ARCHIVE FOR THE ‘future-of-field-service-2’ CATEGORY

Data2Action is a program devised in partnership between academia and industry with Luzerne University, University of Firenze and Ricoh collaborating on developing a framework for how companies should move towards data driven services. Here Dr. Shawn West and Oliver Stoll outline that framework...


How To Develop Databased Solutions 
Today any machine can be digitized and connected; collecting the data is not an issue; what is becoming more important is how the field data can be exploited to identify the right action to be taken.

This creates a very complex problem, as the right data must be transformed so that only the right information, at the right time, in the right form can be delivered to the right decision-maker, independently of the problem domain - e.g. route cause analysis, demand forecasting, productivity optimisation, spare parts delivery. Helping people taking decisions can be seen as a smart service, that is designed on the base of a thoroughly understanding of the business complexity.

Ecosystems made of people and equipment, business objectives and strategies, as well as personal needs, attitudes and preferences (must-have’s, nice-to-have’s) of each operators. Once these needs are fully understood, information can be elaborated from data to create the right insights. The Data2Action framework provides guidance towards the development of data-driven services. The understanding of why and how customers interact with assets is achieved using Design Thinking approach.

Principles Of Service Design Thinking Underpin the Data2action Framework
A good design is not only a matter of aesthetics. When designing a product, many factors have to be considered. For example, how the product is going to be used, and by who. This determines the product functions, form, materials, colors, etc. This requires the ability to understand what the product user is trying to achieve (an outcome, an experience).

The same applies to service design, in which the object to be designed is a process which aims to reach a goal, through the use of products, software applications, information, etc. The challenge is that there are many more people involved in the consumption and delivery of the service, the service relies on collaboration, the service is mostly intangible. The Service Design approach is based on a hands-on, user-centric approach to problem definition and idea/solution generation can lead to innovation.

This is of utmost importance, as the application of these principles can lead to competitive advantages. Remember you only do things that are of value to you in one form or other. Service Design Thinking (SDT) is an approach that aims at designing services by applying different tools based on five principles.

Service design thinking should be:
• User centred;
• Co-creative;
• Sequencing; 
• Evidencing;
• Holistic.

Understanding The Problem: Why Understand First?
How can a problem or challenge be successfully solved without understanding it properly? Well, it can not. Without a deep understanding, disruptive solutions will not work, or you will be applying sticky plasters. The challenge lying ahead of you is to understand, describe and visualize the situation. The understanding of a complex problem requires to know who the involved people and equipment are, and how the processes in which they are operating runs. The understanding phase of the Data-2-Action framework consists of mapping the (OVERALL) job-to-be-done of the customer, mapping the actors and using avatars to build the ecosystem to discover and appraise who and what is involved.

Principles for Digital Service Development: How To Generate The Best Ideas
The problem statements and the ecosystem visualization developed provides a solid foundation for the development of new ideas and solutions for services. Some new ideas may have already appeared and can be improved in this phase.

These cases, also called scenarios or user stories, can be visualized using the customer journey blueprint. In the customer journey blueprint, the processes, actions, and involved personas/avatars are visualized to display the desired situation, in which the problems are solved.

Outcomes for each actor here should be clearly defined along with any payoffs. Working in pen and paper works really well. For Smart Services with many actors and many machines expect there to be many scenarios to focus on and even more ideas to provide improvements. In the ideation stage, many ideas will be generated.

The ideas need to be rated in order to evaluate which are worth to be prototyped. For selecting the best ideas, an idea scoring system is best.


Building Valuable Solutions: Creating Information From The Raw Data
With the overview of the ecosystem of people, processes, and machines it becomes clear from the scenarios and user stories of where the data is produced and who needs to consume information derived from it. Prototyping it is a way to validate our ideas and possible solutions and it should be fast and keep concepts as simple as possible. This avoids spending too many resources on building solutions only to then finding out that it does not work.

The best way is to create hand-drawn dashboards or widgets which represent the solution and test them as quickly as possible before starting with the actual implementation (often coding!). The process of drawing dashboards may also reveal new ideas which can be useful or new insights into whether the solution is technically visible or not. Many dashboards should be created, to keep it organized we use the Case Actor Matrix (CAM).

