Tag: #lifecycle

Back to the Future: Should Service Execution begin with the handover from Engineering?

I had the privilege to present to the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) of the University of Sheffield. Their website is packed with tags like “tomorrow done better”, “shaping the future of manufacturing”, and “world-leading technology experts”. What better place to discuss the topic of Design-for-Service with an audience immersed in Design-for-Manufacturability (DFM)? Allow me to share a back-to-the-future story. 

Blindfolded 

Service Blindfold challenge: Win $1000 cash.

About two years back, we interviewed a contingent of field service technicians. We asked them what makes them happy and what puts them off. 

In short, technicians love to be the hero-on-site, fixing technology and keeping the world running.  

On the flip side, they dislike going on a job blindfolded, with their hands cuffed and not being empowered to do their job. 

To elevate a technician’s role from reactive fire-fighter to proactive savior, first and foremost, we need to give them tools to see. This includes understanding what the product is, its current state, and how it is being utilized. Rather than immediately entering repair mode, it’s crucial to provide engineers with access to product engineering data, using this information so that they can diagnose the problem effectively. This is where the handover between engineering and service unfolds. 

Intellectual property 

When Engineering designs a product, they have specific use cases, product output, and performance in mind. For an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) the entire design and engineering thought process is considered intellectual property (IP), leading to the creation of great products. It’s the IP that sets their product apart from the competition. 

Then those products go into the field and buyers start using them. This is where the rubber hits the road. Does the product in the field behave like it was designed to in the development lab?  

Products in the field are best taken care of by Service. The more information Service knows about the engineering IP, the more efficient and effective Service can be in managing and supporting the operational lifecycle of the product. When mastered, you can even use Service as the primary revenue model. 

The IP can also flow from Service to Engineering. Throughout the operational lifecycle of a product, the Service team has multiple touch points with the product. Each touch point generates data. This data is on the actual behavior and performance of the product.  

Now we have two sets of data; the planned data from Engineering and the actual data gathered from Service. This opens up a plethora of instruments for continuous improvement. This improvement includes data for personnel in engineering, quality control, sales, product planning, supply chain, service sales, and service delivery. 

Handover from Engineering 

Not only in this Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) discussion– but in practically all conversations we have with OEMs– we often get to a point where product focus and service focus end up on two ends of a scale. It’s as if they are being treated as mutually exclusive; which should not be the case. 

There is a middle ground. Through the use of technology to hand over the engineering IP to Service and have Service embed that IP in their service execution processes we remove the blindfold. This is best illustrated through the function of maintenance engineering. 

A visual representation of the function of maintenance engineering

Maintenance engineering defines how to maintain the product, it sustains the product performance and output. Service translates the engineering-BoM into a service-BoM, identifies spare parts & kits, and creates preventive maintenance schemas. They also bundle installation, maintenance, and operating manuals. 

The good news is, the technology to hand over engineering data to Service in a clear and digestable format is there. Even better, most OEMs have a maintenance engineering function created in their IP making the barrier for entry low.  

Back to the Future 

Since November last year, I’ve been using the maintenance engineering narrative more forthrightly. I’m fascinated by the responses I get from customers, prospects, and researchers. First, a deafening silence, then comprehension and realization. It’s all so logical. It’s all so prognostic. So why haven’t we jumped on the bandwagon? 

To get a feeling of the engineering-service-handshake in 2023, we spoke to 50 service business leaders at Copperberg Field Service Forum. We started with an easy question. How many pages does the maintenance manual of a medium complex product have in your organization? The response: anything between 20-2,000 pages.  

We progressed to the more difficult questions. What information is in that document? Where is the document stored? Who reads it? Why? Why not? Does the content bring value? Should one use it? The conversation was not meant to create anxiety, but to make one see how existing engineering IP could be leveraged better in the service domain. 

It’s today’s technology that makes it possible to act on the handover from engineering to service, to apply the maintainability concepts in service execution, and to reap the business benefits. This puts the ball back in the court of OEMs. Do you want to remain silent or do you want to act now? Do you want to walk the talk? 

I am guessing that this will not be our last conversation on this topic. 

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This article is published on Field Service Digital and PTC Blog.

