Technology Report: Enabling the Mobile Worker of the Future · 2017-11-21 · always be demand for the mobile worker…the guy or gal who goes out to the asset and services it

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Technology Report: Enabling the Mobile Worker of the FutureThe dream is that remote workstations, plants, wells, windmills and machinery never break down, never need servic-

ing, never require replacement parts. The reality is that—even as these elements grow smarter every day—there will

always be demand for the mobile worker…the guy or gal who goes out to the asset and services it. The good news? In

this era of digital transformation, we’re able to equip mobile workers like never before. They know what the problem

is (and how they’re going to fix it) before they get there. Augmented reality and modern methods of communication

enable a closer connection to home office, no matter how far away that office is. It can be tough out there—working

atop a wobbly windmill or amidst choppy oceanic waters—so mobile workers need all the help that modern technol-

ogy can offer them.

TECHNOLOGY REPORT


TECHNOLOGY REPORT

CONTENTS

Five tips to unlock revenue in aftermarket field service

How tech & data are changing field work

Connected-worker platform to drive plant productivity

Equipping mobile workers of every generation

Transforming the future of work

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ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

TRANSFORMING THE 21ST CENTURY INDUSTRIAL WORKFORCE

HUMAN INGENUITY

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TECHNOLOGY REPORT: ENABLING THE MOBILE WORKER OF THE FUTURE

Five tips to unlock revenue in aftermarket field serviceBy Christine LaVoi, senior client manager with IFS North America

Aftermarket service is becoming a way for manu-facturers and distributors to unlock revenue at a time when product margins are slimming. According to a 2017 IDC study, by 2020 manufacturers using product and service-quality measures to enhance customer experiences will capture 20% more aftermar-ket revenue. Aftermarket services then become a key differentiator in increasing the bottom line. There are five key focus areas within manufacturing for those wanting to optimize operations and drive their after-market services.

INCREASE HOURS IN A DAY WITH

SMART WATCHES

The time technicians spend interacting with an aftermarket-service application needs to be kept to a minimum to give them more time to focus on the jobs in hand. For example, software optimized for a wear-able device (such as a smart watch) can keep records of completed work, request spare parts or seek guid-ance from colleagues, all without the worker downing tools. It can also communicate with a customer with a simple tap to let them know when they are on the way to the job, when they have arrived and when they have finished.

There is a wide range of systems available, with the more advanced ones having GPS that automatically sends notifications as soon as a technician leaves an of-fice or arrives at a customer site. This saves technicians time by not having to manually interact with technol-

ogy to communicate their location. Businesses can also gain from digital records to show how quickly a technician was on site after a service request was made, along with automated service level agreement (SLA) reporting for instant communication of work orders completed.

RETAIN PAST KNOWLEDGE IN DIGITAL FORM

Many of the skilled workers across a number of industrial sectors and asset-intensive industries are nearing retirement age. Organizations are struggling to maintain a full workforce–a 2015 Career Builder survey found 55% of service organizations were struggling to fill open service positions. The problem for businesses is not just finding themselves with a re-duced headcount, but they are also unable to retain the knowledge that retiring individuals have accumulated through years of experience in the role.

Adopting innovative technology helps organiza-tions overcome this issue. Field-service-management software is starting to include instructional tools, such as product manuals, videos, blueprints and FAQs, embedded within devices to simplify complex tasks for the next generation of workers. Augmented reality is also finding a practical role within the industry. En-gineers are able to use technology from providers such as XM Reality to collaborate with associates hundreds of miles away and ask for guidance on key processes or issues. This method of embedding knowledge via a software application increases first-time fix rates,



reduces time-on-site and drops the cost of service-provision while ensuring customer satisfaction and SLA compliance.

MANAGE THE REVERSE-LOGISTICS PATHWAY

Aftermarket service organizations often have to man-age the movement of products, parts or subcomponents from customer sites and back into inventory. Once on site, these items may be repaired and sent back to the customer, the supplier or even disposed of. Inefficient management of reverse logistics means organizations can find themselves driving unnecessary cost or harm-ing customer satisfaction.

