Empowering the field worker
The Record Issue 1: Summer 2016
With access to new technologies, today’s field service personnel are benefitting from improved efficiency and better access to specialist technicians. Holographic solutions and IIoT promise to make their lives even easier. ARC Advisory Group’s Ralph Rio explains
Gone are the days when a field worker would be sent across the country with nothing more than a bundle of papers and a map. According to Gartner, by 2018, 70% of mobile workers will use a tablet or a hybrid device with tablet-like characteristics. Aberdeen Group predicts that 63% of leading service organizations will invest in mobile tools as a key strategy to improve field service performance. What’s more, the top performing companies today prioritize investment in mobile tools to increase the access and availability of service knowledge, both for the field team and the rest of the organization.
“Mobile devices and state of the art software solutions have vastly improved the lives of field teams,” explains Ralph Rio, vice president at ARC Advisory Group. “Today’s leading field service workers are much more efficient and can quickly respond to faults through access to real-time data and line of business applications. They have a fully-digitized job list with the ability to report the status of a job, even if they’re out of network range. Their company is able to map the most effective routes to customer sites and they can easily be re-routed if there’s an emergency. They can process their work orders and close a job without having to return to the office.”
While these new efficiencies are proving beneficial, Rio believes that new technologies will make life even easier for field service workers. “Virtual reality solutions like Microsoft HoloLens will prove to be transformational,” he explains. “HoloLens has unique capabilities which will allow field technicians to turn to a remote expert when in need of assistance. By blending the digital world with the real world using 3D objects that show up as holograms, HoloLens allows the field worker to show the expert a 3D visualization of the problem and the expert will be able to communicate back via Skype and annotate on their touchscreen to explain how the problem can be solved. There’s nothing else quite like it.”
Rio also believes that the industrial internet of things (IIoT) will also prove its worth for field service workers. “As more assets are remotely monitored, a technician can be sent to correct a problem before it turns into a major fault,” he says. “This will fundamentally change the service industry and provide a whole new raft of opportunities for business.
