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

With over 20 years’ experience in the industry Chris Beling looks at the connection between ‘best-in-class’ service organisations and the use of business intelligence.

True or false? The importance of turning data into meaningful business intelligence has never been so critical for the service management industry as success criteria and the ability to deliver ‘service excellence’ continues to move further away from the ‘wrench’ and more towards a customer centric focus.

Recent reports published earlier in 2015 suggest that ‘best-in-class’ service organisations are reaping the benefits of such an approach with figures showing higher customer satisfaction and customer retention rates as well as a year-on-year increase in service margins. So why isn’t everybody adopting this approach?

One of the main challenges faced by the wider market is progressive technology. So what do I mean by this? I’m referring to the pace at which technology and service management software advance and the ability, or lack of, for service organisations to adapt and adopt these advances successfully to help drive business growth.

The service environment varies greatly, whether you’re a service centre handling thousands of repairs every day, or a service provider with a large team of field engineers managing a hugely varied portfolio of assets all over the country (or all over the world for that matter) . Consequently ‘out of the box’ solutions don’t always match organisations’ exact requirements

 

Disparate systems, legacy data, complex assets and growing customer demand all add to the challenge of providing ‘service excellence’ in the complex world of service management. So even if you know that customer satisfaction, an increase in contract renewals, improved service margins, workforce efficiency drives, moving from reactive resolution to a PPM based approach are all essential for business growth and maintaining a competitive advantage, how do you provide service excellence without impacting current performance?

Here’s how? With a service management solution that provides a comprehensive end-to-end process engine and the flexibility to match your exact requirements, keeping you in complete control of operations, whilst at the same time providing management with a holistic view across the organisation and not just delivering data but revealing business intelligence.

Leading organisations are now looking at service as a ‘profit centre’ in its own right with management embracing the concept of a ‘customer centric focus’ in order to excel at service operations and drive revenue.

With a central system receiving data automatically and simultaneously from multiple parts of the business - at the point of job creation through the service desk; from engineers in the field via mobile technology; direct from assets with M2M capabilities to name but a few – business intelligence doesn’t just report on the number of calls completed ‘on-time’ but the provides insight into what it took to close those calls and how they could have been prevented the in the first place.

It’s reported that 41% of service jobs are now Planned Preventive Maintenance (PPM) visits within best-in-class service organisations which indicates greater control of resources, planning and cost allowing them to optimise their workforce, increase productivity and improve margins. This single shift in approach from reactive to predictive can have a huge impact on margins with fewer reactive calls, an increase in ‘first-time fix’ rates, improved asset up-time and, of course, enhanced customer satisfaction.

 

In any business, and this is nothing new, it’s more costly and resource intensive to generate new business rather than nurturing existing customers. Service management is no different. So, if we find ways to achieve ‘service excellence’ and in turn improve customer satisfaction, it would be fair to expect to see an increase in contract renewals, customer retention and customer referrals.

The expertise of service management software providers, their ability to provide comprehensive solutions and their ability to work in partnership with their customers to understand requirements, are all essential for the successful implementation of a ‘service excellence’ strategy within any business. After all, you only get out of a system what you put in – so if business intelligence is the required output you must be able to input, capture and monitor the data in the first place.

The ability to connect and optimise assets, contracts, customers and workforce using one central system that can provide real-time visibility to operational performance and turn a myriad of data into meaningful business intelligence seems like a game changer to me. Investing in, and building on, solutions that offer that business intelligence will be what separates those organisations at the top of their game from the rest of the field.

 

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Welcome back to this exclusive Field Service News series in which Kris Oldland is exploring some of the technologies that could well become common place tools in the field engineer of 2020’s armoury.

In part one the focus was on smart watches, now in this the second feature in the series we look at how their close cousin the smart glasses and drones could begin to see regular use in field service also.

Wearables- smart glasses

However, whilst smart watches have the ability to improve the way we work in field service, smart glasses have the power to completely change the way we approach our field service operations.

A big statement? Perhaps, especially given the recent press Google Glass has had.

However, it’s important to highlight that whilst the ending of the Public Glass Xplorer program may have been reported in some quarters as an admission of failure, the fact is that the very opposite is true.
Google’s move of taking Glass out of their research division and into their main headquarters, as well as placing Tony Fadell, the creator of the iPod and the NEST thermostat suggests anything but. Yet there has definitely been a change of emphasis for Glass and the new focus is very much on industry which makes a huge amount of sense given it’s potential applications.

