ARCHIVE FOR THE ‘iot-2’ CATEGORY

Paul Whitelam, VP of Product Marketing, ClickSoftware asks if IoT sensors, Artificial Intelligence and Machine learning will help the UK water industry avoid a looming crisis...

One would be forgiven for assuming a nation surrounded by water, with a storied history of naval exploration and an advanced privatised water management sector, would be exempt from facing a water or wastewater crisis.

But many experts agree that the current population boom and climate scenario are forcing the industrial, national, and regional water and wastewater situations towards crisis in the United Kingdom.

What do these mounting challenges mean for the field service management organisations? How can they innovate to meet and overcome each challenge while satisfying end consumers? In the following paragraphs, we discuss how water and wastewater service organisations can get ahead of the looming crisis.

Population boom, climate change, water scarcity combine to create the perfect storm

Ofwat, a government water management program overseeing England and Wales, recently published a report outlining many key challenges in these region. They city population growth and climate changes were identified as the key drivers of change, while growing pressure to address water scarcity, environmental quality, and resilience of systems in the face of rising consumer expectations as the  major hurdles. Key among these, you will find:

• The UK population is forecasted to grow 20% over the next 20 years
• Rising environmental standards may drive up costs
• Technology to manage new customer expectations is lacking
• Major climate change has left specific regions at risk
• Water scarcity poses immediate threat to supply
• Customer expectations for service sector and water continue to rise

In reality, many of these challenges intersect.

This report cites that a full 60% of Thames Water’s customers are concerned about the environment. In addition, 85% of Wessex Water’s customers feel protecting rivers, lakes, and estuaries was critical.

The reality is more dire than consumers may realise. Given the uneven population distribution across the country, freshwater resources are often pulled from areas that are already under pressure, while new regions have been identified that previously threatened just years ago.

As the report cites, “Water catchments across Wales, south-west and northern England are predicted to experience significant unmet demand under many of the scenario combinations that the Environment Agency has considered.”

Can water management and field service teams get ahead of this looming crisis, or will consumers simply have to cut back on consumption altogether as the population booms?

3 ways UK service organisations can innovate to overcome crisis

Luckily, the field service industry is experiencing a renaissance in service technology that could solve current and future water problems. The Internet-of-Things, artificial intelligence, and predictive maintenance technology could each provide innovative solutions for both meeting growing demand, and minimising environmental impact.

1. Invest in and inform customers of water reduction faucets, shower heads, high efficiency washing machines and emerging technology

To be fair, this first recommendation is more about customer satisfaction, not just technology, but the fastest way to avert a water and wastewater crisis is the simplest; reduce the amount of water usage in businesses, factories, and homes.

This will require service organisations convincing customers that these new faucets, shower heads, and high efficiency machines will both save them money through reduced water usage, and save the environment. And if that doesn’t work? A healthy bit of policy should do the trick.

With the number of consumers who have expressed care for environmental issues, couldn’t a bit of a nudge from service providers push many over the edge to adopting more efficient technology?

With even a 10% increase in the number of homes, businesses, and facilities equipped with smarter end using devices, we could improve our water usage future in short order.

2. Enable IoT sensors on industrial water facilities and natural resource hubs

The Internet-of-Things promises to bring advanced real-time diagnostic capabilities to equipment, that for decades has required a human to perform a diagnostic task. By embedding internet-enabled sensors on all the equipment that cleans, processes, transports and delivers water, we could improve the efficiency of the entire water lifecycle by significant margins.

Would this require an up-front investment? Most certainly, but privatised water and wastewater organisations and service companies would certainly be keen on efficiency gains, especially if margins could move up incrementally.

Using IoT sensors for advanced real-time diagnostics could allow organisations to get predictive about water usage, resource allocation, and more. With the right application of IoT technology, equipment and processing, diagnostics could stand to become more efficient than ever.

3. Use AI and machine learning for ultimate efficiency gains

While seemingly intimidating at the outset, artificial intelligence and machine learning technology are in fact well within reach for organisations willing to embrace a healthy technical challenge. How about the payoff? Datasets that take a team of data scientists several weeks to interpret can now be crunched by AI algorithms in seconds.

