Only a few months ago the concept of zero-touch service was a niche within a niche. Today is has proven critical in ensuring continuous service delivery in the light of Covid-19. Mark Brewer, Vice President Service Industries, IFS looks at what this looks like today and in the future...

 

Over the course of the last five years or so, we’ve seen the steady creep of businesses in a variety of industries moving towards completely contactless service in various ways: fast casual restaurants putting mobile orders on shelves, retailers creating online pickup lockers, self-checkout kiosks, and IoT-enabled fixes for devices like routers and cable boxes.

 

ZERO TOUCH SERVICE

Given the current crisis that we face with COVID-19, I believe that it’s safe to say that the creep will begin to accelerate into an avalanche, and service in many ways will lead that charge. It’s easy to pigeonhole these innovations into one or two technologies, but zero-touch service will likely be achieved through dozens of technologies, sometimes working in tandem, sometimes tied to the specific needs of an industry.

Below, though, are three benchmarks based on what we can accomplish today, and what our current technology decisions can already tell us about what tomorrow will look like. Let’s start with what companies can do right now:

Remote Assistance

We’ve already seen in recent years the prevalence and usability of augmented reality creep forward, and this has become increasingly commoditised and utilised for service functions across a variety of disciplines. I’ve long since promoted it as a means to train up new and contingent employees quickly on company policies, but it’s a clear vector for augmented reality.

When zero-touch is the only way to reach your customer, remote assistance can be a quick and effective way to get you there today. An IFS customer, Munters, was able to deploy a solution in six days. For them, it was an existential decision, and it kept them whole in a time where their contemporaries were melting down.

Obviously this is not always a reasonable replacement for an in-person meeting, as there is often a skills or resource gap between the back office and the field in remote service. But if you’re able to keep 50% of your clients up and running without a truck roll, the trickle-down benefits to your business are substantial. It’ll keep contracts renewed, avoid SLA penalties, and keep employees where they want to be: On the job. This is what we can do today. What about tomorrow?

A New Kind of Parts Management

Triage might be the best use for remote assistance today, but often the process of repair makes that a bit more challenging. It doesn’t have to be, though. If you have a fleet of vans with parts inventory on them that are sitting in a depot, you have a fleet of zero-touch delivery vehicles ready to go.

"Theoretically, the infrastructure is mostly there to make this work today. The most important part is a thorough, consistent, and comprehensive parts management and reverse logistics system..."

Imagine a scenario where a customer initiates a remote repair call, and the technician identifies a part that needs to be replaced based on a combination of IoT data and visual inspection. Rather than dispatch a technician, you could dispatch the part itself—often within a reasonably small window—then provide step-by-step replacement or repair instructions via the augmented reality array. It could be done live, with an actual person, or, increasingly, step-by-step instructions could be prerecorded and validated using the AR screen.

Theoretically, the infrastructure is mostly there to make this work today. The most important part is a thorough, consistent, and comprehensive parts management and reverse logistics system. You need to know inventory on every truck, at every warehouse, where each piece is in the depot repair process, and where and how remittance, reissue, or scrapping occurs.

With these two pieces in place, companies will be well-suited for today’s challenges. Remote assistance is available today, zero-touch parts allocation will take time to map out. The third phase takes it a step towards science fiction, though it’s a sci-fi that’s well within the realm of possibility over the next few years.

Assisted Repair

Imagine a scenario where, when a break occurs or is expected, a Roomba-like robot is dispatched, and through a drone-like interface is able to eliminate an issue without involving any humans. This may seem outside the realm of possibility today, but many industrial manufacturers are deploying fleets of robots specially designed to assist with simple repairs. From lifting and handling heavy parts to replacing faulty ones, to running routine security checks and providing a photo log that is attached to the customer account.

There’s obviously a huge amount of hardware infrastructure that needs to be considered here, and this is completely impossible in a number of industries, but think about the degree of customer attrition you’ll mitigate by having your customer add your robot to their family. Combine these capabilities with remote parts remittance and shared view repairs, and you’ll see the cost per truck roll plummet, and customer satisfaction skyrocket.

