentir outlines why the next wave of AR implementations in our sector must harness Artificial Intelligence as well...
Much has been said and written about Augmented Reality (AR) and its benefits n the field service arena – from improved field technician performance to reductions in field service operating costs. However, these early success stories masked the reality of Enterprise AR in the industrial sector – companies have been slow to adopt this technology and have had difficulty moving beyond the experimentation and pilot phase
The first wave of vendors in the Enterprise AR space were overly focused on wearable technology, believing the early predictions that there would be millions of sets of smart glasses deployed in the enterprise by 2018. This directed their efforts to getting work instructions running on a variety of wearables, and many also invested solely in using AR to present information to technicians in the field with rich content and 3D CAD overlays.
It has become clear that these investments have not delivered the value expected to the enterprise, which is reflected in the lack of mainstream adoption. What has been overlooked is the real opportunity of leveraging the new found connectivity to service workers to create sustainable value throughout the organization. Not only by delivering personalized information to each worker, in the ideal format, but also using artificial intelligence and machine learning to augment the intelligence of the organization relative to how it engages, empowers, and continually improves its human workforce.
This is the beginning of a new era, an era not of Enterprise Augmented Reality, but of Augmented Operations where AR is but one of many ways to present data, support, and guide field workers. Augmented Operations has the opportunity to transform human worker productivity much like automation has done in the past 30 years.
This transformation is driven by the combination of two key technology trends – Enterprise AR and Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning.
Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI/ML) has been around for a long time and has historically been applied against external data sets. A recent trend is to embed AI in software platforms, and have it act on the internal data, eliminating the estimated 80% of AI/ML project efforts around labelling and cleansing external data. This is frequently being applied to solutions focused on improving outcomes in business processes where the human worker is at the center. Artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) is ideally suited to understanding patterns in the noisy data sets generated by humans workers.
At Augmentir, we are using our AI engine to identify patterns in the data generated by field technicians and highlight areas that can then be used to improve overall worker performance, as well as act in real-time to provide personalized procedures based on the proficiency of each worker. The AI engine is able to help continually deliver insights and recommendations based on that human worker data – this is valuable intelligence that can be used to help drive continuous improvement across the entire organization – from operations to training to quality.
• AI can help each worker perform at their peak – dynamically changing the instruction to one that allows each worker to perform their job as fast as possible, while meeting quality and safety targets;
• AI understands the patterns and outliers in the vast instruction/job execution data to identify the largest capturable opportunities in the areas of: productivity,. worker effectiveness, training materials effectiveness, and instruction effectiveness – and provide insights and recommendations on how to capture these opportunities. This is the only way to deliver the actionable information required for industrial organizations to drive continuous improvement on a year-over-year basis;
• With AI, companies can optimize troubleshooting/ diagnostic procedures by observing the attempts and results of technicians in the field;
• With AI, companies will be able to capture tribal knowledge from participating in the interactions between Experts and frontline workers, over time making the expertise/tribal knowledge a scalable corporate asset.
With this concept of Augmented Operations (using AI/ML to deliver intelligence across the organization from your augmented workforce), we are seeing a step change in how organizations are making informed decisions, empowering workers, and improving the productivity of humans in the workplace.
What has been ignored is a real opportunity to create sustainable value throughout the organization – not only giving workers the ability to consume information and apply knowledge, but also augmenting the intelligence of the organization relative to how it engages empowers, and continually improves its human workforce. At Augmentir, we are calling this Augmented Operations, and we believe that this will transform the service workforce of the future.
Much has been said and written about Augmented Reality (AR) and its benefits n the field service arena – from improved field technician performance to reductions in field service operating costs. However, these early success stories masked the reality of Enterprise AR in the industrial sector – companies have been slow to adopt this technology and have had difficulty moving beyond the experimentation and pilot phase
The first wave of vendors in the Enterprise AR space were overly focused on wearable technology, believing the early predictions that there would be millions of sets of smart glasses deployed in the enterprise by 2018. This directed their efforts to getting work instructions running on a variety of wearables, and many also invested solely in using AR to present information to technicians in the field with rich content and 3D CAD overlays.
It has become clear that these investments have not delivered the value expected to the enterprise, which is reflected in the lack of mainstream adoption. What has been overlooked is the real opportunity of leveraging the new found connectivity to service workers to create sustainable value throughout the organization. Not only by delivering personalized information to each worker, in the ideal format, but also using artificial intelligence and machine learning to augment the intelligence of the organization relative to how it engages, empowers, and continually improves its human workforce.