Upon gaining results, future-oriented field service organisations will soon apply machine learning models that are ready-built for various service scenarios.

Think of machine learning algorithms as software with a brain. First, you develop an algorithmic model. Let’s use flooding—a common water crisis scenario—as an example. By first coding your software to understand all the steps a human would take in a flood scenario, and second enabling artificial intelligence algorithms to process information in real-time, you can effectively combine real-time flood data and your algorithm to unlock an immediate decision tree.

The software acts upon data in an instant, making airtight decisions and optimising your entire field service chain the same way your dispatch, or service executives would—given the parameters of your programmed scenario. But the main difference between AI software managing a service chain, and a human being? Software will make fewer mistakes.

As the UK continues to seek a resolution to current and future water scenarios, a healthy balance of policy, innovation, and customer support will be required.

 

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Disruption has become a phrase so widely used it is in danger of becoming hackneyed, but in terms of asset maintenance, the IoT is bringing true, genuine disruption writes Servicemax’s Dave Hart...

If you had to pick a moniker for this decade, then “disruption” is a pretty good one. It’s now so pervasive that it’s almost become a cliché of itself.

Everywhere you look, from banking to music to taxis and hotels, traditional business models and markets are being disrupted. All driven by technology being applied in innovative new ways. Now it seems it’s the turn of capital equipment assets and the machines themselves to be disrupted – or at least the way we manage, use and maintain them.

Industrial downtime is no joke. Unplanned downtime in just about every industry has a significant impact. The Aberdeen Group last year reported that the cost of downtime across industries went up to $260,000 per hour on average between 2014 and 2016. That’s a huge jump with a considerable hit on any business.

Time typically isn’t kind to equipment and machines.

As assets get older, parts need maintaining or replacing and more can go wrong. And when it does go wrong, service technicians are typically sent out on site with very little insight other than something isn’t working. On top of that, most companies don’t know how best to optimise uptime availability in different conditions, such as managing volatility, meeting peak demand or managing performance in extreme conditions. It’s an area of business that’s historically been very inefficient, and had very little intelligence or investment applied to it.

 

As a tech-enabled society, we are better than that. And it was only a matter of time before the wave of technology innovation and disruption made its way to changing how we optimise equipment and capital assets, and predict their maintenance and service requirements. By harvesting and applying intelligence that previously would have been impossible to obtain, companies are seeing a major step change this area.

And it’s more than just a ‘nice to have’ scenario. For most industries, margins are too thin and competition is too fierce to simply guesstimate how much capacity a piece of equipment can cope with, and it seems positively archaic to run a reactive break/fix service mentality in today’s connected age.

The reality is that the Industrial Internet offers an opportunity to intelligently manage resources and manage performance. Machines with sensors feeding back performance data provide a raw pipe of potential intelligence that needs to be woven into the business. With the right tools, organisations can use this data to develop strategies that alleviate risk.

Asset-intensive companies always strive to reduce operating risk while improving efficiency, at the same as coping with regulatory demands and workforce development.

These are key challenges that are difficult to achieve without an intelligent asset performance management (APM) approach. The more forward thinking companies also have field service management (FSM) strategies in place in an effort to streamline and automate their service departments. They are wise investments as both APM and FSM each deliver significant value in their own right.

But here’s the real disruptor: By combing these two disciplines, businesses have, for the first time, a complete suite of intelligence at their fingertips to understand potential equipment issues, and pre-empt them or act upon them quickly and efficiently with the correct tools and parts, should machinery need fixing for example.

No second guessing, no wasted investigative journeys and much lower risk of downtime.

Now take this one step further and think of a digital twin that mirrors of all your physical assets globally, giving you a dashboard that reports back to you on the status, health and performance of how each piece of equipment in each location is working. One that proactively alerts you, through intelligent APM, when action is required, and automatically takes preventative measures, through FSM, when an issue arises. Suddenly downtime looks much less of a threat.