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Further Reading:

• Read more articles by Mark Brewer @ https://www.fieldservicenews.com/markbrewer
• Find out more about ServiceMax @ www.servicemax.com
• Read more about remote service @ https://www.fieldservicenews.com/remoteservice
• Read more about spare parts management @ https://www.fieldservicenews.com/spareparts
• Read more about Covid-19 in service @ https://www.fieldservicenews.com/en-gb/covid-19

Covid-19 affected client influences swift deployment of Merged Reality remote assistance solution.

 

A software solution using Merged-Reality (MR) has been made available by IFS after a customer affected by the impact of Covid-19 required a remote solution to remain operating.

Impact of Pandemic on the Field Service Sector

The technology's route to market came in record time following a request from one of IFS' long-standing customers, Munters, who had been monitoring the spread of the outbreak.

At the beginning of March and with the knock-on effect of global travel restrictions soon to take hold, the global supplier of sustainable air-treatment solutions, realised a solution would be required if service tasks were to continue.

“Our President Peter is in Italy, and as Coronavirus began to spread, he saw the immediate need to leverage remote assistance to help support both our field and manufacturing operations,” says Roel Rentmeesters, Munters Director of Global Customer Service. “By the beginning of March, it became urgent for us to get this technology in place to continue to be able to serve our customers and support our manufacturing operations.”

Rentmeesters contacted IFS on 6 March and the company were training staff six days later on the technology.

Currently, the firm are expanding the use of the technology to more than 200 users globally, which it hopes to complete within a fortnight.

IFS Remote Assistance utilises MR technology to create a real-life situational context that engineers can share with appropriate product experts operating remotely.

The solution blends to real-time video streams into an interactive environment for mobile devices. The app also includes, telestration, document sharing, three-party calls, screen capture, recording, call tagging and satisfaction surveys.

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Further Reading: 

• Find out more about IFS' remote assistance solutions @ https://www.ifs.com/corp/solutions/service-management/remote-assistance/
• Read a detailed overview of this case study @ https://blog.ifs.com/2020/03/munters-rolls-out-ifs-remote-assistance/

An unexpected but amusing cameo in a recent live stream with Nick Frank and Harald Wasserman not only brought a welcome moment of levity but also shone a spotlight on an important, but often overlooked aspect of remote working. Kris Oldland, reflects back on the session... 

I'm sure everyone of us at the moment is under a greater level of strain than we have ever felt before.

For me personally, I can confess to having never been under so much pressure. As an independent publisher, we have a tendency to punch well above our weight as it is, with an output that matches and dare I say it, betters that of any of the mainstream publishers I have worked for during my entire career in publishing. This is something I take immense pride in. 

Similarly, as the field service sectors leading global voice, I felt it was simply our duty to react in a proactive and positive manner to the current Covid19 pandemic and so establishing the support channel that we have created to host a series of live sessions to help offer guidance to field service companies during this time was something that I knew in my heart we had to move mountains to do. 

It is at times of crisis that we need both leaders and we need to come together as a community. It is our job as the primary layer of news media in the global field service sector to facilitate that. And we may be winging it a little, as are we all at the moment, but so far, I think we've done a reasonable job of achieving quite a lot in very little time - thanks in the main to the wonderful support from our friends in the industry.

But I'll freely admit, it has been tough, I'm tired and I know there is a long way to go yet. We'll get there, but there is a long, long way to go.

 

An Excellent Moment of Learning from an Unexpected Source: 

So a week or so on from the first Emergency Symposium we hosted on Covid-19 and its impact on field service organisations and I have just a moment to take stock on everything that happened in a whirlwind of anxiety, anticipation, and action.

While there have been countless excellent learnings from our Covid19 sessions, which you can catch up on here, perhaps one of the most important aspects of the current situation was raised by an unexpected cameo on my recent stream with Nick Frank and Harald Wasserman of Si2 Partners. 

 

"It was the follow up cameo that brought a wonderful moment of levity into what have quite understandably been a series of tense sessions across the week..."

 

It was a moment of sheer unexpected levity, and it shone a light on a very important, yet potentially easily overlooked, aspect of the remote working environment we are all currently engaged in. 

Just as Nick was speaking about the importance of strong leadership we saw a blurred flash across the camera as his young daughter entered into the shot. However, it was the follow up cameo that brought a wonderful moment of levity into what have quite understandably been a series of tense sessions across the week. With the wonderful exuberance of youth on her side, Nick's daughter proceeded to torment her Dad, with a pair of bunny ears behind his head and a wry smile to our live audience before treating us to one more wave as her brief, but enjoyable cameo came to an end. 