This is the beginning of a new era, an era not of Enterprise Augmented Reality, but of Augmented Operations where AR is but one of many ways to present data, support, and guide field workers. Augmented Operations has the opportunity to transform human worker productivity much like automation has done in the past 30 years.
This transformation is driven by the combination of two key technology trends – Enterprise AR and Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning.
Why is Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Important?
Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI/ML) has been around for a long time and has historically been applied against external data sets. A recent trend is to embed AI in software platforms, and have it act on the internal data, eliminating the estimated 80% of AI/ML project efforts around labelling and cleansing external data. This is frequently being applied to solutions focused on improving outcomes in business processes where the human worker is at the center. Artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) is ideally suited to understanding patterns in the noisy data sets generated by humans workers.
At Augmentir, we are using our AI engine to identify patterns in the data generated by field technicians and highlight areas that can then be used to improve overall worker performance, as well as act in real-time to provide personalized procedures based on the proficiency of each worker. The AI engine is able to help continually deliver insights and recommendations based on that human worker data – this is valuable intelligence that can be used to help drive continuous improvement across the entire organization – from operations to training to quality.
• AI can help each worker perform at their peak – dynamically changing the instruction to one that allows each worker to perform their job as fast as possible, while meeting quality and safety targets;
• AI understands the patterns and outliers in the vast instruction/job execution data to identify the largest capturable opportunities in the areas of: productivity,. worker effectiveness, training materials effectiveness, and instruction effectiveness – and provide insights and recommendations on how to capture these opportunities. This is the only way to deliver the actionable information required for industrial organizations to drive continuous improvement on a year-over-year basis;
• With AI, companies can optimize troubleshooting/ diagnostic procedures by observing the attempts and results of technicians in the field;
• With AI, companies will be able to capture tribal knowledge from participating in the interactions between Experts and frontline workers, over time making the expertise/tribal knowledge a scalable corporate asset.
With this concept of Augmented Operations (using AI/ML to deliver intelligence across the organization from your augmented workforce), we are seeing a step change in how organizations are making informed decisions, empowering workers, and improving the productivity of humans in the workplace.
Augmenting the Service Workforce of the Future
Despite some early momentum, Enterprise AR alone isn’t enough to deliver sustainable value in the field service sector.What has been ignored is a real opportunity to create sustainable value throughout the organization – not only giving workers the ability to consume information and apply knowledge, but also augmenting the intelligence of the organization relative to how it engages empowers, and continually improves its human workforce. At Augmentir, we are calling this Augmented Operations, and we believe that this will transform the service workforce of the future.
Aug 27, 2019 • Software & Apps • News • future of field service • Mining • Virtual Reality
UK start-up, Reality Check, delivers Virtual Reality tour for Anglo American's iron ore asset.
UK start-up, Reality Check, delivers Virtual Reality tour for Anglo American's iron ore asset.
Following a year of reclamation work to the pipeline and a restart of operations of their Brazilian Iron Ore asset Minas-Rio, Anglo American commissioned Reality Check to build a VR tour to show case the operational safety and efficiency of the asset to global investors and stakeholders.
Reality Check worked with Anglo American to build and augment 360° video and photo media creating a Virtual Reality tour of the Minas-Rio mining site in Minas Gerais state, the Pipeline reclamation site and Port Terminal in Rio de Janeiro state, covering over 500 kilometres.
Following a year of reclamation work to the pipeline and a restart of operations of their Brazilian Iron Ore asset Minas-Rio, Anglo American commissioned Reality Check to build a VR tour to show case the operational safety and efficiency of the asset to global investors and stakeholders.
Reality Check worked with Anglo American to build and augment 360° video and photo media creating a Virtual Reality tour of the Minas-Rio mining site in Minas Gerais state, the Pipeline reclamation site and Port Terminal in Rio de Janeiro state, covering over 500 kilometres.
John van Eeghen, CEO and Founder at Reality Check said: “Virtual Reality tours enable heavy industry to offer an unprecedented level of transparency to the global investor and stakeholder communities on demand and at scale, for a fraction of the cost. We live in a globally connected world and VR is part of the New Normal.”