Of course whilst Glass may be the most high profile brand of smart glasses, Google are not the only maker of smart glasses, in fact there many other companies such as Vuzix or Pivothead as well as a Samsung release being expected this year. And then there is the highly exciting Microsoft Hololens also rumoured for launch later this year again, which if it lives up to the early hype could even push this fledgling technology space even further.

 

However, lets return to the topic at hand, a moment ago I mentioned that smart-glasses could change the very way field service operates… so what did I mean by that…Smart glasses don’t just offer hands free communications, they provide a true ‘see-what-I-see’ experience. The implications for this in field service are huge.

Not so long ago labour used to be cheap and things were expensive. Today the reverse is true and this is simply result of the continuing evolution of technology one of the big challenges for many field service organisations, particularly those working on complex devices such as medical equipment for example is managing the cost of getting their highly trained engineers on-site.

In fact this is often the biggest cost of a repair rather than any replacement parts etc.

Not only is there the cost of flying or even driving an engineer to a location which can be considerable, particularly if your operation is global, but also the time it takes for that engineer to be working on each specific repair, especially if your engineers are a highly skilled workforce.

Smart glasses can give a company the ability to use cheaper, less skilled local engineers, to undertake the repair guided by an experienced, engineer who is able to see the work carried being carried out remotely via video stream.

Through this type of application of smart glasses companies can open up huge potential cost savings by not only reducing the cost of each repair, but also by improving the efficiency massively of each of your engineers.

It could also lead to the potential expansion of a field service company into territories it may have been previously uneconomical to enter in. Not too mention the soft benefit of improving your engineers work/life balance which again could lead to better staff retention.

So the simple introduction of smart glasses could pave the way to completely restructure your entire field service operation into a much more efficient and productive unit.

Drones

Whilst Drones or UAD’s to use the official title have been around for sometime they’re potential commercial applications has recently starting soaring.

It was just over a year ago that Amazon launched, what I truly think will go down in history as one of the greatest PR stunts of the last twenty years by announcing Amazon Prime Air complete with a slick video of a drone picking up a parcel from the depot, making it’s way cross country before politely delivering it’s package at the front door.

The result was global press coverage and an 18 minute slot on America’s prime time show 60 minutes as Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos did his best to make the whole thing look like a genuine glimpse of the not so distant future.[quote float="right"]Like any great ‘blag’ it included a very healthy dose of truth to add as much credibility to the statement as possible.

 

The way the online retail giant painted the picture is of course absurd and riddled with flaws. The approach would require huge amendments to air space regulations for a start not to mention the vast amount of investment in AI to give the drones the ability to deal with any potential pitfalls and hazards along the way.

However, not only was the Amazon announcement was perfectly timed as it raised the their profile the day before cyber-Monday, but like any great ‘blag’ it included a very healthy dose of truth to add as much credibility to the statement as possible. The fact is that the commercial use of drones is very much on the rise.

In fact the Guardian reported towards the end of the year that licences for flying unmanned drones had risen by 80%.

Of course not all uses are dependent on requiring a license either, for example if the drone is staying within the eye-line of the pilot and the drone is only flying within the vicinity of buildings and personnel for which you have consent to record you may well be fine (although it is always best to check this properly).  Having a drone on-site can give an engineer the opportunity to easily get to high positions and make a quicker analysis of a situation.

Not only is this a time saving measure, it also means that an engineer working on his own can make this evaluation – whereas without he would be reliant on a second engineer coming to assist in order to ensure health and safety requirements were met.

When we consider that a decent quality drone, with HD Camera footage and built in WiFi to allow for instant streaming can now be purchased for under £400 the argument for including one as part of your field engineers kit is a very compelling one for any company whose engineers will be required to work at height.

Look out for the third part of this series in where we turn our attention to Near Field Communications and 3D Printing…

 

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In this new four-part series Field Service News Editor Kris Oldland takes a look at five key tools forecast to become part of the field service engineer’s toolkit in the not so distant future.