In order to prevent this, organizations should focus their efforts on four key areas of reverse logistics:

Return for Repair: This handles the shipping of a product, part or subcomponent to a designated repair center so the item can be returned to the original cus-tomer once it has been repaired.

Return then Swap: A transaction where the unusable product or part is shipped to a designated repair location, found to be non-repairable and then “swapped” for a new item, which is then returned to the customer.

Advance Exchange: A challenging and complex transaction where a new or refurbished product or part is shipped to the customer to replace an unusable prod-uct or part, which the customer returns after reception of the new or refurbished item.

Return Only: When unusable or undesired prod-ucts or parts are returned without any replacement process.

Without supporting software, teams can often find that inventory they thought was available actually isn’t, ownership of parts isn’t recorded, or that they can’t determine whether parts are still covered by warranty. Optimized software can feed real-time data on asset lifecycles and the availability of parts, allowing after-market service teams to achieve timely returns, decrease the time to turnaround repairs and reduce costs.

PREDICT EQUIPMENT’S NEXT MOVE

Scheduled maintenance plans are becoming a thing of the past, with IoT furthering the capabilities of an aftermarket organization to enable condition-based or predictive maintenance. For example, a technician can be automatically notified and parts ordered if a sensor on a compressor detects a fault that would potentially damage a valve. How service or maintenance actions are triggered is set to the expected performance crite-ria or the number of cycles a piece of equipment has completed. As service providers build up their knowl-edge and data, they are able to become a more valuable organization for their customers.

But IoT doesn’t just monitor the performance of individual assets, it also has the ability to collect data about equipment in the aggregate, creating large amounts of information that can be analyzed and modeled. This group of data enables comparisons to be made between assets of the same type or model and helps identify individual units operating outside the norm.

These benefits are achievable without consuming any administrative staff time or overhead, meaning

This method of embedding knowledge via a software application increases first-time fix rates,

reduces time-on-site and drops the cost of service-provision while ensuring customer satisfaction and

SLA compliance.



an aftermarket service team can meet or even exceed customer expectation while capturing revenue with minimal or no additional cost.

MAINTAIN AN ASSET’S FULL HISTORY

Not all aftermarket field-service applications provide the same level of per-asset tracking, which is essential in industries where traceability is required for regula-tion or other services. There are various situations in which per-asset tracking is a must. A more thorough maintenance history is required for capital assets being serviced–such as a piece of medical equipment due to

compliance or audit requirements. This can include the serial tracking of parts and components, the frequency and duration of each service visit and even information on a technician’s qualifications.

The optimal way to achieve this is for aftermarket service to be integrated within the functionality used to manufacture the asset from the start. Not only does this allow for an asset to be fully monitored and traced throughout its lifecycle (which may be a requirement for regulatory or risk-management purposes), but also provides a deeper relationship between an aftermarket service team and the customer.

IoT doesn’t just monitor the performance of individu-al assets, it also has the ability to collect data about equipment in the aggregate, creating large amounts

of information that can be analyzed and modeled.



How tech & data are changing field workBy Indresh Satyanarayana, chief architect at ServiceMax from GE Digital

The data revolution has transformed industries from trucking and manufacturing to retail and fashion. But one industry that has uniquely benefited from data analytics and its resulting advances? Service.

Today, connected products, mobile technology and the data that streams in from devices in the field means service workers and manufacturers can collect useful information to service machines; better antici-pate and address customer needs; train new hires and grow teams faster; and power individuals to set and meet numbers-based goals.

This technological metamorphosis has changed the relationship between these field workers, their manu-facturers and the customers that employ them to keep their machines up and running. As the technology continues advancing, the relationship between these groups will undergo seismic shifts as well.

RELATIONSHIPS HAVE EVOLVED

ALONGSIDE DATA

With the advent of mobile technology and data-collection developed specifically for field workers, service in the field has become leagues more advanced. Field techs are now armed with the knowledge of how to approach any situation with detail, informa-tion and research on their side—the history of the machines, how they typically function and whatever outages might have occurred in the past. Essentially, data has transformed field-service workers into oracles on the go, ones who can solve problems at the touch of a button and satisfy customers on a regular basis.