It was an endearing moment, one that reminded us all of the humanity that lies behind the screen - something that was acknowledged by a number of the audience in the chat room of the live session. 

 

"Actually, you are letting people in to your lives and I think this is quite difficult for some people..."

 

Nick coped with things admirably, and there were shades of Professor Robert Kelly's famous BBC video interview, which went viral, for sure. However, what this intervention brought forward was an important discussion on the importance of levity in these challenging times. 

"The thing about remote working and 'virtual sessions' is that they are very intense," Frank commented during the stream. 

"The meetings are much shorter, they are to the point and rather than having one or two sessions which are much longer these are shorter, more frequent and more intense. The other thing is that you can see the environment. Actually, you are letting people in to your lives and I think this is quite difficult for some people. 

"But now, because of the situation we are in, people are getting used to the seeing the working environment and it actually becomes OK, we're all in the same boat and it is of no surprise. What it brings is an informality to the discussion which completely changes the means of communication.

"I think it is these moments of levity and socialisation that can allow us to understand our teams as people and who they are and that is an important part of leadership, and good leadership is vital at the moment." 

Well said Nick and thanks Katy for bringing a smile to many of our faces at an intense time. It was a lesson many of us needed - i.e. to remember that while we may be working a million miles an hour to get through this crisis, while the rolling news continues to update us on everything that is in front of us, ultimately we must remember that a moment of levity, a reminder of the human behind the screen, can be a wonderful tonic to keep us going. 

 

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Finally, to say a big thank you for everyone who has joined our new Patreon tiers of paid for support of our work. 

We will be arranging for all of our premium content library to be uploaded to a non-sponsored, members only access area in the coming week and will also be setting up the discussion groups and arranging for some additional member only interviews to be conducted so watch this space.  

If you are interested in accessing our additional membership tiers you can do so from as little as £15/month and throughout the duration of the pandemic that costs will give you access to the top tier VIP membership as well. Find out more @ https://www.fieldservicenews.com/subscription-tiers

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In a recent edition of the Field Service Podcast, Field Service News, Editor-in-Chief, Kris Oldland sat down with Patrick Jansen, Field Service Manager, VBR Turbines, about why they decided to undertake an in-depth build of their own bespoke IoT solution.

"It all started about 6 years ago. We are an MRO (maintenance and repair organisation)  so we do own anything, we don't produce anything, our business is service. We saw that our market was changing. There was knowledge drain, changes in the labour market and more." Jansen explained. 

"So we started to look at what our service deliver should be like ten years from now and alongside that how could we overcome the challenges that we face in the labour market and how could we address the knowledge drain with our customers. There were a couple of things that saw needed to be done.

"One of the main drivers for us was to create an additional tool to facilitate remote support for the customer but also do diagnostics on the assets. This is because in the energy market within Europe has changed significantly." he added.

One such change has been the shift within the energy sector is that the traditional way of working with a predictive maintenance schedule was to base the schedule on running hours, but this is no longer an appropriate methodology as the amount of running hours has reduced. 

However, there were other benefits that Jansen and the team at VBR Turbines were able to benefit from - including the reduction in training time for new engineers. 

"The remote solutions can help people to get trained faster, the time to training a field service engineer really dramatically reduced." Jansen added. 

 

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Want to know more? Check out the Full Podcast in our Premium Content Library by clicking the button below or subscribe to the podcast on iTunes 

 

It has taken longer than many predicted, but Augmented Reality is finally gaining significant traction in the field service sector. Indeed, evidence of this new momentum can be seen in the number of new AR vendors entering the space. One company that pioneered much of the technology and concepts now becoming increasingly explored in our sector is Scope AR. Kris Oldland sat down with their President David Nedohin, to get his take on the case for Augmented Reality in the field service sector…

There are several different layers to how AR can sit within field service operations indeed long-time readers will recall the many times myself and Scope AR President David Nedohin have discussed the various facets of how this exciting technology will play a pivotal role in the field service delivery of the future.