 
As a child of the eighties with a penchant for a bit of science fiction to me the year 2015 sounds very much like the distant future we might have heard about when watching Tomorrow’s World back when we were kids. And whilst not all things that we thought would appear in the future have arrived -  for example,  we are not all walking around in  shiny silver outfits and the hover car has yet to be invented  - there is so much technology that is commonplace today which is truly remarkable and has that futuristic feel.
 
Devices like satnavs, tablets and smartphones could all have come straight from the set of Star Trek and just a decade ago it would have seemed incomprehensible that devices like these would be regular items in both our working and our personal lives. These devices are now not only widely in use, they are hitting mass saturation.
 
And it’s little wonder really when we think how big the impact first smartphones, then tablets and other forms of mobile computing have had on the way we work , how we communicate, the way we interact with each other, and how we manage tasks - all empowered by the mobile Internet. And in no other industry has the impact of improved mobile computing been felt more than in field service.[quote float="left"]In no other industry has the impact of improved mobile computing been felt more than in field service.

>However, I truly believe that the leaps forward we have made in terms of technology this decade are just the tip of the iceberg and in the next few years we will see further technologies that are now starting to emerge become as commonplace as the smartphone, satnav and tablet, and that they will have an even greater impact.  Phrases like the fourth paradigm, industry 2.0 and the new industrial revolution which were once being whispered in corners are now being used by very senior and respectable people with more and more frequency and more and more confidence.
 
Just consider this a moment – we are talking about a leap forward in technology that is comparable with the shift in society created by the industrial revolution.We are talking about massive changes in the way we work, a wholesale sea change bigger than anything we have experienced in living memory - all empowered by technologies that whilst they may seem futuristic are already out there and being used in industry today.
 
So lets take a look at some of these technologies and how they can be put to work as part of the field service engineer's tool kit.
 

 

Wearables: smart watches

 
Having spoken about smartphones in the introduction perhaps the most obvious place to start is with wearable technology such as smart watches. Last year was widely touted as the year of the wearables yet it didn’t really live up to the hyperbole.
 
In fact it was quite the opposite... research from digital research firm L2 confirmed what a lot of people in the industry would already have guessed:  that whilst 75% of consumers are aware of wearable technology, just 9% actually had any desire to purchase and a tiny 2% confirmed they actually owned a wearable device.
 
So not quite the mega-impact that many industry experts had been predicted.
 
However, whilst the consumer world might not be ready for such devices there is a definite home for them in the world of industry and particularly in field service.Lets take the smart watch to begin with. As part of the recent release of IFS Applications 9,  smart watch integration is embedded. Other companies like ClickSoftware have also built smart watch apps into their field service solutions.
 
The ability to communicate hands free, whether it be receiving messages or making a call, has obvious benefits for the field engineer whether it is when they are driving between jobs or working on site on a repair. This is the first key benefit of a smart watch. And whilst much of this functionality is available either through bluetooth headsets or through the smart-phone itself being put on speaker for example,[quote float="right"]A smart watch brings together and streamlines functionality in a much more convenient manner.

The impact that smartphones have had on field service is widely recognised - smart watches simply take the power of the mobile phone and deliver it in a more convenient device that enables the engineers to work with both hands at all times
 
And for me introducing additional convenience and improving the overall efficiency of the tasks we are trying to undertake, is a large factor in whether an emerging technology will take root and I do believe that smart watches certainly tick many of these boxes and have the potential to do so and should absolutely be considered when selecting the right hard ware for our field engineers.
 
Look out for the next feature within this feature where we look at how smart glasses and unmanned drones could also become regular tools used by our 2020 field engineers.
 

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Artificial intelligence isn’t just the realms of Hollywood fiction these days and it could have a big impact on field service writes ClickSoftware Steve Mason...

With Ultron currently tearing up The Avengers and The Terminator set to reappear on screens this summer, artificial intelligence (AI) has once again become a big topic of conversation in the technology world. Whilst Hollywood does its best to present AI as a looming precursor to an apocalypse, those working with it now are having a more rational debate about the pros and cons on each side of harnessing the potential of AI.
 
For businesses, the pull of embracing AI is a powerful one. Much like the cloud before it, AI represents an opportunity to immediately tap into a resource. Cloud computing provided the option of upscaling and downscaling computing power in an instant. AI could potentially allow for businesses to tap into extra problem-solving capabilities. Combine both AI and the cloud, and suddenly businesses of all sizes have access to a bottomless pit of resource to call upon regardless of where they operate.

