ARCHIVE FOR THE ‘live-video-streaming’ CATEGORY

ADTANCE, a leading international After-Sales Service technology platform provider for manufactures, industrial companies and mechanical engineering organizations, announced the integration of ADTANCE Smart Services with Microsoft Teams, providing users with a comprehensive solution for industrial customer service.Teams users can utilize ADTANCE Smart Services for digitizing the entire customer service lifecycle including live remote customer support, ticketing, document management, workflow and predictive maintenance.

“Many manufacturing, engineering and industrial organizations already use Microsoft Teams for video conferencing, team chats and sharing documents,” said Nils Arnold, CEO and co-founder of ADTANCE. “Having the ADTANCE customer service functionality within the same application that is already part of users everyday workflow can increase work efficiency and improve customer service.”

TEAMS UERS GAIN NEW OPTION FOR INTEGRATED CUSTOMER SUPPORT WITH UNIQUE MULTI-CAMERA LIVESTREAMING VIDEO CAPABILITIES

“As a world leader in specialty chemicals, we employ more than 30,000 people in 100 countries,” said Dr. Christian Blaufelder, Leiter Commercial Interface & Development, Technical Service, Evonik Industries. “Our service technicians across the globe are avid users of both Microsoft Teams and ADTANCE Smart Services. Having ADTANCE’s multi-camera live video and customer support functionality integrated into Teams will enable us to deliver high quality remote customer service and collaboration, while boosting productivity.”

“Microsoft Teams enables users around the world to collaborate with no limits in time and space,” said Marie Therese Fontaine, Microsoft Teams Business Lead at Microsoft Germany. “ADTANCE Smart Services extends Teams with a comprehensive range of customer service and collaboration capabilities for industrial organizations.  “Manufacturers and engineering companies with locations across the globe have the convenience of using a single, robust solution for both team collaboration and customer service.”

The ADTANCE Smart Services solution is available as an installable application through Microsoft App Source. Users can login with their Teams credentials and benefit from the full scope of the ADTANCE Smart Services, which includes the new ADTANCE Support and Fieldstreaming solution—live remote video support software capable of connecting smart glasses with every type of camera to the system. Cameras include those within smartphones, tablets, computers, security cameras, drones and underwater Remote Operated Vehicles (ROVs), as well as Microsoft HoloLens. Manufacturing and engineering organizations can livestream views of machines from various angles simultaneously – significantly improving customer support, remote machine maintenance and training in the field.

The ADTANCE Smart Services integrated into Teams include the following:

ADTANCE Support – Enables live remote support, inspection and maintenance for customers, utilizing devices such as smart glasses and multi-camera fieldstreaming.

ADTANCE Workflow – Digitizes, analyzes, and optimizes all workflows, including everyday processes such as maintenance instructions.

ADTANCE Process Visualization and Monitoring (PVM) - Monitors the performance of individual machines as well as entire industrial plants.

ADTANCE Predictive Maintenance (PM) - Analyzes and evaluates operational data in real time through the continuous monitoring of machines or the entire production plant using built-in sensors. Machine learning-based analysis offer predictions about potential downtime as well as warnings if a piece of equipment will require maintenance. 

ADTANCE Ticketing - Standardizes entire customer service channels by bundling different channels into one system, including e-mail, telephone, SMS and social media. Creates order and clarity by providing different escalation levels with the respective reaction and resolution times.

ADTANCE Document Management (DM) - Stores all customer service documents centrally, and controls access rights for security and privacy purposes. 

ADTANCE Parts – A central catalogue system to ensure that all spare part information remains centrally located and easily discoverable.

---

Further Reading:

• Read more about Digital Transformation @ www.fieldservicenews.com/digital-transformation
• Read more about Customer Service @ www.fieldservicenews.com/customer-service
• Learn more about ADTANCE @ www.adtance.com
• Follow ADTANCE on Twitter @ twitter.com/adtance
• Connect with ADTANCE on LinkedIn @ www.linkedin.com/company/adtance

In Part One of this report Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief, Field Service News looked at the latest developments in live video streaming. In Part Two, he explores three potential areas the technology has potential to make a difference.

User Case One: Driver training

It is well documented that improving the general standards of driving amongst your team of field engineers can lead to almost instant gains in terms of impacting upon your bottom line.  Better drivers use less fuel, incur less day-to-day damage and wear and tear on a vehicle and as alluded to above can even lower insurance premiums.

Indeed the telematics market is full of driver training/driver behaviour monitoring tools designed to help field service organisations track who in their mobile workforce is performing well behind the wheel and who is regularly sitting towards the bottom of the pack when it comes to driving standards.

However,  the cost of having a qualified coach sit in on a ride along can be prohibitively high. This is where one potential application of live streaming can come into play.  With an in-vehicle camera providing the ability to allow a qualified coach to remotely view a driver’s performance in real-time, there's no need for a trainer to sit in with the engineer. Coaching can be given to multiple drivers across a potentially infinite geography in a much shorter amount of time, without the costs of getting your coaching resource to each individual trainee.

Use Case Two: Lone worker protection

By the very nature of their roles field workers are very often working in a sole capacity and this carries it’s own set of regulations and responsibilities for their employer.

The biggest challenge for the lone field service worker is that on a regular basis the job they may be called out to do can place them working alone in an unsafe environment,  putting them in a potentially vulnerable position. Such risks are not just the more obvious settings of hazardous workplaces such as utilities plants or around heavy machinery but can also include those who may be working unsociable hours in an office or even domestic residences when working on an emergency call-out.

Lone worker systems can be linked to 24 hour monitoring systems, where field service agents who find themselves in a dangerous position can simply press an alert button on their device to flag for assistance.  Once again this presents an interesting use case for live streaming video. The technology now exists for a wearable camera capable of delivering live video streamed across either a 3G or 4G network.