For a long time, Nedohin was one of a very few voices in the sector that had both a deep level of knowledge and first hand expertise within the emerging industry of AR in field service.

The number of voices around him has increased dramatically in the last year or so, but the one thing that I always found gave Nedohin a defined sense of gravitas when he spoke was a firm grasp of the broader picture within the field service setting. This, coupled with a natural earnestness and a genuine belief that the technology can and will solve a multitude of challenges in the field service sector, always marked him out for me as a man worth listening to.

So, with the additional noise now swirling around AR, I was keen to sit back down with him and gather his thoughts on whether AR was set to become more prevalent within the field service sector, and if so how?

"To begin, let's take the remote support aspect of AR," Nedohin starts as we sit down over a coffee. "In all honesty, something we saw coming last year, which is now definitely coming to pass is that this side of the AR offerings is beginning to become heavily commoditised." 

“Allow the AI to tackle the 80% of support queries, freeing up the remote expert to focus on the 20% of more challenging issues – where they can bring value to the table…”

"We find ourselves now in a situation where many of the people who come to us initially are looking at the remote support side of AR. It has become something of a common trend which I think has largely arisen because remote support is all most field service directors hear about when it comes to AR.

"Of course, for us, that is something we can and do support, but it does end up becoming a scenario of simple feature and price comparison and matching, and that's not how we want to sell our product.  The bigger question for us is how field service companies create an interim strategy based around sharing expert knowledge with workers, regardless of where they are, and it doesn't have to be a case of using a remote expert every time your engineers need help.

"You need to have expert knowledge that's available to your workers in advance, and then if they need help, you have the additional option of calling an expert in.  You need those guide instructions, you need support, driven through Artificial Intelligence (AI) highlighting best practices, and then, if needed, you also need an option to call the expert. You don't want to just be in a position where every time you're going to call an expert to help - because that's not a strategy."

Nedohin, makes a valid point here, in that as is often the way with new and emerging technology, sometimes in a rush to adopt a solution, the purpose of implementing the technology, can get overlooked.

Remote Assistance is very much a natural fit in field service, and ultimately, I believe it will become as widely used as video calls, but it is not always a necessary route for each and every call. AI-powered knowledge banks working in tandem with AR – something akin to what Nick Frank termed as "Augmented Knowledge" in a recent article for Field Service News, can help guide an engineer onsite through a repair without tying up remote support.

It is a modern example of the Pareto principle at work – allow the AI to tackle the 80% of support queries, freeing up the remote expert to focus on the 20% of more challenging issues – where they can bring value to the table.

It also brings to mind perhaps one of the most well-repeated mantras we hear in field service. Use the right tools for the job at hand. As Nedohin explains; "It's no different than let's say a mechanic working on replacing a flat tyre. They need to pick the right tool to solve that problem. I mean, some guy's not going to walk up and say, 'I sell hammers' when you've got a nut to take off, and then try to convince you that you don't need a wrench.

"Imagine that conversation, with the supplier saying, 'We've got the best hammers, you need to buy hammers and figure out what to do with the hammer.' The mechanic would think he was insane and go get a wrench from somewhere else," Nedohin adds.

“You have to work back on the problem and figure out what tools you need…”

It is a well-made point that illustrates the importance of understanding your specific use-case requirements before implementing any technology - something I have put forward on many an occasion.

"You have to work back on the problem and figure out what tools you need," Nedohin concurs. "Somebody who's working up on a telephone pole, obviously they need a wearable, they need a monocular device that's going to give them a safe environment and they can overlay some instructions. 

"If it's somebody, who's working in manufacturing on the maintenance or repair of a big piece of equipment they must see exactly what they need to be doing and the AR overlaid on top can give them a bigger picture and surface resolution quickly and effectively. In this use case, a binocular device would likely be preferable.

"The first point on the map, the first question you have to ask yourselves as an organisation, has to be 'what is the right set of tools to help us improve what we're doing right now?'"

The potential of AR in field service is undoubtedly exciting, but as with other emerging technologies becoming integrated into field service such as IoT or drones, the use cases will vary from organisation to organisation. Identifying the gaps in your service delivery and where they can be improved is a crucial first step not to be overlooked. However, having taken that step, AR will likely become an important part of the technology stack that can drive your field service operation forward.