This tool allows matching Actors with a Cases (we use a scenario before) and the dashboard enabling the understanding of their purposes - how would you use it to help make a decision. A logical cascade should be build and dashboard widgets should be reused as much as makes sense. These conceptual solutions need to be challenged from a technical perspective.

We use a Source Target Link Matrix (STL Matrix) to show the information needed from the conceptual point of view. We define the requirements and quality of the data needed to develop the dashboards. The matrix distinguishes between existing data and data that needs to be collected, as well as adjustments and improvements that have to be made to the databases

Test Ideas And Improve
The testing is essential within the data2action frameworks and Service Design. It should happen as quickly to avoid the development of solutions, which do not fulfill the identified case and or are not technical visible. The best method for testing the usability is to hand over the dashboard to the target actor and ask them to try to use it and listen to their feedback based on the feedback the usefulness can be improved. New ideas also come from the feedback discussions. The technical aspect needs to be evaluated as well. Meaning, that the information derived from the data is actually significant. This is determined by the data experts and the user.

The total active installed base of connected mining solutions reached almost 0.6 million units in the equipment, people and environment segments in 2018...

The equipment segment accounts for the largest share of the total, representing connected units deployed on machines and vehicles used in mining operations, according to new research from Berg Insight. This includes solutions ranging from OEM telematics systems on mining equipment to advanced connected solutions supplied by mining technology specialists.

The people segment includes various solutions deployed to support the safety and productivity of mining personnel, while the environment segment consists of sensor technology implemented for environmental monitoring of the mine itself. Growing at a compound annual growth rate of 15.5 percent, the total installed base of connected mining solutions in all these segments is forecasted to reach close to 1.2 million units in 2023. 

The top players active in the connected mining space include strikingly different types of companies, ranging from specialised independent technology suppliers of varying sizes up to the leading mining equipment manufacturers.

“Many of the key players today serve both surface and underground mining customers”, said Rickard Andersson, Principal Analyst, Berg Insight. The surface segment is dominated by Modular Mining Systems (owned by Komatsu), Hexagon Mining, Wenco International Mining Systems (owned by Hitachi Construction Machinery) and Caterpillar through its Cat MineStar suite. “Modular, Hexagon and Caterpillar all serve underground customers in addition to a primary presence in the surface segment, while Wenco is fully focused on surface mining”, continued Mr. Andersson. He adds that VIST Group is also active in the surface segment and serves some underground operations as well.

Examples of key technology providers focused specifically on underground applications are Newtrax Technologies (recently acquired by Sandvik) and Mobilaris (partially owned by Epiroc). The underground segment is in general less mature and more fragmented. “Mine Site Technologies, MICROMINE and rapidBizApps are additional players in the underground segment that all also serve surface customers to varying extents”, concluded Mr. Andersson. 

Whilst the Internet of Things is undoubtedly set to become a hugely prominent part of field service delivery in the coming years, it shouldn’t be viewed as a technology in isolation writes Kris Oldland...


I’ve written and spoken about the importance of IoT in field service for many years now. In the past I’ve often compared it to the
mobile revolution, outlining my case for why I think IoT will ultimately have a far bigger impact in our sector than mobile. Now this is not to underplay the importance of mobile in field service.

Mobile was undoubtedly a huge leap forwards in terms of how field service companies were able to deliver efficient field service maintenance. The streamlining of workflows that mobile allowed has seen field service companies be able to do more with the same or even less field service technicians than they could have even imagined possible in the days of triplicate paper documentation and the mighty pen.

Equally, the introduction of increasingly intelligent mobile applications has given field service engineers greater insight into each job they undertake, better support options for when they face an unusual fix and the easy processing of job completion and on site customer feedback.

All of which have seen field service companies become able to truly leverage the often untapped potential of the field service technician as a genuine, trusted, brand ambassador. In many respects the introduction of mobile was a true revolution. That is until we compare it to the potential of IoT.

