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It has been revealed today that preventable machine downtime in the UK manufacturing industry is costing manufacturers a staggering £180bn every year.

At a time when the UK Economy sets-out to re-establish itself as an economical, industrial and technological powerhouse on the global stage, the knowledge that over £180bn can be added back to the economy by controlling preventable manufacturing downtime will certainly come as positive news.

The comprehensive research commissioned by Oneserve, the award-winning field service management company, exposes the cost and time implications associated with traditional current machine maintenance methods.

There are 133,000 manufacturers in the UK (ONS), contributing a total of £6.7tn to the global economy, and according to industry senior business leaders, the overwhelming causes of machine downtime are internal technical faults and ageing, unreliable machinery. Yet, nearly all instances (94%) can be prevented through harnessing readily available technologies, such as predictive maintenance software. Using machine learning algorithms and data collected from sensors on machines to monitor performance 24/7, Oneserve’s software analyses and learns when and how a machine will fail and then triggers remedial actions to get operatives equipped and on-site before the failure occurs. Harnessing AI and Field Service Management in this way means machine downtime can be prevented.

 

Discussing the findings Chris Proctor, CEO of Oneserve commented “Whilst unsurprising, it is truly shocking to see the scale of losses businesses endure due to machine downtime. It is clear that existing maintenance processes aren’t working and the time has come for predictive methods to become the norm – not the exception. I hope that in light of these findings, businesses can take control of machine downtime and ensure they are working to deliver the best possible service for their customers.”

 

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IFS is now uniquely positioned to offer world leading service management software solutions to the full spectrum of service businesses, independent of size, level of operational complexity, vertical focus or geographical location.

IFS, the global enterprise applications company, has recently announces it has signed an agreement to purchase WorkWave LLC. WorkWave is a leading provider of highly scalable, cloud-based Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions for the Field Service and Last Mile Delivery and Logistics industries. WorkWave primarily serves small & medium sized (SMB) service businesses, with specific vertical focus on Pest Control, Lawn & Landscape, Cleaning & Janitorial, Heating/Ventilation/AC, Plumbing & Electrical and Transportation.

WorkWave’s SaaS solutions seamlessly integrate the office to the field, enabling SMB service businesses to streamline back office tasks such as scheduling, planning and billing, increase field visibility and productivity, and automate marketing and sales activities. As a result, WorkWave’s clients are able to significantly improve efficiency, reduce cost, boost revenues and enhance customer satisfaction.

From its headquarters in Holmdel, New Jersey, WorkWave’s 260 employees support more than 7,300 customers who are primarily based in the U.S. Thanks to its deep industry expertise, cutting-edge technology and focus on customer service, WorkWave is proud to be recognised with multiple awards for its outstanding growth and culture, including the Inc. 5000 and Best Places to Work, among others.

 

Commenting on the acquisitions, Fredrik vom Hofe, Group Senior Vice President for Business Development at IFS said “This acquisition is further evidence of how IFS is investing to extend its global leadership in Service Management. WorkWave, with its very strong SaaS offering and deep knowledge of how to serve SMB service businesses, complements IFS’s already leading service management offering that is used by many larger service-centric companies. We can now offer the most complete, connected Service Management solutions across the full-spectrum of service organisations and service-intensive industries, globally! In addition, we have significantly strengthened our presence in North America, the world’s largest software market, meaning that the Americas is now the largest region in the IFS Group.” He continued: “We are very pleased to have WorkWave’s CEO, Chris Sullens, and the talented WorkWave team join IFS to continue our growth in Service Management.”

Chris Sullens, CEO of WorkWave, stated “We are very excited to join the IFS team and looking forward to mutually accelerating our growth in the field service and logistics industries - and beyond. This is a great opportunity for our clients, partners, and employees.” He added, “We now have the opportunity to leverage the resources of a leading service management software organization, while continuing to invest in and deliver exceptional products and services to our core clients in pest control and other field service verticals. Our combination of offerings will help service businesses of all sizes solve their operational and growth challenges through our market-leading software solutions.”

 The acquisition is expected to close in Q4 2017. The financial terms of the acquisition are not being disclosed.

 

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Speaking at the IRTE Conference, telematics and technology company Microlise has said fleets will harness the power of Big Data in 2018 thanks to advanced data analysis techniques and growing demand for the capabilities they enable.

