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In this third excerpt from an exclusive fieldservicenews.com presentation Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief, Field Service News is joined by John Hunt, Managing Director, EMEA, Astea to discuss the key findings of a research project Astea undertook with WBR.

 

Here, they turn their attention to the findings that were uncovered as the research focussed in on the adoption of IIoT amongst manufacturers as the two discuss just how widespread the adoption of connected field service is in today's business eco-system.

 

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Noventum and the Service Science Factory have been working together to help establish a working framework for service organisations seeking to harness the power of the IoT. Damien Nunes, Dr. Dominik Mahr from the Service Science Factory and Rosanne Gresnigt, Noventum introduce some of the key concepts that have underpinned their work...

Recent advances in technology put Internet-of-things (IoT)-innovation on top of the management agenda across industries. IoT innovation is predicted to increase economic value by $11.1 trillion in 2025 (McKinsey 2015).

The Service Science Factory and Noventum collaborated to showcase the implementation of IoT in organisations.

What is the Internet-of-Things (IoT) and why is it relevant?

Over the past few years, computer technology has increasingly become a commodity as it has become cheaper, faster, more reliable, more efficient, smarter, smaller, portable and more connected.

It has given the opportunity to add new capabilities to the things (products and machines) that make up our lives. Consumer-focused examples include Philips Hue lights and the Nest Thermostat that knows via your smartphone when you have arrived home and automatically turns on your lights and heating.

But this is only a small part of the opportunities that IoT can bring.

The basis of all IoT innovations are the 6 principles listed in the graphic below. The power of IoT is to combine them in such a way that they provide new services and capabilities for your customers and organisation.

How can your organisation take advantage of IoT?

Top management often delegates the development of (IoT) innovation to middle and lower management. However, new ideas frequently face scepticism and even opposition across the firm. An example of this is the belief that IoT innovation often disrupts work practices as well as current product and service portfolios, thereby cannibalising existing revenues.

More so, some employees become worried about their jobs, and can even block innovations.

Fresh ideas, awareness of opportunities and positive attitudes across the organisation are what create the breeding ground for transformative innovation. This requires a user-centred, employee participative, explorative, iterative and routed approach like Service Design Thinking.

1. Set business focus: To leverage IoT opportunities, top management not only need to commit to drive IoT innovation but also clearly determine the strategic goals such as lowering cost, creating customer delight, building the brand or driving profits.
2. Introduce IoT Capabilities & Design Thinking: Before embarking further on this explorative journey it is important to recruit an interdisciplinary team. The team should understand customer needs (in the form of critical customer pains and gains), the context of the market they are operating in, and the potential capabilities of smart connected products. In addition, the team needs to be able to think in networks and eco-systems to be able to translate this understanding into new concrete service opportunities which are both valuable to, and in line with, the organisation's ambitions.
3. Ideate IoT innovations: The field of (service) Design Thinking provides various ideation techniques which are used by the interdisciplinary team to spark creativity. This results in ideas that embody both theopportunities that IoT can provide, and also the various perspectives of the market and the organisation.
4. Share, combine and prioritise ideas: The collective sharing of ideas strengthens the feeling of organisation-wide involvement, and collective prioritisation drives commitment. It is also an important period to receive feedback and identify if ideas can be strengthened by combining them with other concepts and initiatives.
5. Map the eco-system of the IoT innovation: IoT innovations typically involve a complex ecosystem of actors, components and connections. Visually mapping out eco-systems, on both macro as well as microscale, can reveal possible challenges to realise the IoT innovation.
6. Identify the business implications: Creating a clear understanding of potential benefits, required investments, and risks is crucial to driving any innovation. In addition, managers need to know what the implications on the organisation will be and what they can expect as ‘return on investment’.
7. Pitch to important decision makers: Especially in large international organisations with multiple divisions and functions, it is critical to have ambassadors who drive internal alignment. Pitch-like presentations towards (top) management and other parts of the organisation help to create a coalition of the willing, and obtain the commitment needed for further development and implementation.
8. In summary, the outcomes of the above process are not only great ideas but also form cross-functional teams that become ambassadors for their IoT innovations. The seven-step process is, in essence, a process for changing the mindset towards an IoT future. In the end, your employees are the basis for designing IoT Innovation – Not the technology.

What’s next?