In this context, actually what mobile brought to the table was the ability to do the things that we always knew were important in terms of service efficiency and customer satisfaction, better. We didn’t revolutionise our fundamental approach to field service when we introduced mobile into the mix.

We just did things exponentially more efficiently. However, whilst the advent of IoT will bring even more efficiency gains, as our engineers become forearmed with the knowledge of exactly which parameters of the asset they are about to work upon are falling outside of acceptable norms, there is the opportunity for a much more radical shift in thinking that IoT presents in addition to this. This is of course, the shift away from traditional break-fix, service level agreement-based service contracts and into the brave new world of guarantees of uptime, truly predictive maintenance and advanced services. This is the true revolution.

However, IoT alone is not enough for us to harness the disruptive force of such a revolution. Much like Cloud before it, it is perhaps the foundational technology upon which we can build even greater innovations.

Machine Learning Is Crucial For Iot Success
One of the throw away phrases that you will invariably hear at conferences, read in articles and discuss in board rooms in pretty much any industry vertical right now ,is that ‘data is the new oil or gold’. I politely disagree with that assertion. Data, as an entity in it’s own right, is quite frankly almost worthless. It has no use-value.

It is without agency and it is without utility. Insight that can be found from mining such data however, is something of truly massive value. When people comment that data is the new currency, they are generally referring to insight. This is why the data scientist was widely posited to become the ‘rock star’ of the twentieth first century not too long ago.

The ability to not only know how to surface insight from data, but more importantly understand exactly which direction your interrogation of that data should go to discover insights that yields true competitive advantage , is a fairly uncommon skill set that blends the analytical and the creative thought processes into one holistic discipline. Yet, as machine learning matures, I see a world where the role of the data scientist will be much more of an initial consultant, someone to make sure a business understands the methodology of data science.

Someone who outlines to them, the whys and the hows, basically lining up the ducks into a row, before setting the AI to do it’s thing. The technology is improving so rapidly now that the actual implementation of such data interrogation programs is likely to sit with senior business execs, rather than senior IT execs driving it.

The value of the human input will not be within the data analysis itself, but in guiding what areas of the business performance should be being measured. The reality is that the sheer volume of data and the speed at which it is generated means that truly utilising and embracing IoT means simultaneously adopting a machine learning strategy at the same time.

Augmenting Augmented Reality
Another technology I have championed for some time now is Augmented Reality (AR) which offers up in the short term at least, a very realistic solution to both the ageing workforce crisis and also the need for field service organisations to reduce the time and costs of training new field service engineers and get them being productive parts of the field workforce as swiftly as possible.

For a long time I have posited the benefits of being able to hold onto the tribal knowledge of an older engineer by allowing them a more convenient support role where their experience can be ‘dialled into’ by the less experienced, newly qualified engineers. This ability to provide ‘see-what-I-see’ over the shoulder remote support is an obvious solution to the two issues I mention above, and I am somewhat surprised that as yet we haven’t seen as large a take up as I would have anticipated - although I do feel we are pushing at an open door in this regard and such developments will inevitably become common place eventually.

"When people comment that data is the new currency, they are generally referring to insight..."

However, this I feel is just the very tip of the iceberg in terms of AR in field service and it is when we add into the system a feed of real-time data from an asset, that we will see AR truly flourish. Imagine a field service technician being able to simply look at a device and to get a visual overlay of how that device is performing in real time. The engineer would be able to identify fault, pull up asset history, and access a knowledge bank of the most suitable action for maintenance within just a few moments.

Comparative Analysis Across The Fleet
Perhaps one of the most exciting potential applications of IoT with respect to maintenance and service, is the ability to offer additional layers of advanced services, which could yield newly created revenue streams. One such example could be the application of asset data analysis across a fleet of assets to allow your organisation to provide corrective changes to settings either at the individual asset level, the individual component level or even at the macro level across the whole fleet.

Take this a step further and through the anonymisation of key data sets across an entire install base of your assets, and then the analysis of the operational performance of the install base as a whole - you could be in a position to offer your customers a solution update that could improve productivity by X%. Whilst, admittedly we are still getting our heads around the practical regulatory challenges and big questions around who owns what data, with the waters becoming infinitely more muddied by ill thought out and poorly defined legislation such as GDPR or the Californian Consumer Privacy Act, there are already examples of companies leveraging data from across their whole install base to be able to provide just such intelligence to their customers for an additional cost.