Digital Thread: How the Service Bill of Materials Drives System of Record Across the Platform

“We’ve defined ERP as the system of record for our installed base”. This a phrase we hear quite often. Is it a smart choice, and what are the consequences of this choice? When you are in the business of managing the service lifecycle of an installed base, we believe you should consider an alternative approach to system of record.

This blog is part 2 in a series of three.

Limitations of ERP

ERP is often a solid choice for the system of record for many data objects. But lesser so for products, equipment and assets that have left the building. When products hit the field and start their operational lifecycle, those products become a handle for a lot of contextual usage data. Think in terms of how is the product being used, how is it being maintained, and what touch points have we had with the product?

Bill of Materials lifecycle

Let us paint a picture of the lifecycle of the Bill of Materials (BoM). In the design phase of a product, engineering will create an engineering BoM. In the build phase, manufacturing will pull the latest revision of the engineering BoM and use it as a template to manufacture a batch of x units. All those units have the same as-built. If we use a configurator in the sales process, the as-sold may differ from the as-built. So far the information we have captured is product specific.

Post-point-of-sales, when the unit leaves the building and the customer starts using the product, the unit becomes unique. Though the engineering team may have had a specific use profile in mind when designing the product, in real life, customers use the product within (or outside) a bandwidth of the product specifications. Tracking how customers maintain and operate the product thus becomes essential to keep the product running. Being in the operational lifecycle of a product we’ll refer to the BoM as as-maintained or as-operated.

Service lifecycle management (SLM), fit for purpose

If we have to name one single reason why any OEM should revisit their ERP installed base system of record paradigm, it is total product lifecycle cost.

For mission-critical assets, the lifetime Opex is a multiple of product expenditure Capex. Thus, if you want to make a valuable impact on the users/buyers of your products, you need to focus on the service lifecycle.

The SLM asset record is fit for purpose. SLM connects as-engineered, as-built, as-sold, and as-maintained. In part 1 of this series, we explained how the Service-BoM sets the standard of maintenance, underpinning the value promise of product uptime and sustenance. PLM, ERP, CRM, and FSM all add data to the digital thread of the product. SLM, being on the receiving end, defines the data master for products in the field.

Enterprise data architect

Knowing that it takes both product and usage-specific data attributes to keep products running, we’d like to better understand why we’ve defined ERP as the system of record for our installed base. Is this a dogmatic, pragmatic, or conscious decision?

In the decision-making process for enterprise software, there are two factions. The business persona and the IT persona. Both weigh decisions along different (internal) metrics. Though it may seem obvious to abandon the ERP mantra from a business perspective, IT may have sufficient counterarguments not to do so.

This is where we can/should call on the help of the enterprise data architect. The enterprise data architect is key to any system of record conversation. What is primary, and what is secondary? How does data flow from one business area to the next? Does any function own data or is every function contributing data to an enterprise pool of data? The enterprise architect will be able to weigh the arguments and weigh the value of data beyond the individual functions in an organization.

Value of Asset Data

Knowing that the value of asset data is only getting bigger and bigger, we believe we are at an interesting point in time to create a digital thread of data. Focused on keeping the world running. Using the Service-BoM as a pivot. Using SLM as a system of record.

In part 3 of this series, we’ll focus on value using Service BoM and SLM data to drive cross and upsell. Teaser: when you exert a lot of effort in designing, building, and selling products, how much effort do you want to put into generating margin contribution off your installed base?

This article is published on Field Service Digital and PTC Blog.

Digital Thread: How the Service Bill of Materials Links Engineering to Service

When we embark on a digital transformation journey in the after-sales domain, where does the process start? With the sale of the product? Commissioning of the product? First service call? We believe the foundation for the design of your service delivery processes starts in engineering.

This blog is part 1 in a series of three.

The creation of the service manual

When Engineering designs a product, they have an intended use profile in mind. That use profile defines wear-and-tear. Subsequently, the maintenance engineering function will define mitigating strategies to maintain the output specifications of the product and to sustain/prolong its lifecycle. The results are typically captured in the service manual and the Service Bill of Materials (BoM).