That’s because predictive analytics and work management through APM enable businesses to plan, schedule, execute and feedback on problems and solutions. Which equipment is failing or about to fail and why? What parts are needed to fix the problem, where and by whom? And FSM then automatically triggers scheduling, ordering and dispatch of a service technician if required, to ensure everything is up and running and downtime is minimised.

 

It’s interesting that service businesses represent around seventy per cent of the world’s economy, yet to date, only about a third of the world’s large service businesses use just FSM solutions. They are missing a trick.

A combined APM and FSM approach optimises the equipment strategy for a company, analyses the risk and cost of how often equipment should be inspected, saving money, increasing productivity and reducing risk of downtime.

So what does all this mean in real terms? By proactively optimising and managing equipment assets, business can expect, on average, a 10 percent inventory cost reduction, 40 percent reduction in reactive maintenance, 25 percent gain in employee productivity and a 25 percent reduction in total cost of ownership.

Likewise, field service management can generate an average 13 percent boost in revenues and an 11 percent increase in customer satisfaction.

Why wouldn’t you want to join the dots on metrics like those? Throw in the potential savings from reduced transport and failure rates, less downtime, plus the sustainability benefits, and you have a recipe for future growth.

Now that is compelling, not to mention disruptive.

 

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IFS, the global enterprise applications company, has released a primary research study on how the Internet of Things (IoT) affects readiness for digital transformation in industrial companies.

According to survey of 200 IoT decision makers at industrial companies in North America, only 16 percent of respondents consume IoT data in enterprise resource planning (ERP) software. That means 84 percent of industrial companies face a disconnect between data from connected devices and strategic decision making and operations, limiting the digital transformation potential of IoT.

The study posed questions about companies’ degree of IoT sophistication. The study also explores how well their enterprise resource planning (ERP), enterprise asset management (EAM) or field service management (FSM) software prepares them for digital transformation and to consume IoT data within enterprise software.

Respondents were divided into groups including IoT Leaders and IoT Laggards, depending on how well their enterprise software prepared them to consume IoT data—as well as Digital Transformation Leaders and Digital Transformation Laggards depending on how well their enterprise software prepared them for digital transformation.

[unordered_list style="bullet"]

• The two Leaders groups overlapped, with 88 percent of Digital Transformation Leaders also qualifying as IoT Leaders, suggesting IoT is a technology that underpins the loose concept of digital transformation.
• Digital Transformation Leaders made more complete use of IoT data than Digital Transformation Laggards; Leaders are almost three times as likely to use IoT data for corporate business intelligence or to monitor performance against service level agreements.
• Digital Transformation Leaders were more likely than Digital Transformation Laggards to be able to access IoT data in applications used beyond the plant floor. They were more than four times as lilkely to have access to IoT data in enterprise asset management software, twice as likely than Digital Transformation Laggards to be able to access IoT data in high-value asset performance management software, and almost twice as likely to be able to be able to use IoT data in ERP.
• The data suggests a real need for more IoT-enabled enterprise applications designed to put data from networks of connected devices into the context of the business.[/unordered_list]

In reviewing the findings, IFS Chief Technology Officer for North America, Rick Veague, commented, “Are your planning and maintenance systems robust enough to make real time decisions using IoT-sourced data? Many are facing the reality of having to answer ‘no.’ We have seen examples of companies coming to us because their incumbent software is not able to administer and use IoT data to achieve the gains they want to realize.”

Steve Andrew, IFS Vice President of Marketing for North America added, “Long before the term IoT was coined, IFS was committed to introducing machine data into enterprise applications. With the release of the IFS IoT Business Connector, we are in a better position than ever to help our customers operationalise their IoT data. These study data shows this technology is required to connect IoT with strategic data from around their organisation. This in turn lets businesses use IoT not just for cost avoidance strategies like condition-based maintenance, but to add new or enhanced product or service lines, increase enterprise agility and realise the growth and revenue benefits of digital transformation.”

