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

IFS Labs unveiled a live demonstration of an innovative project using drone technology in combination with IoT designed to drive digital transformation at their recent World Conference held in Gothenberg last week... 

Designed and realised by IFS Labs, the company’s in-house think tank, the drone proof-of-concept featured live integration between the drone and IFS Applications for automatic generation of work orders when inspecting assets.

Using computer image analysis, the drone can recognize a break in a power line and automatically generate an observation that is registered in IFS Applications via the IFS IoT Business Connector. The end user can analyze and process the drone observations via the IFS Lobby interface, in which additional information such as geolocation and customer feedback is cross-referenced to help the user action appropriate maintenance and repair.

 

“At IFS Labs, we look beyond the current needs of businesses to anticipate what solutions will be required in the future,” IFS Labs director Bas de Vos said. “There is enormous potential in drone technology and by presenting this proof-of-concept, we have demonstrated that IFS is ready to help companies not only conceptualise but importantly derive value from new innovations so they can digitally transform their businesses.”

Also presented in the Innovation Area of IFS World Conference 2016 are innovative business applications leveraging the Internet of Things (IoT), augmented reality, wearable technology, beacon technology, and 3D printing.

IFS Labs is inspired by consumer technologies and innovative solutions in a range of industries, and applies these to IFS’s enterprise solutions. IFS Labs proves concepts today that customers will ask for tomorrow to make their everyday work more productive, efficient and inspiring.

Read more about IFS Labs’ past and current projects here: www.ifsworld.com/corp/solutions/ifs-applications/ifs-labs/

 

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IFS announced yesterday the launch of IFS IoT Business Connector, a new product that is designed to shorten the time from ideas to tangible benefits for customers’ IoT initiatives by providing an end-to-end architecture and the ability to turn IoT discoveries into actions.

The product which was first announced yesterday during CEO Alastair Sorbie's  keynote and demonstrated this morning by Dan Matthews, CTO IFS at the IFS World Conference 2016 currently running in Gothenburg, Sweden.

IFS IoT Business Connector has been designed to de-risk and accelerate IoT initiatives in areas such as predictive maintenance, service management, asset management, and manufacturing. It provides the ability to harness data gathered from products, assets and equipment to identify actionable observations that trigger user-defined, automated or semi-automated workflows in the IFS enterprise software. IFS IoT Business Connector provides plug-and-play connectivity with the Microsoft Azure IoT Suite for device communications and data analytics, alongside open APIs to connect other IoT platforms or specialized IoT discovery applications.

IFS IoT Business Connector bridges the gap between analysis of IoT data and using the output from such analyses to execute maintenance, service, and manufacturing more efficiently. It adds the ability to turn an investment in IoT connectivity and data analytics into savings through process efficiencies, and into new revenues through service innovation.

The key components of IFS IoT Business Connector are:

• IFS IoT Controller, determining what actions to take when IoT data analysis reveals observations relevant to the business. It also handles a range of practical issues that occur when mapping operational technology (OT) into IT and business applications.
•  IFS IoT Gateway, enabling secure communications between the cloud-based discovery and analytics of IoT data, to the on-premise or cloud-based IFS products.
• IFS IoT Discovery Manager, providing additional management and monitoring capabilities when using the Microsoft Azure IoT Suite as the discovery platform.

The IFS IoT Business Connector is currently being implemented at early adopter customers Songa Offshore, an international midwater drilling contractor, ATS, a leading provider of factory maintenance and IT services based in the U.S., Anticimex, an international pest control company, and Hecla Mining, the North American precious metals mining company.

“We decided to join the early adopter program because we understood the enormous impact that IoT technology can have on our business,” ATS Automation Director of IT Christopher Lebeau said. “By connecting our field service value chain we are able to automate our processes in a new way and use the insights to make smarter business decisions.”

Anticimex CEO Jarl Dahlfors said, “The IFS IoT Business Connector allows us to take control of the data generated by our range of digital pest control devices, improving both the service to our customers as well as providing them with the information they need.”

IFS CTO Dan Matthews added, “By working with our customers and partners we are able to connect the dots so that investments in IoT not only yield piles of data and pretty charts, but result in real actions that are co-planned and executed in an optimal way together with everything else that is going on in a business. For our customers it means an easier way to get started with IoT, lower risks, and faster time to realized value.”