However, for the people working at these businesses, where would that leave them? Will jobs be at risk of machines coming in and taking them away? At a recent debate we hosted with leading academics in this area, the outlook was far less bleak. Instead of AI replacing humans in their entirety, instead merely help them add to their skill-set and challenge them to adapt to change.

 

 
Many of the mundane and monotonous, though hugely important, jobs that require the inputting and handling of data are not necessarily adding a great deal of value to businesses. During the debate it was argued that such time-intensive jobs can and should be handled by AI.
 
For example, any delivery or receipt of goods or services needs to have a trail to demonstrate its completion. This involves manually collecting and sharing that data to prove that is the case. Incorporating an AI function could significantly assist with this process by making the whole thing autonomous.
 
In its place, staff will be able to take on new roles and responsibilities. With that comes a more diverse range of skills needed.
Where some are worried AI could “hollow-out” the middle management of a business, it could well foster an environment where key employees in that middle role are given the opportunity to focus on developing new skills rather than having productivity eaten away by more of the routine tasks that are required of them.
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AI should be seen in the same way new equipment is. When PCs replaced typewriters, people simply began to produce more documents and take on further tasks. It was an adaption.
 
The same will take place as AI begins to be introduced. As has always been the case, it will be up to the individuals to work with the tools they are given and change what they do and how they do it to aid in the progress and success of the business.
 

 

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In a time when more and more field service companies are considering moving to  cloud based solution new research from leading market analysts, Juniper Research, suggests that the rapid digitisation of consumers’ lives and enterprise records will increase the cost of data breaches to $2.1 trillion globally by 2019, increasing to almost four times the estimated cost of breaches in 2015....

The research, entitled ‘The Future of Cybercrime & Security: Financial and Corporate Threats & Mitigation’, has found that the majority of these breaches will come from existing IT and network infrastructure. While new threats targeting mobile devices and the IoT (Internet of Things) are being reported at an increasing rate, the number of infected devices is minimal in comparison to more traditional computing devices.

The Cybercrime Economy Driving Action

The report also highlights the increasing professionalism of cybercrime, with the emergence of cybercrime products (i.e. sale of malware creation software) over the past year, as well as the decline in casual activist hacks. Hacktivism has become more successful and less prolific – in future, Juniper expects fewer attacks overall, but more successful ones.

‘Currently, we aren’t seeing much dangerous mobile or IoT malware because it’s not profitable’, noted report author James Moar. ‘The kind of threats we will see on these devices will be either ransomware, with consumers’ devices locked down until they pay the hackers to use their devices, or as part of botnets, where processing power is harnessed as part of a more lucrative hack. With the absence of a direct payout from IoT hacks, there is little motive for criminals to develop the required tools.’

Other key findings include:

• Nearly 60% of anticipated data breaches worldwide in 2015 will occur in North America, but this proportion will decrease over time as other countries become both richer and more digitised.
• The average cost of a data breach in 2020 will exceed $150 million by 2020, as more business infrastructure gets connected.

The whitepaper, ‘Cybercrime and the Internet of Threats’ is available to download from the Juniper website together with further details of the full research.

 

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The Internet of Things is going to change everything, especially field service, Tim Faulkner of ClickSoftware explains why...

Much has been made of the Internet of Things (IoT). For many years now the concept of a plethora of interconnected devices working together has been mooted.

Devices communicating with one another to share information, pass content, allow for tasks to be completed -all creates a grand mesh of interlocking technology that allow for people to be connected anywhere and anytime.

To do this, more devices will need to become “smart”. They will require a constant connection to the internet or to other devices in order to communicate. From traffic lights, to door locks, to home heating systems, everything will be connected to the internet and working in harmony with other smart devices. Take the traffic light as just one thing that will change in the IoT.

It is regulating traffic while the information it observes is sent to the central command hub, which is then shared with the vehicle and driver half a mile down the road to urge them to change speed and ease congestion. Three disparate objects are working together thanks to the interconnectivity an IoT curates.

Key to this will be improving connectivity so that no matter where you go, there is a connection to the internet. There is no point having an IoT car when as soon as you leave the city, all the functionality becomes redundant. Equally, the hardware needs to change.