The golden standard of service

In a recent engagement with a prospect of ours, we asked to see the service manual of a medium-complex product to scope the service delivery business processes. Our premise: we may upsell on the service manual and promise higher value, but when we deliver less, product continuity and lifecycle may be at risk. As such, the service manual can be seen as the golden standard of service delivery.

In the 165 page pdf-document, we found a wealth of information on what to do, when to do it, and how to do it. Bill-of-materials, serviceable parts, PM-frequencies and kits, recommended consumables and spare parts, installation parameters, calibration values, and MTBF rates. We got enthusiastic. If somebody in engineering created this document, how does it ‘flow’ to after-sales? What system of record does after-sales use to be able to act upon the information in the service manual?

Digital thread

In the last decade, we’ve seen a lot of digitization initiatives driving the transformation agenda. We’ve also seen that a lot of digital data is still created and collected in silos. Engineering is digitizing product lifecycle management (PLM), manufacturing is pursuing Computer-aided manufacturing (CAD), sales are rolling out customer relationship management (CRM) and service is reshaping field service management (FSM). But how do they link to one another? Isn’t the overarching value promise of digitization the sharing of data leading to 1+1=3?

If your organization is in the business of designing, manufacturing, selling, and servicing products, then all those functions are connected through a digital thread. The carrier of the thread is the product itself. Starting as an as-engineered and subsequently transitioning into an as-built, as-sold, and as-maintained. In each stage of the lifecycle, additional information is added to the thread. Zooming out, each function will look at the digital thread through a lens to increase the value proposition.

Design for service

In our engagement with the above-mentioned prospect, we were curious how much design-for-service thought was put into the engineering phase and how that information would shape the design of the service delivery processes. Though the wealth in 165 pages of the service manual was phenomenal, the service organization had not yet invested in processes to receive the engineering baton.

The opening paragraph of the service manual provided a great narrative to introduce the baton. “Congratulations on your purchase. To protect your investment and get maximum return, we’ve defined some handles for good husbandry. This manual contains the instructions to guarantee the nominal output over its technical lifecycle”. In other words, the service manual defines the golden standard of maintenance to underpin the value promise of the product sale[1].

What Engineering documented in the 165-page service manual can be condensed in the following picture. In the first column, we find the Service-BoM. The Service-BoM is a subset of the Engineering/Manufacturing BoM. It contains only those parts that are serviceable. The manual pre-empts what skills are required to perform that serviceable activity. Can it be done by the customer, does it require a skilled technician or should the part be swapped in the field to be repaired in a depot/repair center?

With the above information from maintenance engineering, service delivery has a great blueprint defining what output its business processes should deliver. Analogously, service sales has an anchor to model cross and upsell offerings for customers having needs beyond the baseline described in the service manual.

Design for improvement

The service manual also serves another very important purpose; improvement. Improvement in two directions. Engineering giving handles to service and service giving feedback to engineering. As an illustration, I’ll use the mean time between failures (MTBF) column in the above table.

When Engineering designs a product, they typically have an idea of the lifecycle/MTBF of used components. Those values initially are theoretical numbers. Call them Plan. When the product hits the field in larger numbers, empirical values will trickle in. Call them Actual. When Actual is within a narrow margin of Plan, we say this is expected behavior. When it falls outside the margin, we call it an outlier. Understanding the root cause of the delta between Plan and Actual will enable you to drive improvement by process design.

  • Maybe the product was not installed properly
  • Maybe the product was not used as intended
  • Maybe engineering was wrong
  • Maybe service delivery was not in line with the service manual
  • Maybe the customer pushed out a preventive maintenance cycle
  • Maybe non-approved spares have been used

Actionable Service-BoM

What started as a trivial ask “can you share the service manual of a medium complex product” resulted in a pivotal conversation bridging engineering and service. The service manual is no longer a static 165-page pdf-document sitting in a knowledge repository. It is now an actionable document driving improvement and value in both the service and engineering domains.

[1] When selling products with a transfer-of-title, the risk of maintaining the product transfers to the buyer. Thus, the buyer becomes responsible to mitigate that risk in order to continue receiving the outcome/value of the product. The buyer may purchase maintenance services from OEM or choose differently. Read further in part 3 of this Digital Thread series.

This article is published on Field Service Digital and PTC Blog Site.