Mobile technology and data has taken the idea of col-lecting tribal knowledge and systemized it, bringing a real-time, omni-channel approach to the service-HQ relationship.

Ultimately, this has forged a first for the industry: a digital relationship between manufacturers and service workers. With real-time data flowing in, metrics like location information, schedules and availability are within arm’s reach for dispatchers at HQ , helping them be more effective in allocating resources and service in an outcomes-based model, where companies sell long-term service contracts that deliver consistent outcomes and end-results.

Imagine, Rolls Royce sells flight hours instead of engines to deliver yearly proactive service to its machines, or SolarCity operates on a power-purchase agreement to sell electricity instead of physical panels. By bringing manufacturers and service workers closer together through real-time data, this type of future is in grasp.

SMARTER MACHINES ARE HELPING MANUFAC-

TURERS ACCOMPLISH MORE

As all of this data from connected machines accumu-lates and stockpiles, manufacturers can access greater insight into a machine’s lifecycle: to know in advance when it will need service. Today, machines are no lon-ger islands—they’re fully connected. When analyzing the data that comes in, such as weather patterns caus-ing wear-and-tear on a wind turbine, these patterns and identifying anomalies can help manufacturers



better understand when an outage may occur and plan their service proactively for their customers.

This kind of analysis is known as asset-performance management—because field service is more than just attending to problems after they’ve happened, but making sure that an asset is performing at its best, constantly. But paying this close attention to a machine’s collected data lends itself to a new way of service: predictive service.

Now, whether it’s an impending issue or just a general efficiency fix, manufacturers can dispatch techs before an outage even occurs—providing a broader “health” service to customers that guarantees them a future-functioning machine for a solid amount of time. With service workers as the conduits to this new relationship between manufacturers and their custom-ers, providing an outcome (rather than a simple one-off service) is very likely to become the new norm.

USING THIS DATA TO SOLVE

REAL-WORLD PROBLEMS

Data is nothing without a why—analyzing moun-tains of numbers doesn’t mean anything if you’re not looking to solve a certain question. In field service, the why is moving toward this next generation operat-ing model to solve larger problems.

I’ll give you an example. At a recent conference put on by my company, a field tech from medical device company Medtronics gave a presentation. He

discussed how mobile technology and pre-delivered information had helped him get a radiation-therapy machine up and running in the middle of the night, ensuring that any patients lined up the next day were not impacted. At the end of the speech, he got emo-tional—his mother had passed away from cancer, and he wanted to make sure that everyone with the disease had a chance at remission.

Ensuring that a radiation-therapy machine doesn’t go down is truly a matter of life and death here. But imagine using technology to anticipate the (natural) outages that might occur and dispatching a tech to fix the problem between therapy sessions, so no patients are left in the lurch. Or what if Medtronics could use this technology to optimize the machines to stretch for three shifts instead of just two, before needing to re-cuperate? Making care and treatment more accessible is one part of this business that actually matters—and that comes from data.

Digital transformation has gotten us to this point—we’ve watched as techs have become more indepen-dent, more informed and more valued by manufactur-ers. We’ve also seen customers become more grateful and loyal to manufacturers and their field workers for providing real-time productivity and revenue benefits. Now, in the evolution of service as an industry, it’s time to use this digital transformation to make a real-world impact—on customers, manufacturers, and the techs that do it all.

Data is nothing without a why—analyzing mountains of numbers doesn’t mean anything if you’re not look-

ing to solve a certain question.



Parsable’s enterprise SaaS platform helps companies transform paper-based work instructions into digital business processes, reducing production line down-time, supporting real-time collaboration and commu-nications, improving the cycle time of core processes, and providing deep insight for continuous improve-ment, according to its maker. Parsable allows humans to provide the same continuous signal as IoT devices.