Such solutions are dependent on high level operational performance analytics, which have evolved from the world of Big Data. Don’t Forget To Make It Safe Of course, it is always more preferable to talk about opportunity, but it must be remembered that with whilst in every great challenge we can find opportunity, so to does every new opportunity present a new threat - and the biggest threat of all in a world of data-breaches and connected assets is cyber-security.

The shift to the Cloud reinvigorated the discussion of cyber-security hugely. Many were initially reluctant to make such a move despite all the various benefits of doing so, because the Cloud felt just so much more penetrable and vulnerable than an On Premise solution that had the advantage of being visible, tactile and ‘real’.

The truth is the amount of resources cloud providers like AWS, IBM and Microsoft spend on protecting their cloud offerings are so mind blowing that no on premise solution could be as risk free. Microsoft for example spend over a $1Billion dollars a year and operate 3,500 professional security engineers plus a highly sophisticated AI to thwart the incredible 1.5Million attacks they get every day.

For this reason, I’ve always felt comfortable with the Cloud as being as close as we can get to secure - whilst nothing is ever 100% safe, choosing any of the big three Cloud providers gives you as good protection as your likely to get. However, with IoT at the moment I would hesitate to be just so confident in my prediction. A large part of this is down to the technology still being in something of a ‘wild-west-phase’ with protocols still being ironed out and at the same time a huge surge in consumer appetite for IoT products has driven costs of components down, with many coming out of China which adds an additional question around security against the global geopolitical landscape we find ourselves in.

Not only can IoT components be a weak point of entry to gain access to a wider network, but should the unthinkable happen, they also pose a huge risk in terms of cyber terrorism. If a device can be hacked and it plays a role in wider ecosystem of a factory - could it be conceivable that a cyber criminal could hold a business to ransom shutting them down until they pay up? As with anything the pros and cons of a new solution need to be weighed up, and for me the benefits of IoT in field service do still outweigh the cons, but it is certainly worth putting security at the top of a list of priorities when scoping out the potential of any IoT strategy.

Rubbish In, Rubbish Out.
Finally, just a quick point on building such a strategy. As mentioned earlier, it is important to think of IoT not as an IT project and it is too engrained within business to be viewed in such a way. However, it should equally not be seen as solely as a business solution either. Digital transformation is a significant focus for many companies right now, and if done correctly this should be a platform for embracing IoT - so it is important that your IT leaders within the business also play a major part in such endeavours. But the one thought I would put at the top of any strategy planning meeting would be to ask - what is it we are trying to achieve? I would then go one level deeper and ask ‘What is it that our customers are trying to achieve?’ Then ask the most crucial question that any business has in its arsenal - why?

That should give you the right path to tread down and from there the various different layers of technology that are suitable for the goal you are trying to reach will become apparent and you can plan accordingly. Skip this process though and you may as well go right back to the old adage of the computer - put rubbish in, get rubbish out.

The IoT does offer true revolution within field service, but every revolution requires planning. 

 

Ericsson has been selected by SoftBank Corp. (SoftBank) as a 5G vendor for the deployment of a multi-band 5G network in Japan following a series of successful joint proof-of-concept activities that began in 2015. 

Under the agreement, Ericsson will provide SoftBank with radio access network equipment, including products from the Ericsson Radio System portfolio. This will enable SoftBank to launch 5G services on their newly granted 3.9-4.0 GHz and 29.1-29.5 GHz bands for 5G New Radio (NR).

Ericsson will reinforce SoftBank’s existing LTE network while optimizing its 5G network. Ericsson Radio System products for this purpose will be deployed in several regions. With Ericsson Radio System, SoftBank can boost its spectrum assets.

Chris Houghton, Senior Vice President, Head of Market Area North East Asia, Ericsson, says: “SoftBank and Ericsson have been partners since the 2G era and we are thrilled to support them on this latest part of their technology journey. With the help of our advanced product portfolio, SoftBank can unlock the potential of 5G for Japanese society and we look forward to building on our long-standing partnership.”