 

“Study data suggest that the most common use case for IoT in these industrial settings is condition-based maintenance. The benefits go beyond operational improvements and maintenance cost avoidance,” said Ralph Rio, Vice President of Enterprise Software at ARC Advisory Group. “It increases uptime that provides additional capacity for increased revenue. It also avoids unplanned downtime that interrupts production schedules causing missed shipment dates and customer satisfaction issues. When married to demand and scheduling systems in ERP, IoT becomes a revenue-enhancement tool improving the top line.”

Download the Industrial IoT and Digital Transformation Study. 

 

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Having introduced the concept of crowd-sourcing in previous articles for Field Service News, Manuel Grenacher, Coresystems, now takes a look at how and why the two new technologies dominating conversation in field service circles are perfect bed fellows for the gig economy...

As I discussed in my last article on why crowdsourcing could be transformational for the field service industry, the outlook for the growth of the field service market is hugely positive – MarketsandMarkets predicts that it will nearly triple in size to $5.11 billion between now and 2020. In this article, I’ll examine the technologies that will likely play a major role in driving that exponential growth of the field service market over the next few years.

The IoT Effect

The technology that has played a huge role so far in precipitating the growth of the field service industry is the Internet of Things (IoT).

This isn’t surprising, as the IoT is having a profound impact on not just every technology driven industry, but also the daily lives of people across the globe. And the IoT and the real-time connectivity it enables has led to a massive spike in consumer expectations for instantaneous customer service.

These new elevated customer demands created by the IoT are impacting the field service industry greatly, as organisations running any kind of a field service operation have been forced to rethink their strategies and tactics for customer service delivery, including their workforce resources and supporting field service technologies.

 

The bottom line is the IoT is very much here and is impacting your industry whether you realise it or not; so to put it simply, either you respond to the new realities of an IoT-driven world or you risk obsolescence.

The Era of Augmented Reality

Augmented reality (AR) isn’t just a social media fad anymore, as enterprise use cases for augmented reality are on the rise and on a fast track to implementation. Indeed, ABI Research predicts that 21 million AR units will be shipped by 2020 with sales reaching $100 billion.

The field service industry, in particular, stands to benefit greatly from AR.

Imagine service technicians with specialised AR headsets, who will then have all the information they need for an installation and/or repair on a heads-up display. No more fumbling around for a laptop or tablet in the middle of a project.

 

AR would also connect on-site technicians with more experienced engineers back at an organisation’s headquarters who can visually supervise and troubleshoot more difficult technical issues.

With that, the use of AR boosts the key field service metrics of first-time fix rates and average repair time. It also benefits staff training and skills shortages, especially as devices trend toward IoT and more advanced technology.

Clearly, AR will benefit service engineers and technicians worldwide, many of whom are in the field service industry.

Enter the Gig Economy

Obviously, the gig economy isn’t a technology, but it’s a movement that could reshape field service management as we know it.

The digital technology underpinning the gig economy (such as the IoT) can help workers become entrepreneurs who have the freedom to dictate their work on their own terms, which has long been the allure of the independent contractor.

Skilled workers who have expertise in certain industry sectors – such as field service management – can either make extra money in their free time while pursuing their passions, or they can use the gig economy as their sole source of income.

Pioneering companies in the gig economy, such as Uber for the transportation sector and Airbnb for hospitality, have laid a blueprint for other industries to follow. In field service, we see a future in which for-hire field service technicians can connect – through technology tuned for the gig economy – to organisations who need extra manpower for their field service teams.

 

At Coresystems, we know first-hand the challenges that organisations face when the field service requests greatly outnumber that company’s field service technicians. By leveraging independent workers in the gig economy, organisations can help deliver the real-time service that customers now demand.

So there you go – the three factors that we envision having the biggest impact on the evolution of the field service industry over the next few years.

What are some other factors that you’re seeing through your own work in the field service industry?

We invite you to share your thoughts in the comments section.

 

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Whilst some were heading out to the desert to watch the likes of Radiohead and Lady Gaga at Coachella 2017 early this year, others were in Palm Springs for perhaps the lesser known but equally fantastic Field Service USA.