This is according to Matthew Hague, Microlise Executive Director – Product Strategy, who recently addressed an audience at one of the UK’s premier conferences for fleet managers and operators.

“We have spent a phenomenal amount time and resource over the last two years, running a number of successful projects involving government funding,” said Hague. “Big Data is a bit of a buzz word, but it is one of those things that will really drive our product offering forward in the coming months and years.”

Hague said that Microlise captures well over seven billion miles worth of road data each year, but working with such large data sets and harnessing its power presents a challenge. “How to glean useful information from an ocean of data is a challenge, but new technologies and techniques are enabling us to scale up and process large data sets in a quick and agile way.”

 

In 2014, with partner the University of Nottingham, Microlise was awarded funding of £359,000 from the UK’s innovation agency, the Technology Strategy Board (now Innovate UK). The objective of the “Value Enhancement for Data from Assets & Transactions” (VEDAT) project was to achieve customer and market value from the high volumes of complex data generated in real-time through telematics technology.

“We completed our work with the University of Nottingham last year and will soon be in a position to productise new and innovative tools and solutions that will create new value propositions within the transport and logistics sector,” added Hague.

According to Microlise, the first uses of this new big data resource will be predictive analytics for vehicle health, improving hazard awareness and briefing drivers. Though Hague said there are many use cases which will be developed in due course including the ability to benchmark performance against the industry or sector a fleet operates in.

“By using the anonymous data we capture every day then overlaying the government’s annualised accident black spot data, and crime data, we can very accurately predict risk while taking time of day and weather conditions into account,” said Hague.

According to Hague, it will soon be possible to rank routes according to risk, and even to alert drivers to specific risks along their route as they approach them ensuring they are prepared.

 

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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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We are currently running a research project aiming to build a picture of what the field service engineer of 2022 will look like.

What tools we he use? What skills will he need?

The research is being run in partnership with field service management providers ServiceMax and thanks to their support we have been able to run a prize draw for those who have taken part in the research and we are pleased to announce the following winners so far: 

• John Mackrell, Business Change Manager, British Gas
• Neil Taplin, Operations Director, Arqiva
• Stuart Morris, Support Specialist, Glory Global
• Toin Jansen, Service Director, Tennant
• Bill Taylor, Engineering Services Manager, CDW
• Erik Huysmans, Service Manager, AGFA

Emails will be sent to each of the individual winners listed above across the next 24 hours so congratulations to each of you! So thanks to all of you have entered and taken part in the research to date.

 

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If you are not a winner - don't worry there will be one more draw this time next week once the research is closed - and if you haven't taken part yet then you can complete the research here and upon completion you will be able to enter the prize draw* - with prizes including £50 Amazon Vouchers plus tickets to field service conference Maximize Europe (worth $250)

 

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*Prize draw entry available to field service practitioners only (i.e. Field Service Management Professionals or senior IT and Business Leaders working for an organisation that operates a field service division. 

 

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There was some absolutely fantastic conversation amongst the Florida sunshine here at the Field Service USA fuelled by the excellent presentations, workshops and technology on show.

As we set our selves ready for the day two here are my picks of the days must see sessions for those lucky enough to be with us on site today here in Amelia Island.

 

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8:55 - Today's Smart Building: Optimizing The Users Experience Through The Innovation Of Intelligent Services

Larry Walsh, CEO & President,KONE Americas gives us some excellent insight into smart buildings, that may sound like something from the future but is already here today - and the impact on service is set to be wide reaching.

 

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2.10 - Panel Creating Competetive Differentiation Through Connected Products

I'll be chairing the Enhancing Service Value stream myself across the afternoon and at 2.10 I'm very pleased to be moderating a panel discussion looking at the benefits that connected products can bring with Bill Belleville, Director E Business Solutions, JLG Industries Amar Parmar, Senior Director, Professional Services, Wind River and Gregory Ratcliff, Director Lifecycle Management, Vertiv.

 

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3.50 - Help Huddle: Service Parts and Pricing

Getting service parts and pricing correct is a perennial challenge for a number of companies so this should be a great session for those looking to share best practices and learn from their peers in how best to get this aspect of your service operation on track.

 

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The great and good of the USA field service industry have arrived here at the Omni Amelia Island Resort, which remained miraculously untouched by the devastation wreaked on the Florida coast only a week ago. With the local news channels reporting the ongoing efforts to get the State back on track, there are sure to be some challenging and busy times for field service engineers working across the region.