Aug 23, 2019 • Management • News • future of field service • health and safety
British Safety Council welcomes regulator's guidance on working in hot weather and looks forward to its advice for outdoor employees working in polluted urban air.
British Safety Council welcomes regulator's guidance on working in hot weather and looks forward to its advice for outdoor employees working in polluted urban air.
The regulator in charge of implementing and enforcing UK health and safety legislation,The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has issued advice on how to avoid overheating while working in hot conditions; a move welcomed by one of the UK's main safety groups.
Lawrence Waterman, Chairman of the British Safety Council, said: “The British Safety Council welcomes the HSE guidance on working in hot weather. However, similar guidance is needed in relation to outdoor workers who, as well as by heat, are affected by air pollution, particularly in Britain’s largest cities. They spend their working lives close to city traffic and pollution-emitting machinery.
“This issue is relevant not only today but for many years to come as weather in Britain appears to be permanently affected by climate change. Outdoor workers need to be protected from air pollution in hot weather more than any other group of workers. That’s why we need this advice now. We cannot fail them as we have done in relation to asbestos, which continues to cause harm and mount up the health bill.”
Outdoor workers are one of the most vulnerable professional groups in relation to air pollution. The findings of the recent trial conducted by the environmental charity Hubbub, monitoring air pollution exposure of people working or living in London, confirmed that outdoor workers are particularly affected by air pollution. For example, the site engineer at a construction site had air pollution exposure levels six times higher than that of the office worker. Of all the trial participants, the lorry driver had the highest overall exposure.
Furthermore, King’s College London, which draws on and analyses the data from the London Air Quality Network (LAQN), has recently reported that in hot weather the ozone levels in London are rising rapidly which has further adverse health implications.
Aug 12, 2019 • News • future of field service • Business Expansions • localz
Software outfit launches US arm in up and coming tech region Culver City.
Software outfit launches US arm in up and coming tech region Culver City.
Localz, the software business helping large organizations transform the day of service, has chosen to join Amazon, Apple and Google and open its first US office in the rapidly expanding tech ecosystem of Culver City.
Localz began operations in 2013 and the development team are headquartered in Melbourne. Its operational platform enables real-time tracking of the service technician, accurate ETAs and simple two-way communication. Localz “On my way” messaging increases customer satisfaction and improves first time access rates, resulting in massive cost savings for the companies who deploy it.
“This is a huge milestone for us,” Tim Andrew CEO / co-founder said. “With a rapidly growing customer base in the US, we needed to establish a physical presence. We have clients located on both coasts and also in the mid-west. We were attracted to the growing pool of tech talent in LA and it’s good domestic and international transport links.We believe that the field tech ecosystem in the US is facing increasing challenges in meeting rising consumer expectations while also seeking to make operations more efficient. We’re here to help companies thrive, not just survive on the Day of Service.”
“Localz makes it extremely easy to see real-time activity in the field, communicate and react with multiple stakeholders. The solution is resonating with Field Service companies who want to elevate their customer experience” says Alex Wise Regional Vice President of Sales for Localz.
“The California tech scene fits comfortably with Localz culture, in particular our focus on diverse thinking and our passion for driving rapid innovation” Wise added. “We’ll be growing our commercial team and hub here in Culver City with a view to opening an East Coast hub in 2020.”
Aug 12, 2019 • Features • Advanced Services Group • aston business school • future of field service • Platforms • Servitization • eco-systems
New research from the Advanced Services Group at Aston Business School suggests that a focus on product as a platform and a clear understanding of the operational network can positively influence servitization efforts. Dr Kawaljeet Kapoor explains…
New research from the Advanced Services Group at Aston Business School suggests that a focus on product as a platform and a clear understanding of the operational network can positively influence servitization efforts. Dr Kawaljeet Kapoor explains…
Servitization is widely recognised in the manufacturing sector today for its potential to bring about sustainable business growth and realise benefit from society’s appetite for services. Servitization is generally understood as the process by which a manufacturing company transforms its business model and capabilities to compete through a combination of products and services, rather than just products alone. For manufacturers, achieving their servitization goals means going beyond their product-driven internal capabilities.
It requires them to move away from the traditional linear supply chain models, in favour of collaborative working with external partners, which can evolve into a network with multiple, interacting actors.In this setting, which we would call an ecosystem, platforms enable increased interactions and transactions between the multiple actors and partners, which were not necessarily a part of the initial supply chains.