Field Service News sent Michael Blumberg along to talk to the USAs largest collection of Field Service professionals in one place, find to out what were the biggest challenges being faced by the industry at large and how we can overcome them...

In April this year I attended WBR’s Field Service 2017 in Palm Springs, California. While I was at the conference, I spoke to several Field Service leaders about their biggest challenges and the strategies they will pursing to overcome them.

I was expecting to receive a myriad of different answers when I first thought about asking conference attendees about these issues. After all, business executives often think their problems and challenges are unique to their specific situation. However, I was surprised to learn of the common thread that ran through my conversations with field service leaders.

 

Basically, four different themes emerged from my conversations. Rather than keep you in further suspense, let me share what I learned from my discussions:

Key challenge #1 - Keeping up with advances in technology:

Field Service leaders understand that their customers expect the same experience they do with using consumer electronic products. In other words, they expect an always on, always connected, always available service experience.

Strategy to overcome challenge - Develop & Implement an IoT Strategy:

Field Service leaders recognise that that IoT improves the customer experience in very much the same way it does with consumer electronics.

While field service leaders I spoke to agree that conceptually IoT is the right technology to achieve this outcome, they also admit that the real challenges lie in competing for capital resources to implement service led, IoT solutions and prioritizing where these investments should be made.

Key Challenge #2 - Determining which technologies enable an improved service experience:

Field Service leaders are faced with a myriad of choices when it comes to selecting and implementing technology to improve the customer experience.

For example, there’s various categories (e.g., AR, IoT, mobility, etc.) of technology to choose from as well several different vendors in each category segment.

It can be an overwhelming and taunting task to learn about every technology on the market.

Strategy to overcome challenge - Due Diligence and Planning:

Field Service leaders understand that they must adopt an objective approach to identifying, evaluating, and prioritising investments in technologies as well as vetting and selecting vendors. This means they must find the intellectual bandwidth and manpower to complete this strategic work of their organisation.

Key Challenge #3 - Keeping up with the skills gaps

Let’s face it, millennials are not lining up in droves to accept field service positions. In addition, the baby boomer generation in retiring from the workforce as a rapid rate.

As a result, Field Service leaders are under pressure to implement creative strategies to overcome the current and growing shortage of skilled technicians.

Strategy to overcome challenge - Implement Augment Reality (AR)

Many Field Service leaders perceive that AR solutions provide an effective solution for dealing with the shortage of skilled labor. By utilising this technology, field service organisations can do more with less. Basically, they can leverage the expertise of a limited number of skilled Field Engineers and distribute this knowledge remotely to a broad number of people.

Key Challenge #4 - Becoming a customer centric organisation:

Field Service leaders understand that if service business is going to thrive and grow then their organisations must become more customer centric. Unfortunately, some companies still have a product focused orientation.

They are more concerned about feature on the feature functionality of their products then the quality of service and its impact on the customer experience.

 

As a result, they are not making the necessary investments or resource allocations for the field service organisation to remain profitable and competitive.

Strategy to overcome challenge - Influence senior management on the value of service

Basically, Field Service leaders realise they must exert greater effort in influencing senior management on the benefits of becoming a customer centric organisation.

This means they need to build a strong business case as to why their companies should invest in technologies that make their companies more customer centric such as IoT, AR, FSM software, mobility, etc.

The business case must consider the impact of technology investments and process improvements on customer satisfaction, product sales, and the overall financial performance of the company.

Interestingly, the comments that I received were very consistent with the overall themes of the conference. Obviously, WBR has a good pulse on the industry.

Nevertheless, it is always great to speak to people one on one at industry conferences. I find these conversations provide so much more insight and context then sitting through a “canned” presentation.

The common thread between all these issues is that they involve the use of technology to optimise and improve field service delivery. This makes perfect sense as field service is a technology intensive business.

However, it is important that field service leaders do not fall into the trap of viewing technology as panacea for all aliments facing their organisation. The best technology is of little value without solid management, effective planning, and strong leadership behind it.

 

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In the Big Discussion we take one topic, bring together three leading experts on that topic and put four key questions to them across four weeks to help us better understand its potential impact on the field service sector...