The IFS IoT Business Connector will be released to market in early 2017. Find out more: www.ifsworld.com/iot.

 

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Having conducted exclusive research into the use of Cloud based Field Service Management Systems in 2015, Field Service News and ClickSoftware have once again teamed up and returned to the topic one year on to see just how their predictions based on last year's findings have borne out. 

In part one of this series we looked at exactly what those predictions last year were as well as some of the headline findings of this year's research. Now in part two we will look to see what trends have emerged year on year plus Marina Stedman, Global Field Marketing Director, ClickSoftware offers her expert view as to what these trends mean for field service organisations...

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Year-on-year trends:

The headline finding of this year’s research is that we have indeed seen a continued shift towards more companies using the Cloud for their FSM systems. When comparing data from 2014, 2015 and 2016, we have also seen increasing year on year growth.

Indeed, the number of companies now using Cloud based FSM systems is well over a third, with 36% of our respondents stating that they are now Cloud users. This is a year on year increase of 8% in terms of companies using the Cloud for FSM systems.

Not only does this show a continuing move to the Cloud, but it is also a relatively significant increase in the year-on-year growth we saw in the previous year’s research.

In fact, the increase in companies moving to the Cloud within the last twelve months is almost three times more than it was in the previous year (9% vs. 3%).

This would certainly add weight to our conclusions last year that Cloud was gaining traction as a platform for FSM tools, and that we would see this continue to increase as companies begun to upgrade their older legacy systems. Further evidence that the shift to Cloud is happening at a faster rate is revealed when we look at how long those companies who are now using a Cloud based FSM solution have been doing so.

 

Of those companies now using Cloud based FSM solutions a third (33%) have been doing so for less than six months.This is a slight uplift compared to similar responses in 2015, which in turn were higher than the results of 2014.

Indeed, across the three years that we have conducted research into this topic we have seen an increase of 10% amongst those companies that had recently (within the last 6 months) made a move to the Cloud at the time of the relevant research project.

This would again support our previous hypothesis that the somewhat relatively slower move to Cloud computing as a platform for FSM solutions (when compared to other business operations tools such as CRM) is largely tied to companies’ timetables for moving away from their existing, legacy systems.

Given that field service is a mission critical area of operations that is gaining ever more importance (as service revenue becomes more frequently a major proportion of many organisations’ total revenue), importance of preparing and planning for a FSM system - whether it be Cloud based or on-premise, is perhaps understandable.

 

Also, when we consider that companies have traditionally regarded the shelf life of FSM software to be somewhere between three and seven years (with some companies even ‘sweating’ their software solutions well beyond the ten year mark) the implementation of new FSM systems takes time.

However, it is clear that the trend towards Cloud adoption is accelerating and on the main when companies do upgrade their FSM systems, they are more likely to opt for the Cloud as the platform for their new system.

Expert View: Marina Stedman, Global Field Marketing Director, ClickSoftware

As we said in last year’s report, the cloud is not a new concept, in fact it’s nearly twenty years since Salesforce, a company that has only ever offered cloud-based solutions, was established.

While the field service industry has taken some time to catch up, “move to the cloud or remain on-premise” is a key topic in the field service industry today.

While field service staff have typically been managed and dispatched to customers in a fairly traditional and hierarchical manner, that’s a difficult model to maintain nowadays as demanding consumers, used to instant “uberized” service and status updates expect everything to be delivered faster, more flexibly and more responsively.

The power of cloud computing and the ubiquity of mobile devices means companies can now redesign their entire FSM process to the benefit of both the engineer and the customer, giving everyone instant information about their jobs, projects and appointments whenever, however and wherever they want it.

The findings from this survey clearly show that the Cloud is the way forwards for field service, with every single organisation that has moved to the Cloud saying they would recommend it over an on-premise solution and over two-thirds (69%) of users of on-premise FSM systems, considering the Cloud for their next upgrade.

 

When considering perceptions of the Cloud, over half (56%) now see Cloud as the future of enterprise computing, an increase of 7% in just 12 months. Organisations of all sizes see the benefit. 58% of organisations with large field teams (more than 300 field service engineers) said that Cloud is the “future of enterprise computing”, (a change of 9% from 49% in 2014/15) and 57% with smaller field teams (less than 50 engineers) agreed, compared to 40% in the previous survey.