There is a plethora of companies that successfully utilise platform strategies. Intel and Windows, for example, bring together third party companies and developers to create innovation platforms.
Others, such as Airbnb and Amazon, allow producers, consumers and organisations to find each other and enable a multitude of transactions with each other. Clearly, businesses across a range of industries are investing in platforms. However, examples from the manufacturing sector are far and few between.
An exploratory research project by The Advanced Services Group at Aston Business School, is looking to change that. The project focuses on understanding the servitization process in a manufacturing setting and investigates the influence platforms have on a manufacturer’s journey to servitization.
What do we mean by platform and ecosystem?
Simply put, a platform can be a product, service, or technology owned by a company that external innovators use as a foundation to develop new products, services or technologies. These newly developed offerings always complement a platform owner’s original offerings, which is why we call such offerings, the complements. By the same logic, we call the companies or people who develop such complements, the complementors.
For instance, on a Fire TV platform, Amazon is the platform owner, and the app developers are the complementors, who use the Fire TV stick as a foundation to develop a multitude of apps for the end-users. A platform, its complements and all network actors put together, is what we call a platform ecosystem. In a platform-based ecosystem, you can typically expect to see a platform owner, the complementors, and the end users as its key actors.
"Modularity makes enabling varied functionalities very simple. In a manufacturing setting, product offerings can be modularized and broken down into services associated with product spares, preventive maintenance, fleet management, and so on..."
These platforms can have varying architectural types. They can be of internal – closed nature, such as Makita’s cordless power tool platform, where all tools can only be powered by a battery developed in-house. They can be across a supply chain – partially open, examples of which can be found across all assembly industries. Both of these types aim at increasing offering variety without complicating internal structures.
They can also be external – open for all external innovators in an industry-level ecosystem setting. An example of this is IBM’s collaboration with Intel and Microsoft in the 1980s, which led to the development of the IBM PC, an open platform used by complementors to develop compatible software, such as Word and others.Irrespective of the types, these architectures are increasingly modular in nature, which means that platforms increase flexibility and reusability.
Complicated production processes are broken into smaller parts or modules that deliver an intended technological function in the overall system, and by doing so, enhance the core functionality of a platform. For example, Google Chrome is a search engine, and its extensions are ‘modules’ developed to offer extended functionalities like a calendar, dictionary or storage drive. In other words, when modules connect to a platform, they add new functionalities to include extended utilities and features.
Therefore, modularity makes enabling varied functionalities very simple. In a manufacturing setting, product offerings can be modularized and broken down into services associated with product spares, preventive maintenance, fleet management, and so on. In essence, manufacturing firms can configure multiple offerings using different combinations of the same modules.
Why the ecosystem view is important
The concept of platforms has been a topic of discussion for more than two decades. Both research and practice have shared fundamental insights on platform dynamics and how they work. But the focus on platforms alone is not enough – the ecosystem in which the platform operates is just as important. Understanding the ecosystem, identifying the different actors and understanding your own role will ultimately determine the platform’s success.
Taking a full view of the ecosystem will account for all actors involved and help manufacturers understand which actors can add the most value to the platform and deliver the service-led offerings intended in the first place - beyond.
Platforms in servitizing companies
The word platform is often associated with all things digital, such as a software component or an application. In fact, platforms are more than just a piece of software, particularly in a servitization-based setting. It would not be too far fetched to suggest that if a manufacturer is acting as a platform leader, then their platform will essentially be their ‘product’.
As they have ownership of the product, it is their decision if and how much of the product and/or its specifications can be shared with complementors to produce novel offerings. Let’s take Trucknology, MAN’s fleet management solution, as an example here. Looking for solutions to better manage fuel costs and truck uptime - their customers’ main pain points - commercial truck manufacturer MAN partnered with telematics company Microlise.
"Technology is only one of the many components that go into building an ecosystem, and there are social and architectural aspects that are key and deserve due recognition..."
Together, Microlise and MAN produced a rating system across a range of driver characteristics, such as harsh braking and harsh cornering. The result was the Microlise Tracking Unit (MTU3), which was installed in MAN trucks to feed back driver and vehicle performance data. Customers can now view driver reports, which help to better manage drivers and inform driver training. Drivers can also access the reports to assess their own performance and improve their skills based on accurate data.In this example, MAN represents the platform owner and Microlise represents the complementor, i.e. the external innovator.