 

Each piece of equipment, product, and even building, needs to have connectivity built into it. We are already seeing items like tablets built specifically for businesses to support fieldworkers in any kind of environment and effectively communicate with other mobile workers.

But IoT technology will see that taken a step further. Hard hats, wristbands, tools – all will have sensors built-in to allow for interaction with other smart devices.

Because of these initial hurdles, we are still some way off that point, but we are seeing early signs of enterprise adopting the approach and looking at where connected devices can work together to make tasks a little easier. With the launch of a range of new smartwatches, most notably the Apple Watch, we now have devices that function far more effectively when connected to another device. Arguably, this is the first mainstream example of the IoT making its way into our everyday lives.

Meanwhile, at the recent CeBIT event in France, the talk of the technology show was the impending influence a Connected Economy is going to have.

Think of the Connected Economy as the opening foray into a full IoT concept, with devices that have some interconnectivity and some that are wearable too. Each device gains, shares, and passes information from one to another, all of which is then captured and controlled from a central hub.

For enterprise companies, the potential for this technology is significant. If you are running a big logistics project for example, much of the success or failure of the project hinges on human error.

 

Workers are constantly checking in, updating stock, and ensuring the right rosters of skills and expertise are in place.

An automated system which is instantly updated thanks to connected devices will go a long way to eliminating the risk of human error, and should allow people to get on with the job they have been asked to do, rather than the often time consuming administrative elements.

Cisco has predicted that the Internet of Everything, their take on IoT, could be worth $14.4 trillion of value for enterprises globally ahead of 2022.

The reason for this is because the concept opens up a whole new platform for businesses to operate in, from streamlining costs, to using cloud services to hosting data, to designing and implementing the new smart devices.

It is streamlining of costs where businesses will see the most value. Data can be collected in the field, sent back, and then the appropriate task and resource assigned.That level of automation will reduce the administrative burden and, ultimately, improve the overall customer experience. Equally, IoT will see more preventative methods employed.

 

Devices stationed in remote locations will be able to flag when maintenance is due, or when damage has been sustained. That data can then be shared and a team dispatched to handle the issue.

As consumers, we will receive a package at home and the moment the smart box is opened, that will be the signal the job has been completed There is a huge opportunity for all businesses in the IoT space. Our growing dependence on smartphones suggests the concept of always being “on” is one that appeals to people.

To get to that point however, we will need to see dramatic improvements in connectivity and an overhaul of how we produce items. Connectivity now needs to be at the heart of how products are designed to ensure this grand mesh of technology interacting together leaps from the pages of theory into the practice of reality.

 

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Find out more about ClickSoftware in the Field Service News Directory

 

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A lot of technology can improve the way we work in field service but none can change the way we operate so fundamentally as the introduction of smart glasses. That is the opinion of Kyle Semani, CEO of Pristine IO and in this series of articles we've talked exclusively to Semani at length on why he sees smart glasses revolutionising the field service industries.

In the first part of this series we looked at the why despite Google removing their Glass Xplorer program in field service at least the future of Glass and other competitor products is very much alive and well. In part two we Semani outlined some very significant savings that can be made through the correct application of smart glasses in field service. Now in the final feature of this series we look at some of the challenges faced by smart glasses and how they can be overcome... 

As anyone who managed to get their hands on a Beta edition of Glass will testify excitement soon turned to frustration as you realised that even with moderate use the battery life just wasn’t enough to last you more than a few hours, five or six if you were lucky. Surely this is an issue that must be rectified if Smart Glasses are to have a place in field service?

Well for Samani – it’s just not that big an issue. “Our system today gets two to three times the battery life that you’d get if you were using a consumer product straight out of the box.” He begins when probed on this issue, pretty much shooting down the criticism there and then.

 

“That’s mainly down to optimisations being made at the operating system level as well as our own app doing a number of different things to help out.” He clarifies. However, he doesn’t stop there.

He continues to point out that even without such optimisation fears around battery life really aren’t that valid anyway.

“In terms of practical use” he continues “well we aggregate our customer data and the average call length is between eight and twelve minutes, very few of our calls exceed that time-line and the reality is that nobody needs to watch video for that long.