The plant now collects over 30,000 new data points daily to analyze for continuous improvement. This insight has led to a 50% decrease in startup, shutdown, and changeover times, according to Parsable. Addi-tionally, Operational Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) has increased by 4%. The plant is also almost com-pletely paperless as Parsable’s platform and mobile apps digitized 85% of plant operating procedures in the first four months of operations.

“Forward-looking industrial manufacturing giants like Unilever are realizing the critical importance of enterprise software for the ‘Connected Worker’ to drive results for their Industry 4.0 initiatives and to help their

industrial workforces perform optimally,” says Ryan Junee, Parsable’s founder and president. “The digitally connected industrial worker knows exactly what work to do, when, and how to do it. This means less time is required to produce the same results, and work is com-pleted safely with more precision.”

The Unilever plant has equipped employees with smartphones and tablets to access and execute proce-dures, collaborate in real-time, and continuously moni-tor work and results.

Employees have access to digital tools like text, audio, photos and videos to help them collaborate, and react when unforeseen circumstances arise. Newer employees are benefitting from step-by-step guidance and instructional videos, while team leaders are receiv-ing real-time reporting on work in progress to identify issues and bottlenecks.

Says Jaime Urquidi, factory director at Unilever. “I want our plant to be an exemplar, not just at Unilever but in our industry. This means operating faster, safer, and more efficiently.”

Connected-worker platform to drive plant productivityBy Chris McNamara, Smart Industry content director

Forward-looking industrial manufacturing giants like Unilever are realizing the critical importance of

enterprise software for the ‘Connected Worker’ to drive results for their Industry 4.0 initiatives.



Equipping mobile workers of every generationBy Rick Smith, vice president of global injection services for Milacron

Rick Smith understands the huge benefits to be gained from properly equipping team members in the field, particularly as the tools, technologies and trends related to remote assets change at lightening pace.

Smart Industry: Why do we still face the obstacle of getting the right information at the right time?

Rick: When you look at the people we work with, it’s a mixed bag. In my opinion, there are two groups of people—a group that hasn’t necessarily kept up with the pace of technology, and then a younger genera-tion that is eager to adopt these disruptive trends. One problem we face is getting the older generation to use the technology…like using a tablet to fill out an automated-service report.

We need to give technology information to the older generation who have the depth of experience. Meanwhile, the younger generation might have the tech know-how, but they aren’t the ones with prod-uct knowledge and decades of experience in the field. And when it comes to fixes, you must have a balance between those two groups.

When you are facing a tricky maintenance, the older groups want to be involved in the decision, to flex their

individual and long-earned knowledge. The younger side want the answers delivered. It’s a cultural shift—but when we come out on the other side of “technology resentment” and mobile enablement, we’re glad we got to the other side.

Also, skilled trade roles are changing, along with the extensive training programs that came with roles in industries like automotive. When those service jobs are outsourced to third parties, we don’t have the luxury of backfilling 30 years of training.

Smart Industry: What most excites you about the immediate future of mobile worker enablement?

Rick: Technology is essential and we are just start-ing to see the benefit of smart, connected products. From a field-service perspective, connected products enable mobile workers to deliver more effectively. This minimizes machine downtime and increases first time fix rate, as well as a plethora of other benefits.

The technician in the field can connect with the office in an interactive way. Senior staff with that depth of ex-perience might be in the office and the field tech can help them see what they see and leverage added experience.

Smart Industry: What is the greatest information need of the mobile worker?

We need to give technology information to the older generation who have the depth of experience.



Rick: From the field-service perspective, it’s all about interacting with the customer. For that, we need good IoT technology that tells us where the problem is or at least a good understanding of where the problem could be. The possibilities of IoT are endless—right now we have an interactive tech manual in which you can click on a circuit if you don’t understand what it is; you can see how they work or click a different way to see other data. That helps you troubleshoot. In our business, it’s all about how quickly you can get the

customer up and keep warranty costs down. We need the live-time information coming from the machine. If we could have technical FOM’s (functional operating manuals) that could walk a technician through a series of checks to get to a machine failure, that information would be very powerful in generating less machine downtime. It’s not about throwing parts at a problem, it’s about diagnosing it. The IoT allows us to increase our meantime to repairs in the most economic way to address our customers’ needs.