Ericsson and SoftBank initiated joint proof-of-concept activities in 2015 and have successfully expanded their collaboration to include 5G testing of multi-bands, including 28 GHz and 4.5GHz. Both companies will continue to jointly explore 5G use cases, reinforce SoftBank’s existing LTE network while optimizing its 5G network and commit to realize 5G commercial services within this fiscal year 

The prevalence of IoT within field service, has put servitization within the reach of smaller companies and those that embracing it are capable of disrupting their sectors writes Kris Oldland...


“The world once seemed simple; manufacturers made things and services companies did things for us. Today, increasing numbers of manufacturers compete through a portfolio of integrated products and services.”

This is how Professor Tim Baines, someone I consider to be something of a mentor to me as well as a friend, and who also happens to be one of the worlds leading academics within the field of servitization once described servitization to me, having been asked to do so in basic terms that I as a lay person could comprehend.

Of course servitization is much more than simply adding services to existing products within a few large multi-national companies as Professor Baines went on to explain. “It’s about viewing the manufacturer as a service provider that sets out to improve the processes of its customers through a business model, rather than product-based, innovation. The manufacturer exploits its design and production competencies to deliver improvements in efficiency and effectiveness to the customer.”

In context of the traditional product-centric viewpoint of manufacturers, this is of course a radical and seismic shift. A fact that Baines himself can never be accused of underplaying, often referring to us as living through the fourth industrial paradigm - the previous three coming via mechanisation and steam power, followed by the mass production line, and then computing and automation.

The fourth paradigm that we are currently adapting to is a world of cyber-physical products. Or to put it in more familiar terms perhaps, a world of IoT and connected assets. If you have spent anything more than 5 minutes talking about servitization, then you will most likely already know that as the inventors of ‘powerby-the-hour’ some 57 years ago, Rolls Royce are something of a Poster Boy for the movement.

But wait! I here you cry. If Rolls Royce managed to pioneer their own brand of servitization so long ago, when we hadn’t even established an internet, let alone one built literally just for ‘things’, then how can you say IoT is fundamental to servitization? It is of course a hugely valid point.

Servitization has been demonstrably proven to be possible prior to the age of IoT. However, there are a few core factors shared amongst Rolls Royce and the other early pioneers of servitization such as Caterpillar, Alstom, and MAN UK. Firstly, there is a layer of innovation within their leadership and organisational DNA. This is true of all pioneers, some companies are prepared to take the greater risks and push boundaries past what is the current normal. However, in many cases, those servitization pioneers also had strong other revenue streams that gave them the opportunity to fail if needs be without sinking the whole business.

It is certainly a luxury that not all companies have but cross sector organisations such as Swiss heavy manufacturing giant ABB, have proven to be an excellent example of how to leverage reputation, cross industry learnings but also how having the additional breathing space of being a multi-vertical, mutli national organisation allowed them to drive their own servitization strategies.

But the one thing that almost all of these companies in the early vanguard of servitization also shared, was that they were relatively advanced in telematics and that they could see not only the potential value of the data they were able to take from their assets but also, more importantly how they could take that data and build it into meaningful insights for their customers.

Crucially, they understood they could utilise the information on how their assets were performing to help guide their customers to a far more effective understanding of their challenges, and then step in to offer further, more complex solutions that were specifically in line with their customers’ desired outcomes. They were able to take the data and become integral partners within their customers’ business ecosystems rather than just one of many transactional relationships - and whilst I am by no means an expert on the topic myself, I’ve spent enough time with Professor Baines and many of his academic peers over the last few years to understand that this is at the core of why servitization is such an attractive proposition for supplier and customer alike.

Deeper relationships provide greater output, stability and effectiveness for the customer and deeper customer loyalty, greater profits and longer term contracts for the supplier. And now as the IoT, and even more importantly it’s enterprise equivalent the Industrial Internet, begin to mature into something more meaningful than connected toasters, and as we begin to see companies start to at least acknowledge, if not yet truly harness the potential of IoT, what we are seeing is the democratization of servitization.