This time around we turn to a brand new topic which is the Internet of Things and our experts are Paul Whitelam, ClickSoftware, Mark Homer, ServiceMax from GE Digital and Mark Brewer, IFS...

The first question of this topic was "Just how big is the potential impact of IoT on Field Service?"  whilst the second answered was "Is IoT now making the shift from early adoption to mass adoption amongst field service companies?" and last week the questions was "What are the challenges of implementing an IoT strategy within field service operation?

And now the final question on this topic

 

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Question Four: Are field service companies who are not adopting IoT at risk of becoming non- competitive?

The urgency around IoT adoption varies from one vertical industry to the next, but the cost of service delivery and need for greater visibility are universal concerns. The old business adage “you manage what you measure” certainly applies.

If your competitors have a level of insight that enables them to increase the number of jobs per technician per day or reduce critical failures by 90% thanks to preventative measure, the business benefits are powerful and quantifiable.

Increased efficiency and productivity, and slashing the cost of missed SLA penalties, that has direct impact on customer satisfaction and profitability. IoT can deliver exactly these types of insights and business outcomes, and only service organisations that invest in IoT capabilities will reap these rewards.

 

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In a word, yes. This is much more than just a ‘nice to have’ scenario. In most industries, margins are too thin and competition is too fierce to simply guesstimate how much capacity a piece of equipment can cope with, and it seems positively archaic to run a reactive break/fix service mentality in today’s connected age.

Industrial downtime is no joke. Unplanned downtime in just about every industry has a significant impact.

The Aberdeen Group last year reported that the cost of downtime across industries went up to $260,000 per hour on average between 2014 and 2016. That’s a huge jump with a considerable hit on any business.

On top of that, most companies don’t know how best to optimise uptime availability in different conditions, such as managing volatility, meeting peak demand or managing performance in extreme conditions. If your competitors are addressing this problem and you’re not, you’re surrendering market share. Digital disruption is set to wipe out 40% of the Fortune 500 companies in the next 10 years and the Industrial Internet will play a big part in that disruption, as well as the survival and success of companies.

The question isn’t why would you, but rather why wouldn’t you?

 

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Definitely!

The potential gains in cost efficiency and improved service offerings are tremendous. IoT has the potential to disrupt entire industries. Organisations that aren’t educating themselves on the potential, road mapping an IoT strategy, or structuring their organisation to be IoT-ready may not see the risk now but they will definitely be laggards in 5-10 years.

IDC predicts that the installed base of IoT endpoints will grow to more than 30 billion by the end of the decade from just less than 13 billion units in 2015.

As a consequence, machine-generated data will comprise an increasing share of stored data: by 2020, 10 percent of the 44 zettabyte digital universe will originate from IoT devices.

In five years, there will be seven times more IoT data than there is today.

 

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Look out of the next topic in our Big Discussion series coming soon... 

 

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In the Big Discussion we take one topic, bring together three leading experts on that topic and put four key questions to them across four weeks to help us better understand its potential impact on the field service sector...

This time around we turn to a brand new topic which is the Internet of Things and our experts are Paul Whitelam, ClickSoftware, Mark Homer, ServiceMax from GE Digital and Mark Brewer, IFS...

The first question of this topic was "Just how big is the potential impact of IoT on Field Service?"  whilst the second answered was "Is IoT now making the shift from early adoption to mass adoption amongst field service companies?"

So let's move onto the third question of the topic...

 

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Question Three: What are the challenges of implementing an IoT strategy within field service operation?

One of the biggest challenges of marrying IoT and field service is developing the technological infrastructure to capture, process, and respond to the data collected by IoT-enabled assets. Turning voluminous data into business intelligence will require service organisations to completely rethink their operations.

If a machine can tell you an uncomplicated part needs replacement, will you be able to dispatch a junior (and therefore less expensive) resource to provide maintenance; or simply deliver the part to the customer by drone? Will you be able to do so without human intervention? Will you be able to use IoT data to optimise scheduling preventive maintenance while reserving capacity for emergency work?