Working with customers all over the world, ClickSoftware has found the Cloud to be a great leveller, enabling every organisation, no matter what size, location or business model to rapidly adopt and improve upon the same applications and processes that drive enhanced customer service for everyone.

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One year on from our investigation into the appetite for Cloud Computing as a platform for field service management systems, ClickSoftware and Field Service News return to the topic to see how trends have evolved within the last twelve months and to find out if our prediction of a gradual shift towards Cloud ultimately becoming the norm in field service is starting to come true...

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In 2015 Field Service News partnered with leading Field Service Management (FSM) software provider ClickSoftware on a research project, which aimed to take a measure of the feelings toward Cloud computing as a platform for productivity tools amongst field service professionals.

Now one year on both parties have returned to the topic to see if the trends we identified and the developments we predicted have materialised and to build an up-to-date picture of both the adoption and appetite for Cloud computing as a platform for Field Service Management systems.

In this white paper, co-published by Field Service News and ClickSoftware, we shall review the data from our latest research, providing year-on-year comparative analysis to identify what new trends have emerged and how attitudes towards the Cloud have evolved amongst senior management within the field service industry.

Previously identified trends:

To begin let’s briefly recap the findings of last year’s research (which was the second time we had focused on the use of Cloud within a field service context as a subject for our research.)

Whilst the headline findings of that project identified that a large majority of field service companies (74%) were still using on-premise solutions, there was clear evidence that a shift to Cloud was on the horizon.

There were two key findings that supported this hypothesis.

Firstly, there was the overwhelming evidence that the Cloud was proving to be a success amongst those companies that had made the move away from traditional on-premise solutions. In fact, when we asked those respondents who had made such a move ‘would you recommend a Cloud based field service management solution over an on-premise solution?’ 100% of them replied that they would.

However, the findings were perhaps even more telling when we turned to those companies that were still using on-premise solutions.

Amongst this group of respondents, we found that over two-thirds of companies (69%) admitted they would consider moving to the Cloud when they next upgraded their FSM solution.

Such findings led us to arrive at the hypothesis that eventually we would see a widespread move to the Cloud. It was our prediction that we would potentially see a complete pendulum shift, with up to 75% of companies using Cloud based FSM solutions within the next five years.

 

Last year’s research also identified that concerns around the security of the Cloud were the biggest potential barrier to adoption. In fact, 38% of respondents that were not using a Cloud based FSM solution stated that they felt that security was the greatest issue with Cloud.

Yet that same research also highlighted that this is generally not the case - security issues were less prevalent than both connectivity and integration issues amongst companies actually using a Cloud based FSM tools.

It was our assertion last year that there was a need for greater education and understanding of the security of the Cloud, particularly at the enterprise level amongst executives within the field service sector - so that perception and reality could become more closely aligned. Once this was achieved we would likely see the shift to Cloud becoming the most widely used platform for FSM systems gaining greater momentum.

So how have the opinions of field service professionals changed across the last twelve months?

Has there been the continued trend in the number of companies making the move away from on-premise FSM software to Cloud based equivalents that we predicted we would see? Has the perception of Cloud security improved amongst Field Service Management professionals? And has the appetite for Cloud based FSM systems gained any greater momentum?

Executive Summary: Key findings:

• Over a third of companies are now using Cloud based Field Service Management (FSM) systems
• The rate of adoption of Cloud based FSM systems has increased dramatically year-on-year with almost three times as many companies moving to the Cloud in 2015/2016 than did in 2014/2015
• The move to the Cloud appears to be directly aligned to the move away from legacy systems with over two thirds of companies that are still using on-premise FSM solutions working with FSM systems that are at least three years old
• Similarly, of those using Cloud based FSM solutions, a third have made the move within the last six months - which would suggest that not only is the rate of adoption of Cloud based FSM solutions increasing, but it is doing so at a quicker pace than in previous years
• This is further supported by the fact that over two thirds of companies that are currently using Cloud based FSM solutions would consider the Cloud for the next iteration of their FSM system
• The most common key driver for companies adopting Cloud based FSM solutions is that the Cloud offers greater flexibility. However, once implemented, increased functionality is the number one benefit felt by companies using Cloud based FSM systems
• Amongst those who have implemented Cloud based FSM systems, the move has been overwhelmingly positive with 100% of these companies stating they would recommend a Cloud based FSM system over an on-premise equivalent
• Finally, fears around the security of the Cloud, which was seen to be the biggest barrier to adoption in previous research are abating. Just 6% stated that they felt they wouldn’t trust placing sensitive data in the Cloud whilst over half of respondents felt that the Cloud was the future of enterprise computing.

