All Articles
Comic Brake: Star Wars
Editor’s Note: Today’s cartoon is part of our “Comic Brake” series. Field service management is serious business, but everybody deserves a good laugh after a long week in the field. Check back for cartoonist Terry LaBan’s next installment on FSD.
Climbing The Servitization Staircase Using Asset Data
In manufacturing and product-led businesses, one of the biggest transformation models is servitization. According to a Forrester study we commissioned before the pandemic, entitled From Grease To Code: What Drives Digital Service Transformation, 85 percent of firms...
ChatGPT: Risks, Opportunities and Outcomes
Artificial Intelligence has been enjoying another media resurgence since ChatGPT hit the scene earlier this year. ChatGPT is seemingly part of everyone’s vocabulary these days, and its popularity isn’t confined to our consumer lives. Countless companies have been...
How OEMs Can Service Products Sold Through Indirect Sales Channels
Imagine you are an Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) who designs and manufactures fantastic products. You sell these products through a combination of direct and indirect sales channels. But because you don’t control the end-customer relationship, you don’t know...
Comic Brake: Train
Editor’s Note: Today’s cartoon is part of our “Comic Brake” series. Field service management is serious business, but everybody deserves a good laugh after a long week in the field. Check back for cartoonist Terry LaBan’s next installment on FSD.
Digital Thread: Closing the Loop
For more than 25 years I’ve worked in the after-sales domain. Hardly ever I came across the words digital thread. That changed when PTC acquired ServiceMax a couple of months ago. I wish I had come across the digital thread concept a lot sooner. I’ve come to...
5 Steps to Prevent Unplanned Downtime
There are some unsubstantiated stats doing the rounds at the moment, on the cost of unplanned downtime for manufacturers. These stats are putting average losses at over £1 trillion but while this is difficult to really measure, all organisations will have their own...
Are We Entering the Era of Smart Service?
Manufacturing is no stranger to robotics and automation. Long before all the studies by Oxford professors on how robots would impact the industry, manufacturing has been there and done it. So it’s no surprise that 62% of manufacturers still see automation and robotics...
Using a Digital Thread to Exceed Digital Transformation ROI Expectations
Digital transformation has hardly been a smooth ride for most organizations. Legacy technologies can be difficult to sunset so typically remain in place too long. Modernization tends to have been piecemeal. Organizations try to prioritize areas for profitability and...
What Is A Field Service Management Mobile App?
An effective field service mobile application empowers field workers to successfully complete their jobs faster with more accuracy and efficiency. Some of the field service mobile application capabilities include: Work estimates Checklists Scheduling Labor, parts and...
Why You Need A Global Blueprint For Service Data
For a long time, field service was seen as a cost to the business, a necessary evil of the balance sheet that kept products working while they were under guarantee. And yet, field service engineers were on the frontline with customers, with knowledge not just of...
Comic Brake: Repair Time
Editor’s Note: Today’s cartoon is part of our “Comic Brake” series. Field service management is serious business, but everybody deserves a good laugh after a long week in the field. Check back for cartoonist Terry LaBan’s next installment on FSD.
Benefits of an FSM Mobile App for Business
What Is a Field Service Mobile App? Field service mobile apps are a powerful tool that can help businesses improve their efficiency, productivity, and customer satisfaction. An effective field service mobile app is configurable and comes complete with scheduling, work...
How Asset Data Is Shifting Sustainability Thinking
If you have attended an industry conference recently, it would be fair to say that there are some common themes. We need to be more sustainable. We need to invest in skills, and we need to innovate, are perhaps the top three. Throw in resilience and regulation...
Design for Service – Engineering Better Products Using the Digital Thread
In my last discussion, I wrote about the importance of the concept of a digital thread regarding complex asset manufacturers and service providers. Here, I would like to address the beginning of the digital thread: the conceptualization and design of complex products....