IoT enabled services usually have a disruptive nature, and this realisation often affects all areas of the organisation. The implementation, therefore, requires a clear strategy and roadmap. Without this or an agile attitude towards unforeseen events, you risk losing not only the momentum you created in the IoT exploration phase,

 

Free IoT Readiness Assesment - Do you understand the value of IoT but don't know where to start? Have you already started on your IoT journey but want to get more out of it?

Click here to take the Noventum 5 minute IoT Readiness Assesment to get an overview of where you stand in relation to IoT and determine how ready your organisation is to benefit from it.

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Scott Berg, CEO at ServiceMax, from GE Digital explains why for those organisations getting the results that matter, the Industrial Internet of Things alone isn’t enough to transform their service offering...

Complex machines power the world’s largest industries, from offshore rigs to networks of medical devices, to massive wind turbines.

Over the last decade, we’ve seen everything from treadmills to coffee makers digitized in pursuit of smarter, better and faster machines to get better results. Industrial companies are adopting digital strategies and require a distinct understanding of connected machinery to do so successfully. It’s no surprise that these machines require thoughtful, technical and predictive maintenance.

Companies now more than ever are in the business of keeping machines running to ensure that the absolute most value is derived from each piece of equipmentCompanies now more than ever are in the business of keeping machines running to ensure that the absolute most value is derived from each piece of equipment. Our customers report, on average, a 19% increase in productivity since implementing Predix ServiceMax. That basically means that we can add an extra day to the technician’s week without working overtime.

ServiceMax from GE Digital is helping the world’s largest companies on their digital journey, starting with service delivery. What is fundamental to our understanding of Field Service Management (FSM) is the scale at which we provide service. We are meeting our customers at a global, enterprise level. As the industry adopts the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) we think about service in a big way and help companies on their digital journey.

We are 100% invested in making sure our customers are getting absolutely all the value they can from the equipment they have and how it’s being used.

Why IIoT won’t be enough to transform service

IIoT-enabled devices and data insights alone are not enough to paint a clear picture of service in the future. Talk of IIoT is everywhere, from budgets to yearly planning, to newspaper headlines. At the end of the day, data informs a procedural change within only one part of a machine at one point in time. Decisions are made on a limited set of inputs, whether that be wear and tear of a specific part, or work order history.

You might say that using IIoT alone is tunnel vision.

Meaningful service is going beyond IIoT, and Asset Performance Management (APM) is the catalyst: it opens up data to more contextual inputs from the broader ecosystem. APM harnesses the behaviour of the machine and goes beyond a simple exercise in efficiency.

It’s important to understand the key is not solely APM, FSM or IIoT. Rather, it’s all three working together to create a holistic solution.It’s important to understand the key is not solely APM, FSM or IIoT. Rather, it’s all three working together to create a holistic solution.

APM monitors the behaviour of the machine, and the FSM platform brings it all together to inform how, when, and why we choose to service or replace a machine. It monitors machine health directly after a repair, and cycles that information into future repairs, to close the loop of service.

The powerful combination of APM and FSM provides a complete view of a product and establishes lifecycle management strategies. The result is a service product management solution that has up-leveled a traditional connected device strategy, incorporating a business’s bottom line. This has saved our customers millions of dollars.

Digital industry brings dynamic results 

Field service in the industrial era is more than a one-time project. Done well, it is an industrialists guide to a digital future, providing vital insights and outcomes for customers. The new era of field service will be marked by connectivity and share a fundamental goal of zero downtime for critical equipment.

There will be industrial behemoths and then there will be digital industrial behemoths.

Field service is evolving into a system that doesn’t forgetField service is evolving into a system that doesn’t forget: an APM-integrated platform incorporates past data to make decisions about parts, technicians, and compliance in the present. And then the magic happens: the system integrates several data factors based on the outcomes of similar work orders and controls for a business perspective: how much time and money can we afford to spend here? That data is translated to actionable insights for technicians on the ground, meaning they are not working towards a static goal of ‘machine repair.’ Instead, technicians are working towards a dynamic outcome: machine uptime.

We are reaching a point where FSM is simultaneously smarter than us yet utterly useless without the most vital component of service: humans. Technicians close the loop between data and predictions by recording the actions they take.

They have the training, the expertise, and the context for each work order with a FSM platform at their fingertips. And the result is that not only is complex machinery functioning smoothly, but FSM is providing the savvy digital industrialist an avenue to a more prosperous day on the job tomorrow.