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Click here to download the full research report now

 

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Read the next part of this research report where we will look drill deeper into the findings of this year's research... 

 

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Augmented Reality has the potential to transform the way we approach field service but is the technology ready to go mainstream? Kris Oldland talks exclusively to Scott Montgomerie, CEO of Scope AR...

Any regular readers of Field Service News will know that we’ve been fans of the potential use of Augmented Reality (AR) for some time here at Field Service News towers.

However, in the past it has sometimes felt that we were something of a lone voice in championing the potential of AR to possibly change the way that a number of companies operate their field service operations, with AR seemingly get far less attention than other emerging technologies like Cloud Computing, Internet of Things or even Wearables.

Yet there is a definite sense that things are beginning to change.

At the recent Field Service Forum held in Amsterdam, I hosted a series of round-tables on the topic of AR and whereas just a year ago the conversation was very much around understanding the technology and its application within a field service deployment, now the talk has shifted to how such technology can be implemented.

 

Indeed, the busiest booth in the exhibitor zone at the conference was that of Swedish AR provider XM Reality who had a constant group of Service Directors around them as they demonstrated their approach to the tech.

Similarly at both Field Service Medical and Field Service USA earlier this year Help Lightning, whose own AR solution evolved from an emergency healthcare solution, were the darlings of both events.

And another AR provider that has seen the potential of AR in field service is Scope AR, a Californian based company that have been putting together an impressive list of clients and partners across the last five years which includes the likes of Phillips, Toyota and Boeing.

They’ve certainly built up a decent pedigree within the fledgling sector - much of which can be attributed to the bold view they hold that AR not just about enhancing existing communications channels but in fact a completely new form of user interface that can transform the way we utilise the ever growing computing power available to us on the move.

As CEO Scott Montgomerie explains “We’ve been doing augmented reality for quite a while, we started in the space about five years ago and when we started looking at use cases we realised that AR wasn’t just a new fun technology but a user interface that could allow people to interact with the real world in a way that had never been done before.”

“If you think about the way that people have been interacting with computers and all the benefits they bring such as analytics and the computations they can give us, we have been interacting with them ever since inception through a two dimensional screen  - whether it be mobile, tablet or desktop. Augmented Reality really provides you with an opportunity to interact with the real world in the way that we have evolved - with our eyes and hands. Seeing things positioned in 3D just like we are meant to.”

 

Scott and his team were able to take this thinking and hone in very quickly on the areas of industry that could benefit from AR, including of course field service.

“We realised there is a whole segment of industry that hasn’t really had the ability to take advantage of the amazing power of the computers they use,” he continues.

“And that’s really where we see Augmented Reality providing huge benefits - by bringing massive computing power in a brand new user interface and allowing guys that use their eyes and their hands out in the field to take advantage of this new technology..”

In fact, the Scope AR story essentially begins with a piece of work they did for a client working within the mining and aggregates sector.

Having been approached to put together a step-by-step training solution that harnessed the power of AR, the project evolved quickly to a proof of concept that their client liked so much they decided to showcase it at MineExpo in Las Vegas.

What was supposed to be relatively low key three demonstrations a day across three days snowballed into being one of the event’s main highlights, with Montgomerie and his colleagues eventually giving 110 presentations with crowds of up to a 100 people at each.

This was the tipping point for Montgomerie where he realised the potential of the application and just how pervasive it could be.

 

“From there on we were like wow - I think we’ve found something!” He admits

Soon Scope AR were working with the likes of Boeing and Toyota building out more step-by -step training and maintenance procedures. A period which Montgomerie explains as “just being a service company trying to work out how best to use Augmented Reality.”

The work that was undertaken at this point was what ultimately led to the development of the WorkLink platform that Scope AR have recently launched.