"Servitization has been demonstrably proven to be possible prior to the age of IoT..."

It is no longer just those companies who can afford to be innovative, that can now embrace servitization. It is not just those companies who already have access to, or deep enough pockets to be able to invest in connected assets that can explore the numerous advantages of adopting an advanced services strategy. It is also not just manufacturers either. In fact, the rapid rise of IoT has enabled many smaller, third party service providers to capitalise on gaps within original equipment manufacturers, or in some cases even utility providers, service offerings.

This has allowed them to carve out service-centric businesses that were frankly, missed opportunites for the slow to react enterprise organisations whose sector they disrupted. For example, there is the French start-up who were able to make significant inroads into the Liquid Petroleum Gas (LPG) hospitality sector by offering to fit their clients gas tanks with cheap but effective sensors so they could offer guarantees of uptime instead of the old model of a restaurant always buying surplus to avoid running out of gas mid shift. Or the company that provided sensors for heavy industrial bins, which allowed them to disrupt the refuse collection in their local market by offering a collection service based on need rather than schedule - again a start up that utilised outsourcing, innovation and IoT to disrupt an established market. Or the third party service provider that specialises in coffee vending machines that was able to create an additional revenue stream for their organisation by identifying buying trends within specific store locations and translating that data into insights for their customers who could in turn leverage local population preferences with focused promotional campaigns.

Each of these examples, were driven by use of and an understanding of how IoT can offer additional value to the end customer. Each of the above examples is also a demonstration of a company identifying the additional revenue for advanced services beyond the traditional scope of the service provider.

The essence here is that they are all based on an understanding of the desired outcomes of their customers. So whilst field service companies should absolutely be looking to explore how best they can improve the efficiency of their service delivery through IoT, the real gold is in understanding how you can improve your effectiveness in helping you customers achieve their goals.

That is in a nutshell is servitization and that is exactly where the greatest value of the IoT will surely exist. 

EXCLUSIVE: Firm's cloud-based platform now managing 200,000,000 assets. 

ServiceMax has announced a new company milestone as 200 million assets are now under management on the company’s service execution management platform. 

 

While ERP and CRM systems are key to managing financial and sales data, a technician’s understanding of equipment in need of maintenance and repair is critical for successful service execution. Accurate equipment data is also essential in order to correctly dispatch the best technician for a given job, with the proper tools and needed parts. Unlike other field or asset service management solutions, ServiceMax’s purpose-built platform is designed to manage accurate data about complex equipment as-maintained, providing a reliable system of record for serviced equipment data. Technicians using the ServiceMax platform can depend on always having a reliable, historic record of service jobs, parts replaced and tools used for all previous jobs on a given machine or equipment part.

 

“Field Services are at the core of our strategy and mastering our installed base data is a key enabler to execute,” said Daniel Philippe, Vice President of Global Field Service Operations at Schneider Electric. “Our customers expect us to provide the best services and support. By leveraging ServiceMax as a system of record for the installed base, we can better understand our business, the market dynamics, where the installed base is, and deliver excellent, consistent service across the globe.”

 

“The more sophisticated the equipment, the more service planners, dispatchers, and technicians depend on accurate data for each piece of serviced equipment,” said Amit Jain, Senior Vice President of Product at ServiceMax. “With ServiceMax, service organizations have the ability to capture and update accurate equipment as maintained data. This asset visibility is not available in other enterprise applications and is critical to digital service transformation.”

 

“Getting to a state of consistent master data is a struggle for most organizations,” said Kevin Prouty, Group Vice President for IDC Energy and Manufacturing Insights. “Organizations need a solution that can scale from a few dozen devices to hundreds of thousands of assets. Effectively implementing a system of record puts assets under management to greater use and improves the company’s bottom line.”

 

Having a system of record of your equipment data as maintained in the field is key for organizations wanting to move from break-fix, to proactive and eventually predictive service. Since implementing ServiceMax as the system of record for accurate installed base data, ServiceMax customers have, on average, reduced mean time to repair by 13%, increased first time fix rates by 15%, and improved equipment uptime by 12%.