They may call back twenty minutes later but it’s pretty rare that someone needs to call for fortyfive minutes straight. It’s just not very useful and that just doesn’t happen. So battery life isn’t by and large proven to be an issue.”

He has a point, a very good one at that.

Something that many of us are guilty of is trying to align wearable devices with existing mobile computing options such as tablets, smart phones and so on.

However, the simple fact is that the use case is very different. We need to think of what the smart glasses would, and would not, be used for. If we do this then the reality is that as Samani asserts battery life really needn’t become a significant issue.

“I don’t think that smart watches and smart glasses are that comparable. Yes there both wearables but the use cases for both are really far apart.”

Even in those rare outlier cases where a field engineer does need to stream video excessively Samani has a solution. “ In the off chance that you do need to exceed multiple hours of video streaming in any given day, on our platform you can charge the device whilst you where it.” He concludes “We supply our customers with a battery pack if they need it and with that they could go for 10 hours of consecutive video streaming.” He explains

 

Actually the biggest issue Samani and his team are challenged with is how complex such a device is to use. “The biggest push-back we get is ‘will my field service techs be able to use it effectively?’

For them it’s a legitimate concern, they haven’t used smart glasses in the wild.”He states.

“What I say in that conversation is we have definitively proven, with our customers, that this works and our platform is incredibly easy to use.”

In fairness he certainly isn’t exaggerating when he says it’s easy to use.

Describing the user experience Samani explains “Literally all you need to do is put on the glasses and say ‘OK Glass request support.’”

“After that everything else becomes automated. And the person wearing the glass can focus on the job at hand whether they are turning a wrench, opening a panel, soldering wires... it doesn’t really matter what that person is doing the system becomes completley automated and is incredibly easy to use.”

So with all of the potential gains and very assured responses to potential pitfalls it seems Samani really is the right man , in the right place at the right time and Pristine’s already healthy initial growth is surely set to continue. The only question remains when will we start to see further widespread adoption of smart glasses?

“I think in 2016 it’ll become a reasonably discussed topic, people will accept this is happening people are already doing it and it’ll really start to grow from there.” Samani says.

“You look at IoT in the field service world or workforce management, these are technologies widely discussed in the field service industry and it’s pretty commonly expected that if your not already doing it, you’re going to do it in the next few years. I think in 2016 that type of conversation will happen around smart glasses.”

It is interesting that for Samani, the conversation is focussed very much on Smart Glasses not the wider conversation around wearables. In fact he (quite rightly) sees a significant gap between the application of Smart Watches and Smart Glasses. “I don’t think that smart watches and smart glasses are that comparable. Yes here both wearables but the use cases for both are really far apart. For me watches are for consumers and glasses are for enterprise.” He asserts

 

“Our belief is that glasses will be the ones that really deliver the value for enterprise. Watches can’t really impact how your tech works too much, glasses could change the way we structure our workforce entirely.”

Again with such ambitious rhetoric accuations could be aimed at Samani of over egging the custard. However, whilst he certainly has a tangible excitement to his tone as mentioned above, it is also countered by a measured authroity. He truly believes that smart glasses will change the way we work and he is systematically building his case piece by piece.

“When the data becomes more robust and proven we will publicise it and expect a lot more people to follow suit.” He concludes “There will be definetly some variability in differing industries, who adopts first and why - the more expensive the problem the more likely a company will be to adopt our solution sooner, but we are witnessing a lot of interest and we expect to see a big change in how global field service teams, and even regional ones, deliver customer service in the not so distant future”

 

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In the first part of this series we looked at the why despite Google removing their Glass Xplorer program in field service at least the future of Glass and other competitor products is very much alive and well. Now in the second part of the series we continue our exclusive interview with Pristine IO CEO Kyle Semani as he outlines some very significant savings that can be made through the correct application of smart glasses in field service... 

Indeed when it comes to genuine cost savings the early statistics from Pristine make a very compelling case for adoption. Something Samani is clearly keen to get across in our conversation. His business is built on offering significant savings to their client base. “I think the ROI of implementing smart glasses actually delivers far more than a smart phone or tablets did when they first appeared.” He begins

“Our data is still young but looking at our primary customers these companies are going to save millions of dollars by using our technology.”