And whilst the primary purpose for WorkLink is as a training tool, having watched the demonstration I immediately could also see an application for health and safety compliance also.

Many field service management solutions currently offer a check-list functionality in order to ensure workers are not only meeting compliance standards but working in a safe manner. Things like switch off the mains, then remove the cover plate, then remove screw ‘a’ for example - with each step only being revealed once the current one is completed.

Through the WorkLink platform, each of these steps can be both visually demonstrated and also confirmed as completed via built-in analytics that capture checklist verifications and metadata such as how long it took to perform each step.

In short the content creation platform allows the rapid development of AR work instructions, allowing you to use converted 3D models, add animations, text, images, videos, check-lists, etc. in a branched workflow, to give intuitive, visual instructions.

Another useful benefit is that once ‘smart’ instructions are deployed into the field, the digital instructions automatically start collecting valuable data such as time per step, user and usage information, geo location, etc which can lead to greater insight to how your engineers are performing.

However, whilst this WorkLink has clear applications as either a training or compliance tool it does have limitations in-terms of being a communication platform for connecting remote engineers to more experienced colleagues.

 

Part of the problem, which is faced by many AR providers not just Scope AR, is that computer vision right now is still fairly rudimentary and in the field you ideally want a system to recognise parts automatically.

Scope AR like many similar tools relies primarily on fiducial markers and in the field these can get ripped or damage fairly easily.

So whilst Scope AR do offer their customers durable ‘beer coaster’ sized markers to help over come this issue, their alternative offering ‘Remote AR’ is a simpler use of AR technology that whilst still making use of markers,  is more focussed on the use of annotations and drawings that can be added by the both users and which once added will stay fixed to relevant device section regardless of whether or not the video angle changes.

The solution also has a low band-width option which reduces the video feed to every 5 frames which again is a simple but highly effective and practical way of dealing with one of the other biggest challenges of AR - connectivity.

 

And as with WorkLink, Remote AR was also a solution that was born out of a real life working scenario.

“We were working with a client in Brazil who were facing a major problem where they were manufacturing equipment in Brazil and distributing it in Africa and they were having a lot of communications problems - the local Africans didn’t understand Portuguese and the Brazilians didn’t understand the African dialect, so they had to send people from Brazil over to Africa to fix the equipment at enormous cost,” explains Montgomerie.

“They told us was ‘what we really want to be able to do is get on a video call with these guys and be able to draw and annotate and show what they are doing an create instructions in real time.’ So that was the idea behind Remote AR - that the technician in the field could transmit by video what he is seeing to an expert and that expert can draw annotations in Augmented Reality and as the technician moves around those annotations can stick to what he is looking at”

“It is really a fairly basic use of Augmented Reality but it’s very useful, it’s very practical and it’s usable now.” He adds.

In fact to add further weight to this assertion Montgomerie is able to cite another of their clients, with a field force of 10,000 engineers who have been able to use Remote AR to reduce the amount of time spent on support calls within a contact centre by over half.

However, despite case studies such as these coming to the fore, there still remains in many corners the perception that whilst AR is undoubtedly a technology with huge potential within field service, is still has some way to go in terms of maturity before it becomes pervasive.

 

Yet, Montgomerie believes that this is now starting to change.

“We were definitely around in the early days when AR was just starting to get accepted as a tool for the enterprise, but I think this year we have started to see an inflection point. We have now reached the point where people are aware of Augmented Reality and they want to use it, they now know it’s viable,” he comments.

Indeed, the technology has developed at a rapid pace across the last half a decade - although as further developments in hardware appear on the horizon there is a lot of potential for further refinement.

“As far as where the technology is, just within the last couple of years we’ve started to see cameras that are good enough to pick up those markers in challenging conditions and 3D cameras and Google’s Tango is really exciting for us . We are really looking forward to that getting into wider circulation”

“We really like the partnership that they did with Lenovo we expect to buy a whole load of those Lenovo phones (the Lenovo Phab 2 Pro which features depth sensing camera technology) for our customers. I actually expect that depth sensing technology to be in our all of our phones in the next few years - there is just too many cool things you can do with it to pass it up.”