From a field-service perspective, connected products enable mobile workers to deliver more effectively.



Transforming the future of workBy Carl Byers, chief strategy officer at contextere

In recent years, industrial enterprises have seen a rise in emerging technologies and digital tools that offer impressive improvements to worksites, yet 60% of an industrial worker’s day is characterized as “non-productive” time, the skills gap continues to widen as 75 million youth are underemployed or without work, and thirteen workers are killed every single day on industrial sites across the United States. At contextere, we believe that the combination of arti-ficial intelligence and human ingenuity is the key to improving productivity, decreasing operational costs and saving lives.

DEVELOPING THE INDUSTRIAL WORKER

The industrial worker is traditionally viewed as either the recipient of top-down decisions and pre-defined work optimizations or is considered irrelevant to the process. Neither case considers their vital involve-ment and expertise in the minute-to-minute decisions that are made in the operation, maintenance and inspection of complex equipment and assets.

I am focussed on changing that dynamic. The platform we offer begins with the assumption that all information the industrial worker needs to conduct their jobs effectively should be assembled and deliv-ered in real-time based on personal context. We in-tegrate to the existing enterprise data and Industrial IoT sensor feeds to correlate the appropriate selection of information based on the worker’s context, skills and competencies, and proximity to equipment plus historical results.

Based on the information available, our technology will understand the worker’s context, determine what they need to do next, curate the available information relevant to their situational context, and send insights appropriate to their competency and mobile devices. As they conduct and respond to the dynamic work instructions, we capture any relevant performance of in-situ data for integration into the back-end enter-prise environment for analytical, verification, and compliance purposes.

Over time, as individual competencies change through repeated actions, as productivity increases, or enterprise analytics provide additional inputs, the application of machine-learning algorithms automati-cally adjusts the work instructions received by the worker to optimize their actions. From the indus-trial worker’s point of view, he or she can go to any location and be consistently delivered an individually tailored, dynamic instruction of what to do next.

TRANSFORMING THE INDUSTRIAL WORLD

The typical industrial enterprise has a range of IT solutions in place, supported by various levels of con-nectivity and analytics, at headquarters and the edge. Centrally, you find enterprise-resource planning, product lifecycle management, and enterprise-asset-management products that accumulate data in cen-tralized databases upon which analysis and ‘what-if ’ simulation processes are applied in order to develop performance-optimization strategies. In addition, as greater numbers of smart sensors are installed



on legacy field-based machines, more investment is being applied to the analysis of the data produced by those sensors to automate micro-optimizations that may increase efficiency or extend equipment life.

The human at the edge can now receive similar benefits and value. We take a human-centric ap-proach to micro-optimization through the generation of minimalist instruction sets, known as Microforms, which are templated from fundamental activities that might be conducted in the three primary operational use cases below:

1. Complex equipment utilization—Operation, maintenance, and repair of complex remote-equipment assets to maximize utilization and efficiency.

2. Skilled workforce development—On-the-job guidance and mentoring to increase individual and collective competency while optimizing classroom-based pre-training.

3. Hazard avoidance and emergency response—Shared awareness and emergency guidance to individuals and concurrent work teams to increase individual and collective safety.

The curation process that generates these Micro-forms assembles information relevant to the work instruction and formats, delivers, and presents this information in a way most effective for the specific device that is in use by the worker at that moment.

Just as in-car navigational guidance replaced paper maps, we create a trusted relationship with the end user because the guidance provided is accurate, rel-evant and reliable. The machine-learning intelligence and prediction algorithms within our platform are the critical elements that build this relationship. The Mi-croform generator ensures delivery of the instructions to the worker and inspires in them the confidence that they will get the information they need—when they need it—to be more productive and more safe.

We create a trusted relationship with the end user because the guidance provided is accurate, relevant

and reliable.

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Technology Report: Enabling the Mobile Worker of the Future · 2017-11-21 · always be demand for the mobile worker…the guy or gal who goes out to the asset and services it