Manufacturing and service companies are facing a looming skills crisis—but industrial AR can help...

We've been asking for some time now how Augmented Reality will fill its potential as a central fulcrum within the future of field service. For Nick Frank the key is for it AR to become entwined with Knowledge Management... 

The English philosopher Francis Bacon once said: “Knowledge is power,” In earlier times, knowledge was usually kept to oneself for personal gain. Today, it is the sharing of knowledge that leads companies to success, especially in times of increasing digitization.

This ‘sharing’ involves collecting data, transforming it into insight and then getting it to a place where people can use it to make a difference. Benefits are only seen when the ‘knowledge chain’ is completed and any break in the chain nullifies our efforts.

So when industry commentators tell you that a particular technology is the “silver bullet” to success, it really is an oversimplification!

The problem is that knowledge is often “hidden” in the various IT systems and applications, or lost in the heads of employees who leave the business. For field service, this problem is particularly severe as the service portfolio is significantly larger than the current product offers due to longer product lifecycles and ever faster new product introductions.

On the other hand, service knowledge must be immediately available, in a distributed fashion, to achieve quick solutions and to ensure customer satisfaction. For service, we should view the challenge as being to provide customers or field technicians with that extra piece of know how that will help them solve problems more efficiently. A kind of “Augmented Knowledge” for expand it and provide it in a targeted manner. Existing information stored in different systems is merged. This can be structured data such as parts lists and unstructured information such as service tickets or service reports.

 

"Unstructured knowledge – text or prose – is analysed using text mining tools and integrated with the structured data. Large amounts of data can then be digitised and used intelligently..."

 

Unstructured knowledge – text or prose – is analysed using text mining tools and integrated with the structured data. Large amounts of data can then be digitised and used intelligently.

Urgently needed information is provided easily and quickly. Being able to network across databases makes it possible to recognize contexts, to analyze causes of failures and to create transparency. By using the system and verifying or excluding results, users continuously enrich it with expert knowledge. The current problem may already be the solution for the next user.

A classic example is finding similar cases (or problems). If an engineer is looking for the cause of a failure, the system looks for similar case and offers potential solutions.

The source for this could be the targeted evaluation of completed service cases (e.g. service tickets). By analysing which solutions were chosen by the engineer, the associated repair instructions, and confirming them as successful (or not successful, as the case may be) after the repair – the system learns through this interaction.

In fact, this process can go further and develop new insights from existing information. By visualizing and recognizing patterns, correlations can be identified, and appropriate measures initiated. For example, as part of a maintenance action or repair, the system can recommend the maintenance or repair of other elements to avoid subsequent failures that have arisen in similar situations.

But how to get that information to the point of need?

Augmented Reality (AR) technology, with its capability to supplement a real object, such as a machine or a component, with additional digital content is an ideal tool for this. It is not just the traditional approach of an expert communicating with a technician, it is extending it to ‘’smart’ databases supplying answers to questions.

 

"There is much to learn about the ergonomics of Augmented Knowledge and how to integrate it into people’s working lives..."

 

For example, in addition to the live video image on a tablet, smartphone or smart glasses, information and instructions can be augmented to the display to help solve the problem. These may be created by an expert remotely or they may be rendered as step by step instructions by the knowledge management system.

The individual steps necessary to solve the problem are now available in the form of AR annotations and can be subsequently edited and saved. This is another advantage of the AR system: The repair process gets documented and can be used again for similar cases.

So, if the engineer encounters this problem again in the future, they can reuse the annotations of the first repair without having to consult the expert. In addition, the solution is also available to all other engineers.

This saves significant time and effort. The caveat is to be able to present information to users such that they can use it. There is much to learn about the ergonomics of Augmented Knowledge and how to integrate it into people’s working lives.

This is a good example of how by turning information into transportable and analysable data (some call this digitisation of their processes), it is possible to accelerate service delivery, saving time and money for both the service provider and the user of machines.

Our experience is that by breaking down Knowledge Management and Augmented Reality into smaller pilot projects, we learn how to provide Augmented Knowledge to the Technician. Not just the technology, but actually how people brains cope with having access to this additional insight.

This may seem as bit ScFi and daunting at first, but you would be surprised how much of this you already do. Our advice is don’t look to anyone technology being pushed at you as the unique solution to your problems. You must develop your Knowledge Management, Augmented Reality and People capability in parallel.