“Apple acquired a company a while ago called PrimeSense, and then they acquired a software company last year called Metaio and with the two of those they are in an extremely good position to bring out a depth camera as well.”

“So I think that the hardware manufacturers are really going to solve that problem for us a. With depth tracking cameras a) we will be able to do marker tracking so much better and b) the level of interaction you can have between the two users  is much, much better.”

Indeed arguably the introduction of depth sensitive cameras as a commonplace inclusion in smartphones and tablets could just be the final breakthrough that AR needs to cement itself as a regular tool amongst field service organisations.

 

And Montgomerie thinks this will happen sooner rather than later.

“I think that we will see this in about two years,” he states.

“I believe the Lenovo phone is set  to launch in September and there are a couple of other OEMs lining up there announcements as well. Then what we typically see with phone manufacturers is when a very advanced technology comes out within the next year many other manufacturers pick it up and then within the following year it becomes lower cost and quite pervasive. So within the next couple of years I think we will see this technology being on all phones.”

So does Montgomerie see his client base as early adopters?

“Its a little bit of both,” he explains. “We’ve definitely got a lot of companies that are forward thinking - they are actively looking for the latest and greatest technologies and they want to be on the leading edge, but we’ve also got some of our companies, and actually they are some of our best customers, that are not exactly forward thinking.”

“Some of them weren’t even sure what Augmented Reality was, they just contacted us after seeing our videos, and seeing the utility of Remote AR and they saw that they could communicate much better than they were capable of doing currently.”

“In that sense they weren’t looking for the technology but they actually saw that it solved a real problem for them and they were ready to adopt it. I’m not really sure that they even fully understood what Augmented Reality is - they just know this is a product that works.”

This is perhaps the greatest selling point for both Scope AR and Augmented Reality in general. As with any technology that eventually takes root and becomes part of our day-to-day operations it is the actual benefit, and the methodology of improving business processes that companies want to buy - rather than the technology itself.

Of course it is impossible to have any conversation about Augmented Reality today without inevitably touching on Pokemon Go.

 

For those that have just returned from Mars, Pokemon Go is a mobile gaming phenomenon that uses Augmented Reality to bring one of  Nintendo’s best loved franchises into the Twenty First century. In fact it’s hard not to bump into someone that hasn’t at least heard of Pokemon Go such is the phenomenon - and it is putting AR directly into the hands of the man on the street.

But is that a good thing for AR in the enterprise? It certainly does give a clear, if somewhat simplistic understanding of what AR is to the average person.

But is there a danger that the power of AR as a genuine productivity tool within field service and wider enterprise could be dismissed as a gimmick if it is too heavily associated with a mobile game?

Given Montgomerie’s position as a leader within the sector I felt he was the perfect man to address this question.

“I think it’s good for AR in general in that it’s bringing awareness of the technology to people - at the very least I won’t have to explain what augmented reality is anymore!” He quips.

“I think its proving that AR is viable as a technology. Even though it is very simplistic use of it - I was playing with that type of use of AR five years ago - maybe longer. We do much more sophisticated applications of AR in the sense that aligning content precisely on top of equipment is much harder than putting a fuzzy animal at some unspecified location in front of you. But still I think it’s great for the industry and that can only be good for us.”

So whether it be depth sensitive camera’s, Google Tango or the ability to catch a Charmander while out doing your shopping, it seems it is just a matter of time before Augmented Reality seeps into the mainstream consciousness.

And given it’s potential to have a profoundly transformational effect on how we undertake field service operations, the likelihood is it will become a pervasive part of our industry soon enough as well.

 

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New findings from Juniper Research reveal that the automotive head-up display market will exceed 16 million installed units by the end of 2021, with the market anticipated to expand fourfold during the forecast period 2016-2021. 

The new research, Automotive HUDs: Innovations, Strategies & Leaders 2016-2021, found that the market will be driven by increased adoption in mass-market vehicles, with growth boosted by aftermarket HUD sales.

Juniper believes that the market will begin to accelerate in 2017 as more OEMs integrate HUDs into their medium segment cars and predicts that around 1 in 8 new vehicles will come with an OEM-fitted HUD by 2021.

AR-HUDs Promise to Transform the Market

AR (Augmented Reality) is the most exciting advance in HUD innovation with navigation and ADAS safety warnings being the biggest opportunities. The availability of sophisticated AR content could be a game changer leading to an upswing in HUD installations if drivers perceive value to the technology.