The Microlise Tracking Unit is the complement, and because it can only be of value once installed onto the MAN truck, the truck as MAN’s original product offering has become the platform. Successful examples like MAN are evidence that in manufacturing, collaborating with an extended network of actors can derive benefits of maximum value from investments, as well as lasting relationships with the customer even after product sales.
Research on Platforms and Ecosystems
Yet, not many manufacturers have adopted this approach in their servitization strategies. Whilst the terms platform ecosystems, platform thinking, and platform approach are increasingly used in business and manufacturing, they are often used to describe technology alone. Our research suggests, however, that technology is only one of the many components that go into building an ecosystem, and there are social and architectural aspects that are key and deserve due recognition.
The aim of this research project is to explain how platform ecosystems influence manufacturers developing servitization-based offerings. The project is based on interviews with manufacturing companies on their way towards servitization. A key outcome of this research will be a guide to help servitizing firms position themselves across the different roles (platform leader, complementors, etc.), map dominant players and potential partners, in order to use their network dynamics strategically to pursue collaborative innovation.
Dr Kawaljeet Kapoor is a Research Fellow at The Advanced Services Group at Aston Business School.
Aug 05, 2019 • Features • Software & Apps • future of field service • Digital Transformation • IFS
At the Field Service USA conference in Palm Springs, California this year, digital transformation continued to dominate discussions. Marne Martin of IFS and our own Kris Oldland were both on the speaking roster so they caught up over a coffee to...
At the Field Service USA conference in Palm Springs, California this year, digital transformation continued to dominate discussions. Marne Martin of IFS and our own Kris Oldland were both on the speaking roster so they caught up over a coffee to compare notes…
As someone who attends many field service conferences across the globe, there are some speakers within our industry whom I know will give a presentation that always gives me a spark of an idea for a new article or feature and as such, I always make a beeline for their sessions when my schedule allows.
One such speaker is Marne Martin, President of Service Management for IFS and CEO of Work Wave. Martin has an uncanny knack of talking about subjects that are right on the pulse of the audience. She always manages to address the concerns and present solutions that resonate with the room, but is also able to bring a light sense of levity and fun to her sessions as well – and she usually has at least one brilliantly memorable line that gets stuck in your mind for a long time.
This time around it was the fantastic throw away one liner: “You don’t want to bring a Volkswagen to a Formula 1 race.”
It was a pithy reminder that the stakes in field service have been raised in recent times. The competition is greater than ever as industry after industry adapts to the disruptive influences of innovative companies like Uber, Deliveroo and AirBnB who are not just revolutionising their sectors but those far beyond their remits by raising expectations of what seamless customer experience looks like in the age of the app.
Martin’s discussion weaved through both the digital transformation and also the cultural transformation that many field service organisations are going through, with the majority of those yet to do so now seeing such change looming on their horizons also. She touched on crucial issues being widely felt, such as talent shortages and how service organisations can get value from the technology that the pressure of increasing customer demand insists they implement.
However, the critical point she touched on was the importance of understanding and clearly defining service strategy. It is a point that I have made both in recent presentations of my own as well as in these pages. Without a properly defined service strategy, without knowing ‘who’ your organisation ‘wants’ to be, any such programs that seek to implement digital transformation will be at best ill formed and at worst an expensive failure that could really set a service organisation back.
I’ve expressed the opinion that digital transformation, has to be an ongoing process, not a one-off project. A journey, not a destination. As such, a clearly defined service strategy needs to be in place if you want to stay on the right path.
So when I sat down with Marne to grab a quick coffee away from the melee of what was a jam-packed conference, with hundreds of delegates and vendors buzzing around – this was the first area I wanted to touch base on and swap notes about.
“Think about how you empower the field, the mobile workflow enhancements, how you enable the technician to cross-sell, upsell, to close out tickets, all of these items that drive higher customer satisfaction. These are all fundamental to what makes service matter.
They all drive profitability for the service organisation, growth in revenue and customer satisfaction,” she mused as I outlined my thinking to her. “It is just that today we have more tools with which we’re able to achieve this and that allows us to achieve it at a faster more efficient pace - which is, of course, what customers want. I think it all fits together in a way that we, as a sector, are able to bring these fundamentals into the new digital era.