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Resource Type: White Paper
Published by:  ClickSoftware
Title: How the Internet of Things is Transforming Field Service

 

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Synopsis:

Gartner, Inc. forecasts that 6.4 billion connected “things” will be in use worldwide in 2016, up 30 percent from 2015, and will reach 20.8 billion by 20201. This interconnected world will provide a wealth of new opportunities for service organisations. It allows them to connect equipment with technicians’ mobile devices and the office in real time, enabling a rapid response to service requests and efficient remote diagnostics. Service is set to become increasingly proactive and cost-effective.

Field service lies at the heart of the Internet of Things (IoT) evolution. Advanced field service management (FSM) software can automatically receive messages from devices, and schedule and dispatch professionals, without any human interaction. But the opportunities for IoT go beyond inbound device signals over the internet.

The increase in intelligent service resources, such as drones and autonomous vehicles, offers benefits of machine-to-machine (M2M) communication that promise to transform the service industry.

Overview:

The Internet of Things

As the internet turns 25 years old, its impact continues to transform communications, industries, and lives. The original framework of point-to-point communication via a network of distributed hubs has evolved from email and dovetailed with advances in electrical and industrial engineering in a transformative way. The era of personal computers has evolved, through mobility and the smart phone revolution, to a point where connected devices take all manner of forms from biological implants to wearable fitness trackers.

Signals sent to and from connected devices are spiralling in volume. Big data management techniques, machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI), and cloud storage have come together to deliver insight from this abundance of data. This increases the opportunities for automating decisions and initiating actions without the need for human intervention. The benefits to organisations are numerous.

Remote monitoring applications already save billions in transport and human capital management costs. Add the potential positive impact on customer engagement and its associated business value, and the call to action becomes clear. A complete IoT strategy leads to better and faster decisions throughout the service delivery lifecycle.

Market Definitions

The Internet of Things is having major impact across both industrial and consumer sectors, and many bodies of research focus on these separately. We look at the two areas in this way:

• Industrial IoT (IIoT): IIoT refers to the application of the Internet of Things to the broad manufacturing industry. It’s often used interchangeably with the term “Industry 4.0,” which refers to the major transformational stages of the industrial economy. Examples of IIoT range from monitoring building management systems and power grids, to tracking manufactured goods as they are shipped
• Consumer IoT (CIoT): The Consumer Internet of Things (CIoT) consists of technologies that target the home market and consumer electronics. IDC reports3 that over 8 million US households already use some kind of home automation and control. Typified by remote monitoring capabilities for security, climate control, and remote control of household functions, CIoT also offers promise in areas such as networked home appliances with use cases such as refrigerators that automatically order more milk as needed.

IoT and Field Service

As the definitions around IIoT and CIoT show, there are ramifications for field service in both areas. Products that are being serviced are equally likely to be consumer goods or elements of a manufacturing eco-system in the context of business-to-business field service. The consumer and business areas are also intertwined as IoT adds a strong feedback loop that connects product usage and the associated service requirements to the manufacturing process itself. For example, wear and tear levels in real-world conditions can feed into product development through a network of sensors and influence the manufacturing process accordingly.

CIoT and IIoT are worthwhile segmentations to assess the market at a more granular level. But there are opportunities for innovation in IoT across the field service landscape. Furthermore, areas such as Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) and ghost IT also create fuzzy lines between consumers individually and as part of an enterprise. The opportunity for field service is broad and not constrained to any sub-segment of the market.

Reactive vs Predictive

The increasing intelligence of devices and the hardware layer also impact the approach to service associated with the device. While unsophisticated devices can signal a need for service in the event of a system failure, the richer data from intelligent sensors enable a shift from reactive to proactive service. For example, indicators of failure enable long range service maintenance planning so devices can be kept running continuously and efficiently with an optimised cost profile.

From a resource optimisation perspective, this is of course preferable to responding, at high cost, to a sudden failure.

This point brings up a significant differentiator in IoT-based field service. In addition to developing machine learning models to learn more about the service chain, leading field service organisations excel at optimisation in the context of organisational business goals. This optimisation is important regardless of the sophistication of the information the sensors generate in the network. Even in a simple example, with a service requirement to address a non-functioning device, organisations with optimisation solutions can automatically schedule that service to ensure the appropriate balance of metrics, such as SLA compliance and field service professional overtime. And, with additional sophistication in the IoT sensor data to support more proactive use cases, this schedule optimisation is just as important to business success.