For more information on how to start this digital journey, you can contact authors at peter.maier@si2partners.com or nick.frank@si2partners.com

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Nick Frank, Managing Partner at Si2 Partners 

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The potential for Augmented Reality being utilised in field service delivery can be leveraged just as effectively by smaller and medium-sized businesses as it can by their larger enterprise sized peers. Kris Oldland reports...

The potential of Augmented Reality within field service has been discussed for some time now, but as often happens with emerging technologies we tend to see early adopters come from enterprise rather than SMB sized companies.

Indeed, with the need to invest in expensive additional equipment plus the applications to power these devices surely this is one area where larger organisations can gain a competitive advantage?

Ultimately, the answer here comes down to a matter of perspective.

The intrinsic value of AR is that it can allow an organisation to dial in the expertise within their organisation directly to the customers’ location.

In any service contract, the true inherent value is within this expertise. Let’s take an example of a faulty widget which is stopping an organisation from being able to operate at an optimal level of productivity.

 

"In any service contract, the true inherent value is within this expertise..."

 

Do you think that the customer – who is facing this loss of productivity, cares whether that experience, which will enable them to get back up and running, comes in the form of a well presented, corporately branded field service engineer on site or if that experience comes in the form of a remote expert able to guide either an in-house maintenance engineer or a locally sourced third-party service engineer, step by step on how to get the widget back up and running?

Of course, from the field service provider’s perspective, there are numerous benefits of getting their engineer on site. One of the significant benefits being the all-important face to face interaction with the customer, but if we are talking about reducing the time to get that customer back up and running from days to hours, or even hours to minutes – then what value could that add to the service contract in the future?

Another scenario could be that the fault may be a relatively easy fix.

One which for the experienced engineer with a relatively standard technical skill set could be easily performed – yet as the majority of service directors will attest to the cost of getting that engineer on site is the biggest red line on their P&L.

How much would your company save if you could hire a local contractor, on a day or maybe even hourly rate, with the same broad technical skill set to attend the service call and be able to reduce the time he is onsite to an absolute minimum by allowing an experienced engineer, who can see what the onsite engineer sees, guide him through the repair, using digital annotations, to make it explicitly clear what actions to perform in order to provide the fix?

The key question here is, of course, how many such occasions, in which you avoid that expensive truck roll, would it take to pay for the device and application licence? Remember, the key selling point for AR, as with mobile, is on delivering a tangible return on investment (ROI).

In fact, let’s stay focused on ROI and those dreaded red lines on the P&L.

 

"The transitory life of the field service engineer is one that is hugely appealing but as your engineers grow older, they may be less inclined to travel so frequently, with family commitments taking preference..."

 

Retention of experienced field service staff and the training and development of new entrants into the field workforce are of course two other major areas that field service directors need to pay significant attention to.

Again AR can play a major role in both of these critical areas.

The transitory life of the field service engineer is one that is hugely appealing but as your engineers grow older, they may be less inclined to travel so frequently, with family commitments taking preference.

Traditionally, the only real means for such engineers to find a work-life balance within an organisation that was better suited to their changing needs was often management – but not all engineers, make good managers.

AR can allow a company to provide their more experienced engineers with the opportunity to find that better work-life balance, negating the risk of all that valuable experience and knowledge walking out of their door.

Similarly, it can take many months and in some sectors years for a company to be comfortable sending out a new engineer to client sites.

Whilst such training programs are admirable and often essential in terms of maintaining brand reputation, they can be a huge drain on resources.

AR can allow companies to dramatically cut the time needed for development and send their new recruits out into the field sooner – but with the safety net of being able to dial in an experienced engineer into the site remotely to help them when the going gets tough.

AR can even open up exciting opportunities for SMBs to expand into territories that would absolutely have been cost prohibitive for them to do so in the past.

Again, if your true value is the knowledge, expertise and insight within your field service organisation AR is the perfect tool for transmitting that value in real-time to anywhere in the world.

Ultimately, every field service organisation, big and small, will today empower their service engineers with a mobile phone and many AR solutions will run on such devices so even the need for investment in actual hardware is nonessential, making AR an extremely realistic introduction for even the smallest field service operation.

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