“It only becomes a problem when companies begin thinking about digitalisation as something disconnected from these fundamentals.” This line of thought echoes my thinking on the topic as well. However, there is an additional layer of complexity to the discussion that I have also been considering of late.
Perhaps the biggest of all shifts in the field service sector over the last decade has been the move firstly from cost centre to profit centre and now what many see as a natural extension of that into a world of servitization. In one sense, it feels as though the field service sector has never witnessed such a significant paradigm shift as we are seeing today as companies move away from the traditional break-fix approach to one of outcome-based services.
"Digital transformation, has to be an ongoing process, not a one-off project..."
In that sense, we’re going through a complete revolution across the sector. However, I’m also of a firm belief (and have spoken to many service directors around the world who agree) that the essential thing in terms of delivering service excellence is not to lose sight of the core tenets of what good service looks and feels like, and at the heart of that remains some long-established foundational positions around ensuring an ‘Outside-In’ perspective on the service business.
Making sure you understand the customer and how they want to interact with your organisation, and then making sure processes are designed around that understanding is not a particularly radical position, but rather a well established best-practice.
The result is a dichotomy in service strategy between embracing the new while holding on to the historical precedents that underpin service excellence. It is not an impossible equation to balance, but it is one that should be considered deeply when approaching the current mega-trend of digital transformation.
This balance between yesterday’s, today’s and tomorrow’s worlds was another area that Martin touched upon in her presentation where she used the phrase ‘Challenge the Present, Lead the Future’ and it was something I wanted to dig deeper into when we spoke. “By challenge the present I mean that field service organisations need to assess where their basics are weak, flawed or broken, and to assess how these can be improved to drive a future in which they are not,” she explained.
“If you look at all the key technology trends that are out there, we’re bringing every single one into service. Of course, some are coming faster than others as you would expect, but they all have applicability in service. However, on the other hand, the building blocks of what great service is, whom you deliver service to, and what you deliver service with remain the same.
“It’s the interplay of the fundamentals of service, the brand, the asset, the technician, and so on and how we drive the efficiencies and delivery of these forwards, with these new technology trends, into a new paradigm.
“To get to servitization or outcome based service, you still need to understand maintenance and break-fix and up times and asset performance. It’s not as if our understanding of all these core things goes away; it just has to be heightened and put together into an outcomes-based proposition. But rather than just deciding what is going to be our approach to reducing technician travel time or what is going to be our overtime strategy, companies are now looking at everything holistically to be able to asses the outcome they are delivering to the customer, how they are pricing that outcome and what is the margin on that outcome.”
Again I agree with Martin’s take on things here. The phrase that comes to mind is evolution, not revolution. I feel this is an apt mantra for many service organisations to adopt in these times of rapid technological and societal change. While talk of impending industry revolution may grab headlines, the truth is effective change is always iterative – and that very much holds true for field service organisations today.
Whether your organisation is on a journey to digitalisation or to servitization, remember it remains a journey, not a destination. Please drive carefully.
As someone who attends many field service conferences across the globe, there are some speakers within our industry whom I know will give a presentation that always gives me a spark of an idea for a new article or feature and as such, I always make a beeline for their sessions when my schedule allows.
One such speaker is Marne Martin, President of Service Management for IFS and CEO of Work Wave. Martin has an uncanny knack of talking about subjects that are right on the pulse of the audience. She always manages to address the concerns and present solutions that resonate with the room, but is also able to bring a light sense of levity and fun to her sessions as well – and she usually has at least one brilliantly memorable line that gets stuck in your mind for a long time.
This time around it was the fantastic throw away one liner: “You don’t want to bring a Volkswagen to a Formula 1 race.”
It was a pithy reminder that the stakes in field service have been raised in recent times. The competition is greater than ever as industry after industry adapts to the disruptive influences of innovative companies like Uber, Deliveroo and AirBnB who are not just revolutionising their sectors but those far beyond their remits by raising expectations of what seamless customer experience looks like in the age of the app.
Martin’s discussion weaved through both the digital transformation and also the cultural transformation that many field service organisations are going through, with the majority of those yet to do so now seeing such change looming on their horizons also. She touched on crucial issues being widely felt, such as talent shortages and how service organisations can get value from the technology that the pressure of increasing customer demand insists they implement.