Are we on the cusp of a revolution or are we experiencing evolution? We spoke to Paul Joesbury, Operations Manager at HomeServe and Chris Proctor, CEO at FSM Software provider Oneserve and got their thoughts on IoT, automation and the general attitude towards new technology adoption...


The impact of technology has been felt far beyond service. Homeserve’s Paul Joesbury worked in finance before joining the utility company “I look back and reflect on my time in finance,” he recalls, “many of the tasks were done manually, like ledger reconciliations, which are all automated now. Previously it would take a bank of humans that would take the best part of a week to reconcile something and now it’s pretty much done with the touch of a button.”

The Operation Manager continues, adamant that his current sector should benefit from the same progress “So why should service operations be different? The technology, I think, is pretty much already there. It’s how it can be applied in a cost-effective way which is going to be the challenge for organisations.”

Chris Proctor is another great believer in technology but he suggests firms should adopt technology for the right reasons. “A lot of companies are trialing new technology at the moment, but it comes down to when it is absolutely necessary, and at what point does the use-case become really tried and really tested.” However, the Oneserve CEO is concerned about the pace of adoption generally in the sector. “I might be lambasted for saying this but I don’t think there has been much innovation,” he says, aware of the statement’s brevity. “It’s disappointing that the last real innovation in field service management was moving to the cloud and even then, I don’t think everyone is fully there yet.”

It’s a bold claim, yet one that has substance. The industry has been accused before of lagging when it comes to embracing disruptive, digital technology. “I think one of the biggest problems the industry has is properly understanding the trajectory of new technology,” he explains. “There’s this concept of necessity being the mother of all inventions and I think there’s a really good point in that. A lot of industries and a lot of sectors are having to go through a lot of change. In the UK there’s so much uncertainty in so many pockets at the moment, trying to make big decisions on how you engage with new technologies is very difficult.”

It’s a sentiment echoed by Joesbury who feels the role of technology will slowly phase out that of the engineer...but not quite yet. “I definitely think in five years’ time that there will still be humans around,” he ponders, “but I think we’ll be doing different roles, and I think the important aspect over the next five years is to learn to trust the technology and equally for the technology to work and we’ve got to embrace that. After that you’re on a journey searching for the next big leap of faith but where does it come from? I’m not sure if service operations is going to be the market leader in this space, but I definitely can see lots of value potential, I think we just have to open our hearts a little bit and embrace it.”

"The impact of technology has been felt far beyond service..."

The society that technology operates in can also influence how it is executed. We are on the cusp of a younger generation who expect everything to work first time. The way in which people communicate is also changing, to a point where digital messaging is superseding vocal interaction.

If the trend is to continue then service will have to adapt to this way of communicating and reflect that in its technology usage. Where does Proctor see the service sector heading? Will there be a fundamental shift in approach as more young people enter the arena? Servitization and the gig economy, he predicts, will have an impact on the way services are delivered. Most likely through a subscription-based model, complimented by disruptive innovations and delivered by freelancers who, in order to maintain their personal brand, deliver consistent service excellence. “I can see a world where most of your services are consumed on a subscription-type basis. You contact your service provider who then uses technology similar to programmatic advertising whereby contracts are tended and bid for and secured within seconds, all underpinned by blockchain.” he says.

The role of blockchain in IoT and its evolution will surely be an important one. As more devices connect with one another than security becomes more of an issue, however Blockchain could provide the ring fence Iot needs. However, Proctor, a passionate advocate for blockchain, wants quicker adoption. “I think there are lots and lots of limitations of how we are going to bring [blockchain] in,” he says. “In exactly the same way that iOT and AI is a technology set that people don’t fully understand. There is a lot of hype around how it can help service but when you scratch under the surface, it’s just a hypothesis,” he pauses, “it has the ability to be truly, truly game changing.”

Blockchain, IoT and AI are all huge potential disruptors in the service sector. IoT could, over the next few years, become something that pushes the boundaries of what we now see as traditional service. As Paul Joesbury said, it’s about “trusting and embracing what is available”. Perhaps then will we witness a number of game changing moments.

Game on!