In order to fully realise the benefits of IoT, field service organisations will need to incorporate artificial intelligence driven service automation solutions that integrate with their other systems. IT support will be increasingly important, as well as expertise in data science.

 

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There are still some hurdles to overcome in the wider context, such as security, data storage, infrastructure demands, and the knock-on effects across a company’s wider IT systems. But many of the data protection issues and cyber threats have been addressed by the development of more sophisticated edge computing devices and edge to Cloud technologies, as well as putting some of intelligence and logic (AI) power and computing next to the critical asset. Very few companies have the expertise in-house required to protect industrial data, so you should engage data science cyber security specialists where it makes sense.

There’s also the question of who in a company can best lead the digital charge. Companies need a person or team that can bridge the gap between IT, service and operations so that all competing priorities are met. It’s an easier issue for larger companies to address as they have a greater breadth of talent pool and a wider range of skills.

I also think mindset can be an inhibitor or an accelerator. Most people can think big, but the potential of the Industrial Internet means you can think bigger. You’ve got to sit down and look of the art of the possible and then map a digital strategy to it. There’s lots of help available in this area, such as dedicated foundries, maturity assessments et al, but people don’t know they exist.

 

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Like many things, it depends:

If equipment is high-value and expected to have a long life, you need to retrofit them with sensors.

Those sensors may be 3rd-party.

Many facilities, even today, have limited bandwidth available to them. This can make transmitting data from many sources challenging.

For third-party service providers there’s the question of data ownership. Who owns information collected about how equipment is being used and is performing? The service provider? The OEM? The customer?

Fundamentally, the biggest challenge with adopting and implementing IoT is having the right structure and systems in place to maximise its value. It doesn’t serves an organisation to have the ability to collect data from assets if that data is not processed and actioned in real-time.

Organisations need business process intelligence, optimised field service management, and real-time visibility to truly maximise the potential of IoT.

 

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Next weeks the final question of this topic: Are field service companies who are not adopting IoT at risk of becoming non- competitive?

 

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In the Big Discussion we take one topic, bring together three leading experts on that topic and put four key questions to them across four weeks to help us better understand its potential impact on the field service sector...

This time around we turn to a brand new topic which is the Internet of Things and our experts are Paul Whitelam, ClickSoftware, Mark Homer, ServiceMax from GE Digital and Mark Brewer, IFS...

The first question of this topic was "Just how big is the potential impact of IoT on Field Service?" 

And onto this week's question...

 

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Question Two: Is IoT now making the shift from early adoption to mass adoption amongst field service companies?

Although IoT in field service is still relatively new, early adopters like manufacturers of capital equipment are approaching greater maturity. They’re leapfrogging other industries in terms of first-time fix rates and overall operational efficiency.

Other industries are beginning to recognise the potential benefits, and we’re seeing conversations around IoT shift from wide-eyed wonder to practical next steps. Utility and telecommunications providers are well positioned to benefit by making the infrastructure they maintain smarter and better connected. Consumer-facing organisations can better empower customers to participate in diagnosing and repairing problems.

The Smart Meter initiative in the UK is a perfect example where mass adoption by consumers will force manufacturers to advance. A couple years ago IoT in service was largely seen as tomorrow’s problem.

Today service providers are eager to take the next step.

 

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IoT hasn’t reached mass adoption in any market just yet, but certainly field service is seen as the ‘killer app’ for businesses. And it’s making fast progress.

Senior management are realising that service is the hidden gem within their organisations, largely due to the untapped potential of the Industrial Internet, and it’s something we’re seeing in our own global customer base.

Fuelled by the shift to outcome-based service models, shrinking product margins, and globalisation, and the Industrial Internet, industry watchers have been predicting that service revenue will eventually eclipse product revenue. Smart, connected, optimised equipment assets are accelerating that shift.

As companies begin to properly monetise service with sensors at the edge, they have the opportunity to increase service revenues and margins further, providing an effective hedge in a downturn economy.

That’s why we’re seeing greater adoption and acceleration in this space.

 

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Yes. The concept of IoT and IIoT (Industrial Internet of Things) isn’t a new one.