However, cost and technical challenges remain which, coupled with production delays, mean that AR-HUDs will account for less than 6% of the OEM HUD market by 2021.

Prioritising Information Critical to Safe HUD Design 

As more content is added, there is a danger of information overload for the driver, particularly in the case of smartphone-based aftermarket HUDs, where vendors seem keen to add infotainment-type content in a bid to make their products look as appealing as possible to potential customers.

“At present, there is a legal void with respect to what type of content should or should not be displayed on HUDs”,said research author Gareth Owen. “The NHTSA is currently studying HUD displays and plans to issue guidelines soon which could hit aftermarket HUD sales in the coming years.”

Other key findings include:

• Growth in the automotive HUD market could be impacted by AR glasses, which could reduce demand for HUDs, particularly in lower cost vehicles.
• Juniper anticipates that AR-HUDs could replace the centre-dash stack in the long term.

The report forms part of Juniper’s ongoing analysis of Connected Cars & Telematics. A complimentary whitepaper, ‘Head-up Displays ~ The Road Ahead’, is available to download from the Juniper website together with further details of the full research.

 

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As the importance of harnessing the latest technology to ensure service delivery is as efficient as possible grows, field service companies appear to be investing more frequently in technology than ever before as the latest research by Field Service News in partnership with ServiceMax appears to show. 

 

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Almost a third of field service companies are now investing in technology on an annual basis now the early findings of the current research from Field Service News and ServiceMax reveals.

In fact, whilst 34% of companies are investing on an annual basis an additional 27% are investing in field service technology every two-years - meaning almost two thirds of field service companies surveyed appear to be investing in technology a lot faster than the perceived 3 to 5 year replacement cycle many industry experts cite.

The same survey, which is still running and available for field service professionals to participate in by clicking here, also highlights that over three quarters of field service professionals do not think their company is investing sufficiently enough in field service technology to deliver a competitive level of service, with 77% of our respondents stating they felt this was the case. 

It is perhaps no surprise that the technologies that are viewed as key for driving forward improved service delivery are Mobile, Cloud, IoT and Big Data. Each of which were identified by over half of respondents as having an impact within their own organisations.

Mobile technology remains the most prominent of these four,being cited by 71% of companies, which given it's longer standing and maturity within a field service environment is of little surprise. What is perhaps a bit more unexpected however is that 58% of companies state that IoT or connected assets are already having an impact in their field service organisations, when we think that the first dedicated field service systems including Connected Field Service by ServiceMax only started appearing earlier this year.

 

This is particularly interesting as the potential impact of IoT in Field Service could be literally game changing as companies begin to move away from traditional break fix and towards more predictive, servitized business models.

Indeed, the early results of this research certainly support this hypothesis with 63% of companies admitting they are preparing for the cultural impact that the introduction of IoT will have in their organisations, whilst a further 13% state that they have already prepared for the impact.

How does this align to your own organisation? Take part in our research and once the results are concluded you will receive a copy of an exclusive white paper detailing the findings of the report. Plus every research project we run includes a prize draw for our respondents with three £50 Amazon vouchers available for each project. We recently announced the last three lucky winners here - could you be next?

 

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Advantech, a global leader in embedded computing and IoT technology announce the launch of its new WISE-PaaS/RMM version 3.1, an IoT device management software platform...

 

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WISE-PaaS/RMM 3.1 is an open standardised IoT software platform for users by applying MQTT, a standard and popular IoT M2M protocol for device and server communication.

WISE-PaaS/RMM 3.1 comes with more than 100 RESTful APIs including, account management, device management, device control, event management, system management, and database management. RESTful APIs create new web services and help integrate functions and data with their management tools.

Furthermore, WISE-PaaS/RMM 3.1 will release WISE-Agent source code as open source. WISE-Agent software works on the device side, helping customers to develop their own applications. WISE-PaaS/RMM highly enhances connectivity for hardware, software, devices and sensors, and helps customers to transform their business to include IoT cloud services.

It has been widely discussed amongst specialists within field service technology that the perhaps the only key barrier to mass adoption of IoT in a field service and maintenance context is the current lack of standardised platforms, and it is hoped that other significant players within the IoT arena will follow Advantech's lead in adopting open architecture to allow for easy app development.