What is particularly compelling about the smart glass argument, and Pristine’s approach is that such savings are far more tangible than those discussed when we talk about other devices such as smart phones, laptops, tablets etc.

As Samani puts it “It’s not all theoretical efficiency gains, this is money going right back on the bottom line. This is cash.”

 

“Our general line in the sand we’ve drawn is if the cost of downtime is above $2,000/hour then we get really excited because we know we can deliver you an awful lot of value.” He surmises.

Perhaps we are putting the cart before the horse here though.

Of course such talk of tangible cost saving is attractive to any company, but what exactly does the Pristine product do and how can it be used to offer such significant rewards?

Samani describes the Pristine app as the only pure solution to stream live audio and video from Google Glass (or any other smart glasses) to any other device within the world in a secure capacity so it can be deployed in an enterprise setting.”

Basically the app in combination with a pair of smart glasses will provide a true “see what I see” experience which will in turn enable people to collaborate remotely, whilst the engineer (or even customer) on site are able to keep their hands completely free.

In Samani’s own words “Rather than actually sending a technician to a site now customers can put on the Glass and walk through what the problem is whilst being is remotely connected to a service centre.”

“If field service companies can centralise their workforce somewhat then their field workers can get a better quality of life and their customers are getting better customer support in every case.”

“The goal here is to save field service trips, so to save cost and also to help companies deliver a better customer experience.”

One immediate thought around such a proposition is that this could literally change the way field service operations are structured.

 

With such remote access tools becoming readily available, this could genuinely open the doors to many companies centralising their operation, bringing their most experienced engineers into a central hub, and outsourcing a large amount of work to less skilled (and therefore less expensive) local workers, or even getting the customer to take on the work themselves.

This is certainly something that Pristine are seeing within their growing customer base.

“We’re seeing our customers equip both their existing customers and their existing field engineers with the technology. The goal is to deliver a player to every single case.” Samani explains.

However, the benefits of such a move aren’t solely financial there is also the soft benefit of improving the work/life balance of existing engineers.

“If field service companies can centralise their workforce somewhat then their field workers can get a better quality of life and their customers are getting better customer support in every case.” Samani asserts

“They [the field engineers] used to fly around 50 weeks a year now they fly around 20 weeks a year - it’s a totally different lifestyle for these guys and they spend more time with their kids and their families.”

A noble, if exceptionally forward thinking sentiment of course.

However, there are certainly the seeds of not just change but revolution being sowed as smart glass manufacturers, empowered by companies such as Pristine turn their focus onto field service.

This is a good point to bring up the fact that whilst Google are the most prominent manufacturer of smart glasses they are certainly not alone.

In fact both Epson and Vuzix sit proudly on the Pristine website front page alongside Glass. Pristine already work with pretty much every manufacturer of Smart Glasses available – a market Samani believes will continue to expand.

“Just Like there are 100 different mobile phone makers there will be 100 different manufacturers of Smart-glasses.” He explains “We’re going to be rolling out lots of different hardware to our customers. Our customers are going to get cost benefits from there being more choice and competition and they are also going to be able to choose the device that is right for them and right for their needs”

Of course developing a product to sit across a number of devices has it’s own challenge and as our recent research outlined there is a preference amongst field service companies for native applications (i.e. applications that are developed specifically for the device it is to be used on rather than device agnostic apps).

 

Is this a potential issue for a developer working in a fledgling market that is, by it’s definition, going to be fragmented as a number of companies release their own products?

Well it would seem that here smart glasses have been able to take advantage of the evolutionary path of the smart phones that went before them.

In short for Samani and his team at Pristine the variety of devices doesn’t raise too many issues. Outlining their working process in greater detail Samani commented “Whilst we are not using HTML5 we are using some web technologies, however we are using primarily Android type platforms. Basically we are now starting to see the types of decisions the device manufacturers are likely to make and are able to design for that.”

“Generally we find that our platform will work out of the box with most devices but if it doesn’t it’ll take one business day of tweaking to get it right.. We’ve encountered most of the variables of change and we don’t expect there to be that many more as the market evolves” He adds It all sounds rather exciting. (Something that is also clearly detectable in Samani’s voice is not just the passion he has for his product but the general excitement that smart glasses will changethe world in the not too distant future) But let’s not forget the huge amount of excitement when Glass was first announced.