And here at the Field Service USA (fall edition) conference the attendees are equally busy discussing how they can improve their service efficiency, whether it be for meeting extreme demands in times of need such as we have witnessed in the wake of Irma, or simply to ensure that customers ever increasing demands are not only met but also exceeded when operating in more normal circumstances.

Field Service News is onsite and will be reporting from the event and each day we will be publishing our pick of three of the sessions those lucky enough to be with us here on site really must attend.

 

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10.50AM - Building the Infrastructure for an effective Self-Service Program

Self-service has been an increasingly important part of the service portfolio for some time now. Here in this workshop Hiren Dalal, VP Global Customer Success and Suport and Christine Morin, Program Director, Knowledge Services of CA Technologies discuss the key steps to build the infrastructure to utilise self service effectively.

 

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1.50PM - They're coming R U ready 4 Millennials?

The workforce has never before seen a shift in thinking, culture and beliefs from an outgoing generation to an incoming one more so than that of the Baby Boomer's leaving and the Millennials coming in. Millennials enter the market with a completely different mindset and require completely different tools of motivation. Tom Vorin, VP of Customer Services ISCO International gives us his best advice of how best to be prepared for a Millennial workforce in this workshop.

 

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4.00 PM - Exploring how and what we communicate + How we can do better

Whether it be with our customers, with our technicians or with our senior executive board, communication is key to successful field service management. In this toolbox talk hosted by Scott Wooden, Card-Monroe it will be interesting to see how various companies ensure that they communicate successfully across all channels.

 

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Almost a third of businesses (31 per cent) admit being slow to adopt technological innovations, according to a new study¹ by TomTom Telematics.

The finding has been compounded by the revelation that a third (32 per cent) still use paper to store business-sensitive information and that more than half (53 per cent) use spreadsheets.

“Slow or late tech adopters risk falling behind the curve and, as a consequence, potentially damaging their competitiveness,” said Beverley Wise, Director UK & Ireland at TomTom Telematics.

“Effective long term digital strategies and the integration of technologies into core business activities can hold the key to simplified processes, helping improve operational efficiency, productivity and sustained levels of growth.”

The research among senior managers at 400 UK businesses¹ found that despite the admissions, 82 per cent still believe it’s important to use the most up-to-date technology.

Cost was cited as the biggest barrier to tech adoption by 36 per cent of those businesses surveyed. Sixteen per cent said they faced difficulties introducing new systems while 15 per cent said there was a lack of time to invest in research and implementation. A further 11 per cent said they faced resistance among workers.

“Companies should look beyond the short-term pain of any initial outlay – an investment in business technology that is implemented and used effectively can result in a significant and swift return on investment,” added Wise.

“Clients that have adopted advanced telematics systems, for example, have demonstrated returns after just three months. Moreover, the right technology partner should be able to offer the requisite support to help minimise any business disruption and help ensure easy and timely implementation.”

 

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¹The study was conducted among senior managers in 400 companies with five employees or more.

 

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SyncronTM, a leading provider of cloud-based after-sales service solutions focused on empowering the world’s leading manufacturers to maximise product uptime and deliver exceptional customer experiences, have recently announced the launch of the After-sales Excellence Forum, a complimentary, half-day event aimed at helping manufacturers unlock hidden revenue opportunities and achieve new levels of customer satisfaction through optimised after-sales service.

It’s no secret the world is changing, and it’s changing fast. Multiple demographic, economic and social trends are pushing manufacturers to transform their after-sales service organisations, and shift from a reactive, break-fix model to maximising product uptime. This event aims to help companies embrace this change to achieve new levels of financial performance, customer loyalty and competitive differentiation.

The agenda specifically includes:

• How to leverage after-sales service as a growth and profit lever
• A deep-dive into how optimised service parts inventory greatly improves service operations
• Challenges facing after-sales service professionals, and how to overcome them

“We are thrilled to welcome the UK’s leading manufacturers to the After-sales Excellence Forum,” said Gill Devine, VP of Sales, EMEA at Syncron. “We are bringing together some of the top after-sales service experts to share strategies and tactics for how to successfully navigate today’s changing world. We aim to give manufacturers the confidence to take their after-sales service operations to the next level, increasing both financial performance and customer loyalty.”

The complimentary event will be held at The Icetank in London on 12 Oct. Representatives from Syncron, Servispart Consulting and IAAF will lead the day’s discussions.

To learn more about the event and register, click here.

 

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