 

Other features highlighted by Advantech in this announcement were as follows:

Centralised Management for Big Data Visualization

Based on WISE-PaaS/RMM 3.0 for remote device monitoring and management, version 3.1 offers centralised management and a dashboard builder for data visualization. Customers can develop dashboards to monitor and manage all their connected devices. WISE-PaaS/RMM 3.1 is also integrated with Node-Red which is a “drag and drop” logic editor tool for users to access data and features in WISE-PaaS/RMM 3.1 for device flow and action control management.

High Availability for Large Scalability

To provide a stable and reliable centralised management platform, WISE-PaaS/RMM 3.1 includes server redundancy whereby devices can have direct connection, with the security of a back-up server if the main server loses connection. This is designed to make sure data and services auto-sync between the main server and the back-up server. WISE-PaaS/RMM 3.1 also provides a hierarchical server, which supports the main server and sub-server structure at the same time. Users can use the sub-server for local device management and use the main server to collect data from local servers in order to disperse the load on the main server.

Sensor/Device Connectivity for Data Acquisition

To connect devices and consolidate data acquisition, WISE-PaaS/RMM 3.1 provides a handler structure in WISE-Agent for users to extend data acquisition capability to connected devices. Customers can develop routines based on sample code Advantech provides to create handlers for their own devices and application scenarios. Advantech provides two data bases (MongoDB and PostgreDB), SQL and no-SQL, for data storage and easy management.

WISE-PaaS/RMM 3.1, Open Standardization in IoT Software Platform

With WISE-PaaS/RMM 3.1, customers can collect data from devices, equipment, sensors and software, shorten development time and reduce development resources. It helps customers develop new IoT application models and it also integrates with Advantech’s IoT Gateway Starter Kit, a ready-to-run package with pre-configured hardware, platform services (WISE-PaaS) and Microsoft’s Azure service certification.

WISE-PaaS/RMM 3.1 helps Advantech partners to develop innovative IoT services and transform with new IoT business models. Advantech works with Microsoft Marketplace so that customers can launch their solution and transform their business from solution selling to service selling.

 

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According to a new research report from the M2M/IoT analyst firm Berg Insight, the installed base of wireless IoT devices in industrial automation reached 14.3 million in 2015.

The number of wireless IoT devices in automation networks will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 27.7 percent to reach 62.0 million by 2021.

There is a wide range of wireless technologies used in industrial automation with different characteristics and use cases. Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are the most widespread technologies in factory automation while cellular connectivity typically is used for remote monitoring and backhaul communication between plants.

The increasing popularity of Ethernet based networks in factory automation is one of the key drivers for the popularity of Wi-Fi in such applications. 802.15.4 based standards such as WirelessHART and ISA100.11a are major contenders at the field level in process automation networks. The emerging area of Low Power Wide Area Networking (LPWAN) is a promising alternative in remote monitoring applications.

The wireless IoT device market is served by a multitude of players from various backgrounds including global automation solution providers, automation equipment and solution vendors, industrial communication specialists and IoT communication specialists. Emerson, Honeywell, GE and Yokogawa are leading vendors of 802.15.4 devices in industrial automation. Siemens, Cisco, Belden, Moxa, Schneider Electric and Eaton are major vendors of Wi-Fi devices while Eaton, GE and Sierra Wireless are important vendors of cellular devices for industrial automation applications.

 

Higher levels of automation and IoT solutions enable shorter lead times, lower inventories, increased throughput as well as more flexibility and the ability to respond faster to changing customer needs.

Of course IoT is also fundamental in allowing companies to move away from the traditional break-fix model of field service delivery towards proactive pre-failure maintenance scheduling which delivers better client uptime as well as efficiency savings for the service provider.

“Wireless communication and industrial IoT solutions can provide integration of different automation systems as well as enterprise systems which enables supply chains to be lean, even with a complex mix of products and output levels” said Johan Svanberg, Senior Analyst, Berg Insight. “Connected automation solutions also open up the possibility for entirely new business and service models which can give companies a much needed competitive edge in today’s manufacturing landscape”, concluded Mr. Svanberg.

 

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