 

To unlock the potential of speed and automation, decision criteria must be determined and incorporated into a system flexible enough to handle the variety of data inputs and scenarios. Top field service software providers can offer a scheduling solution that incorporates countless data elements into the scheduling algorithm.

The full intelligence provided by the IoT network determines the appropriate service schedule for a device, including inspection, preventive maintenance, and repair. If required, it’s possible to incorporate a review of these IoT-generated telematics by a field service professional for additional human oversight.

 

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Want to know more? Access to this resource is available to Field Service News subscribers only - but if you are a Field Service Professional you may qualify for a complimentary industry practitioner subscription!

Field Service Professional? Click here to apply for a complimentary industry subscription to Field Service News and get the white paper "Preparing for the Connected Customer" sent directly to your inbox now

 

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Today at Minds + Machines Europe, GE  outlined the course they have mapped out for digital industrial growth, unveiling solutions aimed squarely at the world of industrial assets, environments and operations.

The event has aimed to outline a path towards greater productivity for customers who take up the advances in their Asset Performance Management (APM) and ServiceMax industrial applications, powered by Predix, GE’s platform for the Industrial Internet.

“Europe can lead the digital industrial era,” said GE Chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt. “Investment in technology, such as automation, advanced manufacturing, and artificial intelligence – along with new skills – can transform industry and drive productivity. GE has long been committed to Europe, and we are invested in its future.”

Delivering the Industrial Service Model of the Future

Transformation of the current industrial service model is a critical element of the digital industrial journey. Most companies today lack the ability to combine insights from data with actions in real time when managing and servicing assets. This contributes to unplanned downtime, which has significant impact on industrial productivity.

To reduce cost and eliminate downtime, it is critical for asset-intensive industries to shift from a reactive, break/fix service model to a predictive model. This change will help companies better understand potential equipment issues preemptively or act upon them quickly with the correct tools and parts.

To achieve this, GE Digital unveiled an integrated solution to deliver the industrial service model of the future that combines the power of ServiceMax, its cloud-based field service management (FSM) solution, with its intelligent Asset Performance Management portfolio. Available in late 2017, the combination of ServiceMax + APM will enable industrial companies to transform how they predict, manage and service the entire asset lifecycle.

“The Industrial Internet is enabling companies to take advantage of possibilities that previously seemed out of reach. But in many ways, we are still in the early stages of this transformation journey as companies seek to move from gaining insight to taking action and as automation gives way to autonomous systems,” said Bill Ruh, CEO, GE Digital. “GE Digital is helping companies use technology and information to transform how they operate and create new possibilities – from delivering the industrial service model of the future to creating entirely new business models.”

 

GE Digital’s APM and FSM solutions automatically collect and analyze service data – from predictive maintenance needs to failure information and recommended work actions – to help industrial companies move beyond traditional asset monitoring to advanced predictive maintenance and asset performance management.

This new approach also provides enhanced scheduling capabilities. Matching customers’ service workforces with their service needs, the offering helps industrial companies dispatch the right engineers to the right job at the right time – and ensure they are qualified, prepared and equipped to successfully complete their work. Receiving updates from workers in the field, the software provides a closed loop from issue identification to resolution, while 'learning' about the most efficient issue resolution methods over time to improve analytics with each alert.

As companies accelerate digital transformation through the combination of GE Digital’s APM and ServiceMax offerings, they can more proactively manage the entire asset lifecycle, increasing productivity and operational efficiencies that can open the door to future business growth.

Transforming service at the edge

Additionally, GE Ventures today launched Avitas Systems, a new data-driven company that will use predictive data analytics, robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) to deliver advanced inspection services to the oil and gas, transportation and energy industries.

“The inspection services industry requires cutting-edge technologies to avoid unplanned asset downtime and deliver new, valuable insights,” said Alex Tepper, Managing Director of Avitas Systems. “We deploy state-of-the-art robotics and cloud-based technology to give customers the customised service and insights-based data they need to advance from reactive to predictive repair – no matter where their assets are located.”