It has been around for more than 20 years. But now, thanks to advances in technology and digital transformation, it is at the forefront of business opportunity. There are many field service sectors that have already been working with sensors and IoT technology for a few years now, such as the medical industry (like the IFS customer Sysmex).

Over the next five years we will no doubt see the number of IoT implementations rise among field service organisations as the industry becomes regulated and more best-practice cases are publicised.

 

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Next weeks question: What are the challenges of implementing an IoT strategy within field service operation?

 

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Worldwide Business Research (WBR) held its Field Service 2017 conference at the end of April with over 450 service leaders from top manufacturing and service companies in attendance.

With so many service leaders in one place what better opportunity to find out what five key areas field service companies are focussing on? Michael Blumberg, was on hand to find out...

 

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1. Leveraging IoT to drive service efficiency:

There has been a lot of buzz lately in the media and among industry analysts about the value of IoT in improving the efficiency of field service operations. No wonder it was one of the key themes of Field Service 2017!

IoT offers several benefits to field service organisations (FSOs) including the ability to remotely monitor machine performance, make proactive adjustments to improve machine life, predict when a machine is about to fail and provide proactive service, and remotely diagnose problems when the do occur.

As a result, FSOs can gain better control over costs and resources. While IoT holds great promise, many conference participants have not fully implemented end to end IoT solutions. Field Service 2017 provided them with an opportunity to gain new perspectives from Field Service leaders who have already achieved these outcome.

 

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2.  Embracing digital transformation to create a “Uber” like service model:

Today, many Field Service leaders are asking themselves if their service businesses are ready for uberization?

This question stems from the growing trend of companies to offer services through an always on, always connected, always visible, and always available business model. Technologies such GPS, mobility, optimisation software and innovative approaches to sourcing labour (think - gig economy jobs, crowdsourcing, contingent labour) have helped to facilitate these models.

Given that these technologies and labour models are also available to FSOs combined with the fact that consumers have grown to expect an “uber”-like experiences in general, Field Service leaders believe it is only a matter of time before they need to implement similar business models.

 

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3. Creating and finding a new workforce:

A common challenge facing the field service industry, regardless of the technology supported, is the shortage of skilled field service engineers (FSEs).  Let’s face it, the younger generation does not view field service as a “sexy” profession.  Given other career paths, why would anyone want to fix broken products when they can be building the next “big-thing”. 

On the other hand, there are a ton of good people out there who can perform field service jobs.

The problem is they either prefer to work freelance and/or lack the appropriate level of training or experience.

Field Service 2017 provided attendees with the opportunity to learn how Crowd-sourcing applications and Freelance Management Systems can provide access to a broader labour pool, and how Augment Reality tools can help less experience FSEs overcome any knowledge gaps they possess.

 

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4. Optimising service parts management:

Managing service parts is the costliest aspect of field service management after managing labour.

Not only do customers expect their FSEs to arrive in a timely manner, they also expect them to resolve their issues right the first time. Having the right spare parts available at the right time is critical.

However, FSOs can’t afford to have too many parts sitting in many locations for too long as it causes a drain on profits. Optimization of spare parts, in other words, making sure you have just the right amount of parts at just the right number of locations is critical. Although this seems like an age-old problem facing FSOs, it is nice to see the topic on the agenda at Field Service 2017 since Field Service leaders need to continually refresh their knowledge of this subject.

 

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5. Nurturing an environment of customer first:

This topic is also a long-standing issue facing Field Service leaders. It has gained renewed attention as companies place greater and greater focus on improving the customer experience.

However, there are still a great deal of high-tech companies who remain focused on putting their products first, customers second, and service third.

Competitive trends, technological developments, and market requirements are continually forcing companies to rethink this paradigm.

If Field Service leaders are serious about creating at customer first environment and want their service organisations to play a more key role in this shift, they must be able to influence their management teams to invest in the strategies, tactics, and tools that make this transition possible.

Learning about best practices and similar experiences from peers at Field Service 2017 helps facilitate this outcome.

 

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