However, the critical point she touched on was the importance of understanding and clearly defining service strategy. It is a point that I have made both in recent presentations of my own as well as in these pages. Without a properly defined service strategy, without knowing ‘who’ your organisation ‘wants’ to be, any such programs that seek to implement digital transformation will be at best ill formed and at worst an expensive failure that could really set a service organisation back.
I’ve expressed the opinion that digital transformation, has to be an ongoing process, not a one-off project. A journey, not a destination. As such, a clearly defined service strategy needs to be in place if you want to stay on the right path.
So when I sat down with Marne to grab a quick coffee away from the melee of what was a jam-packed conference, with hundreds of delegates and vendors buzzing around – this was the first area I wanted to touch base on and swap notes about.
“Think about how you empower the field, the mobile workflow enhancements, how you enable the technician to cross-sell, upsell, to close out tickets, all of these items that drive higher customer satisfaction. These are all fundamental to what makes service matter.
They all drive profitability for the service organisation, growth in revenue and customer satisfaction,” she mused as I outlined my thinking to her. “It is just that today we have more tools with which we’re able to achieve this and that allows us to achieve it at a faster more efficient pace - which is, of course, what customers want. I think it all fits together in a way that we, as a sector, are able to bring these fundamentals into the new digital era.
“It only becomes a problem when companies begin thinking about digitalisation as something disconnected from these fundamentals.” This line of thought echoes my thinking on the topic as well. However, there is an additional layer of complexity to the discussion that I have also been considering of late.
Perhaps the biggest of all shifts in the field service sector over the last decade has been the move firstly from cost centre to profit centre and now what many see as a natural extension of that into a world of servitization. In one sense, it feels as though the field service sector has never witnessed such a significant paradigm shift as we are seeing today as companies move away from the traditional break-fix approach to one of outcome-based services.
"Digital transformation, has to be an ongoing process, not a one-off project..."
In that sense, we’re going through a complete revolution across the sector. However, I’m also of a firm belief (and have spoken to many service directors around the world who agree) that the essential thing in terms of delivering service excellence is not to lose sight of the core tenets of what good service looks and feels like, and at the heart of that remains some long-established foundational positions around ensuring an ‘Outside-In’ perspective on the service business.
Making sure you understand the customer and how they want to interact with your organisation, and then making sure processes are designed around that understanding is not a particularly radical position, but rather a well established best-practice.
The result is a dichotomy in service strategy between embracing the new while holding on to the historical precedents that underpin service excellence. It is not an impossible equation to balance, but it is one that should be considered deeply when approaching the current mega-trend of digital transformation.
This balance between yesterday’s, today’s and tomorrow’s worlds was another area that Martin touched upon in her presentation where she used the phrase ‘Challenge the Present, Lead the Future’ and it was something I wanted to dig deeper into when we spoke. “By challenge the present I mean that field service organisations need to assess where their basics are weak, flawed or broken, and to assess how these can be improved to drive a future in which they are not,” she explained.
“If you look at all the key technology trends that are out there, we’re bringing every single one into service. Of course, some are coming faster than others as you would expect, but they all have applicability in service. However, on the other hand, the building blocks of what great service is, whom you deliver service to, and what you deliver service with remain the same.
“It’s the interplay of the fundamentals of service, the brand, the asset, the technician, and so on and how we drive the efficiencies and delivery of these forwards, with these new technology trends, into a new paradigm.
“To get to servitization or outcome based service, you still need to understand maintenance and break-fix and up times and asset performance. It’s not as if our understanding of all these core things goes away; it just has to be heightened and put together into an outcomes-based proposition. But rather than just deciding what is going to be our approach to reducing technician travel time or what is going to be our overtime strategy, companies are now looking at everything holistically to be able to asses the outcome they are delivering to the customer, how they are pricing that outcome and what is the margin on that outcome.”
Again I agree with Martin’s take on things here. The phrase that comes to mind is evolution, not revolution. I feel this is an apt mantra for many service organisations to adopt in these times of rapid technological and societal change. While talk of impending industry revolution may grab headlines, the truth is effective change is always iterative – and that very much holds true for field service organisations today.
Whether your organisation is on a journey to digitalisation or to servitization, remember it remains a journey, not a destination. Please drive carefully.
Field Service News is published by 1927 Media Ltd, an independent publisher whose sole focus is on the field service sector. As such our entire resources are focused on helping drive the field service sector forwards and aiming to best serve our industry through honest, incisive and innovative media coverage of the global field service sector.
Leave a Reply