The Avitas Systems solution, using the Predix platform, is built to support the unique service needs of companies with remote assets, particularly in the oil and gas, transportation and energy industries. The solution helps customers analyse inspection data, integrates regulatory and external sources, such as weather, identifies defects automatically and recommends optimal inspection and maintenance schedules. The system can fuse data from diverse sources and independently analyse the relationships between them for deeper insights – and incorporates user feedback to make defect detection smarter and more accurate.

 

By reducing high-risk tasks through robotics, Avitas Systems can make inspection processes safer and more efficient through data automation, decreasing costs by up to 25%. By performing inspections based on anticipated risk, instead of regular time intervals, Avitas Systems can also help to increase asset longevity.

GE estimates that service transformation represents a $40 billion market opportunity. With ServiceMax + APM and Avitas Systems, GE is helping industrial companies manage, optimize and gain insight into their assets across each stage of the lifecycle – all driven by Predix. As the only platform that provides computing capabilities from the edge to the cloud, Predix gives GE customers visibility, control and analytic insights to every part of their industrial infrastructure and operations.

Transforming Energy Management and Customer Operations  

GE also announced a suite of new industrial applications, solutions and partnerships to help companies take advantage of the Industrial Internet – moving beyond the factory walls to enable the digital industrial companies of the future. The solutions build on GE’s expansive suite of Predix-powered tools and applications purpose-built for the Industrial Internet.

• Data-Optimized Energy Trading & the ‘Digital Utility’: To help utilities navigate the changing energy market, GE Power unveiled the ’Digital Utility,’ a suite of Predix-based applications that connect real-time machine data with a utility’s profitability. The new Business Optimization software is first of its kind, bringing analytics to the business side of power and utilities companies to help energy traders act profitably in long-term, day-ahead and short-term wholesale markets. The Digital Utility includes updates to GE Power’s Operations Optimization software, incorporating closed-loop analytics to improve generation efficiency for entire fleets. Additionally, GE’s APM solutions for energy businesses now connect all assets across the entire Electricity Value Network (EVN) in an integrated application, providing customers with a single view of assets spanning power generation to the grid.
• Advanced Utility Operations: GE Digital alliance partner PwC showcased its Predix-powered commercial operations solution for utility companies. This solution enables executives to identify margin ‘leakage.’ The solution analyses plant performance data from GE’s Operations Optimisation application, commercial data from dispatch and market-facing system from GE's Business Optimisation application. The solution is expected to launch this summer.
• Reduced Carbon Dioxide Emissions: GE Distributed Power and Dalkia announced that through GE distributor Clarke Energy, the companies have equipped more than one-third of Dalkia’s 170+ Jenbacher gas engines with GE’s myPlant* APM solution, powered by Predix. In total, the fleet of engines could power more than 240,000 French households, resulting in lower carbon dioxide emissions – which equates to taking nearly 100,000 European cars off the road annually.
• Predix-Powered Clean Energy: GE Renewable Energy and Fina Enerji signed a 10-year full service agreement that covers 150 GE wind turbines in Turkey. The deal will implement GE’s Predix-based Digital Wind Farm hardware and software solutions, which use data analytics to increase wind farm operations. With these digital capabilities, GE Renewable Energy will help develop smarter wind power forecasts for the Turkish market.
• Predix-Enabled Additive Manufacturing: GE Additive will add Predix edge technology to its Concept Laser M2 cusing additive machines. This move allows customers to remotely monitor and collect data from their machines – helping them analyse trends and uncover insights to improve asset performance and operations.
• Data-Driven Drilling: Last year, GE's Marine Solutions and Maersk Drilling announced a partnership to collaborate on a data analytic-driven pilot project, aimed at increasing Maersk’s drilling vessel’s productivity by reducing maintenance costs by up to 20 percent and increasing drilling productivity. The deployment of SeaStream* Insight, GE’s APM solution for Marine powered by Predix, is already showing great potential, and Maersk and GE are looking to expand onto Maersk’s second rig, Interceptor, to broaden the outcomes achieved from the pilot project.

Together, these solutions and deployments advance GE’s vision for the Industrial Internet with a portfolio designed to accelerate customers’ transformation journeys and create new paths to growth for customers of every size and scale.

Minds + Machines Europe 2017 convenes the best and the brightest of the technology world —including GE customers, developers, partners, industry luminaries and technology thought leaders. This year’s event dove deeper into the technology driving digital industrial transformation.

 

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