 

Of course when we talk about wearables there is a lot of buzz and hyperbole at the moment and a large part of this excitement is around the potential to combine existing technologies into the wearable format.

We can start to explore a number of different opportunities around lone worker safety with wearables and one of such example could be to combine health monitoring (e.g. heart rate monitor) and a wearable video camera with live streaming capabilities to activate in emergencies – providing not just an alert but also vital insight into any incident again in real time.

Use Case Three: Parts Management

Another area for consideration regarding for the implementation of live streaming videos in a field service environment is as part of a parts monitoring system.

Parts inventory management out in the field remains one of the most challenging areas of good field service management. However, from a financial point of view the sheer lack of visibility into spare parts inventory, something that can often be the largest negative balance on a profit and loss sheet for a service operation, is a huge challenge.

Once again the use of live streaming can become part of the solution. Through the combination of a number of different technologies a camera could be utilised alongside the use of QR codes (or possibly even a simpler numbering system) that allows engineers to hold each part they remove from the van to the camera so it is logged instantly as it leaves the van.

Such technology already exists, of course. However, with the advent of the latest streaming technology this video data is available in real-time allowing for two-way communication when particularly expensive parts are being removed for example.

Not re-inventing the wheel

Whilst it is perhaps not a technological breakthrough on a par with some of the other technologies emerging currently such as 3D printing, IoT or Connected Vehicles,the advent of live streaming does present an enhancement to many tools we already have in place in a field service operation.

However, it is the ability to ‘log-in’ remotely to cameras in real-time that is the real innovation here and whilst in many instances this step forward in technology simply enhances and improves the solution, in others such as the potential use case of enabling two way communication for logging expensive parts out of a vehicle in real-time, then new solutions and applications for the technology can be found.

I’ve been quoted in the past as saying that good technology should be simple to understand and should just make our lives easier.  As a technology, live video streaming really is a something that meets this description.  It can be applied to a wide variety of problems from the outset and with an open-minded approach could also play a part in resolving other potential challenges whilst ultimately improving numerous workflows.

 

---

 

Be social and share this feature

Is live streaming video the answer to a number of key field service challenges?  Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief, Field Service News takes a look at the latest technology in live streaming video and what makes this emerging technology a must for consideration by field service companies in the very near future...

Video footage has long been incorporated into various field service tools from driver training through to knowledge sharing and, of course, s a tool for protecting parts both in a warehouse environment as well as in vehicle.

However, the technology has recently taken a giant leap forward with the advent of continuous live streaming.
But what exactly is the difference between the live streaming video technology emerging today and the current technology that is already in place?

One company that are currently at the cutting edge of this industry is TFS who are already working with a number of high profile organisations including the many law enforcement agencies force and blue chip organisations in the telecoms sector to help them harness the latest in live streaming video technology.

‘Live video capture is out there it is being used elsewhere in the world, so it’s tested technology but in the UK it doesn’t seem to be in any shape or form being used to the extent it could be,” explains PJ Connelly, Managing Director, TFS.

Existing technology

Of course the biggest question is around just how far a leap forwards this technology is compared to the existing solutions on the market.

Let’s be clear here, TFS aren’t re-inventing the wheel, and neither are they claiming to have done so. To use a motoring metaphor, it’s more a case of introducing alloy wheels. Yes, the steel wheels out there being used at the moment are adequate and can get a job done, but alloy wheels just add that extra level of performance.

Generally your current video camera set-up involves cameras that are recording either to an on-board hard drive or a remote location.

Indeed some systems claim to be able to offer live streaming but this can be all too often misleading as Connelly explains:  “It’s compressing the data to a point so you can constantly stream it because of the small amount of bandwidth it’s taking up. That’s the true breakthrough.”

 

“There is some live streaming technology that claims to be live streaming, and is in essence live streaming, but you have to be 'x' amount of feet away from a hub. If you move too far in the wrong direction you’ll lose signal and it essentially becomes useless.”

“The fact that our solution is using 3G and 4G technology means you will be able to use it wherever there is that connection and those connections are only getting better and better.” He adds.

“Those products that are out there are mainly collision recording  products so in the event of a collision immediately the camera will kick in and take pictures.”

“But live streaming gives you the opportunity to dial in and have conversations with the driver because it has audio input on it as well,” comments Paul Hagan, a consultant to TFS who has experience within the service logistics industry having worked with organisations such as ByBox amongst others.

“It’s also the ability to stream for long periods at a time. There are some products that might give you 20 seconds of a stream, which is just nowhere near enough.”

“It’s compressing the data to a point so you can constantly stream it because of the small amount of bandwidth it’s taking up. That’s the true breakthrough.” concludes Connelly.

Live streaming today

So what exactly do we mean by live streaming? Well, in a nutshell it means being able to access the footage of the camera as it is filming from a remote location in real time.

 

The technology has recently become quite popular within smart homes -  Google-owned Nest, for example recently launched a camera with such capabilities, which sits neatly in the smart home security sector.

However, as Connelly states,  the technology TFS are delivering goes one step further by being fully mobile - unlike the NEST cam or other similar devices which are dependent on a Wifi signal, TFS cameras are able to also operate on 3G and 4G networks (as well as having GPS built in which opens up a number of further possibilities.)

This inclusion adds a complete degree of mobility to the technology and this added mobility means that the potential applications of video recording can become far wider reaching than the traditional security and collision-event use cases we see implementations being used for today.

Look out for Part 2 of this feature when we'll be taking a closer look at how Live Streaming can be applied in different field service scenarios and the potential benefits

 

---

 

Be social and share this feature