#maintenanceengineering Archives - Sales DNA and a Service heart

Using Engineering Information to Achieve a More Efficient Service Delivery

In my previous blog, I wrote about the blindfold-challenge; sending a service technician into the field with impaired visibility on an installed product, scarce access to knowledge, and poor spare parts support. The challenge hit a nerve with many based on our numerous responses. This challenge proved that getting the job done is more than having a customer service department and a sophisticated scheduling tool. You need insights into the installed product such as how it was engineered, how it was installed, and how it is maintained and used.

In this blog, I will go over using engineering information such as asset-centricity, asset lifecycle, and real-life information for efficient service delivery.

Asset Centricity

Can you imagine how frustrating it is for a technician, to be sent on a job, showing up and feeling the pressure to perform a miracle in the absence of essential product information? This is the reality of the traditional reactive-break-fix model. Not only does this model affect the technician, but it also aggravates customers, service managers, and CFOs.

Customers expect their products to work, and if they don’t, they insist on an instant and first-time fix. Service managers care about utilization and cost, only to get inefficiency caused by technicians scrouging for information and parts. CFOs want predictable earnings, only to get margin contribution at a risk due to unplanned service costs.

The alternative to the above blockers is embracing the concept of asset centricity. Instead of hopping from one isolated reactive incident to the next, we want to position the installed product at the core of the service delivery model. With asset centricity, we collect and connect the data from all the interactions we have with the product over its lifecycle. As a result, we can deliver proactive, predictive, and prescriptive services. Instead of fixing what breaks, we’ll know what works.

Wider perspective

With an asset centric approach, the technician will have a lifecycle view of a product. Meaning, having visibility of all historical and upcoming service events for those products. These insights put the current job in a wider perspective. The bigger picture allows the technician to make better decisions and deliver service faster, better, and cheaper. This will allow the technician to know what was installed and how the product is being maintained and used. They will also know what engineering changes and upgrades are available for that product.

Having a wider perspective on the As-Installed and As-Maintained is already a tremendous help to the technician, still an important piece of information is missing; the plan, the reference.

When the product was designed, the engineers had a specific use case in mind. Based on that use case, the maintenance engineering function defines the service-BoM, the spare parts list, maintenance intervals, and a whole array of reference documents. This maintenance engineering data will enable the service delivery organization to plan the work and get the job done. When putting this information in the hands of the technician, the technician would both be informed and empowered for success, removing the metaphorical blindfold.

A visual representation of the function of maintenance engineering

Plan versus Actual Data

When a product is ‘in the field’ it generates data on how it performs and what maintenance interventions it incurs. This is called “actual” data. The reference data from maintenance engineering serves as “plan” data. When you set up your service delivery organization to combine both sets of data, you have created a powerful tool to manage the service lifecycle of your installed base. At PTC we call this service lifecycle management (SLM).

“Plan” data will help you to prepare, be effective, and be efficient. When the actual data equals plan data, you’re on course. When they don’t equal each other, you trigger a mitigating action. There are a few reasons this may occur. It could be the customers are using the product differently than the intended use case or not all prescribed maintenance procedures were followed. It also could be the engineers had a different perception of real-life data. Whatever the cause, managing the data is at the core of successful service lifecycle management.

Efficient service delivery

Let’s give some examples of successful service lifecycle management through the lens of today’s three service delivery challenges.

Technician shortage: Almost every service organization is in search of technicians. Getting the job done is generally treated as a capacity and utilization problem. However, when organizations remove the blindfold and empower technicians it not only leads to achieving efficiency but also creates a more fulfilling job leading to more applicants.
Identifying the right part: When we ask technicians about their main pains, the identification of spare parts is in the top 3. In selecting a field service management (FSM) tool – optimizing for the labor component – is often the primary focus, but we fail to realize that parts cost is 40-60% of service cost. If you have a better record of the installed and maintained bill-of-material, your identification process would be more effective leading to a faster, better, and more efficient fix.
Knowing what must be done: Modern-day products are getting more and more complex. Good to know that engineering has defined instructions, dos, and don’ts to sustain the outcome of a product. When we use this data as a reference when we install and maintain an instance of a product, we can provide the technician with contextual information needed to perform the tasks without being blindfolded.

If you would like to hear more context and interact with experts from PTC, please join us in person at the High Tech Campus in Eindhoven on March 15th or tune in to the PTC Talks on April 12th.

This article is published on Field Service Digital.

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.

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.

See why service needs to be a team sport: Learn More

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

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 learn it as a powerful paradigm and being very useful in creating momentum for digital transformation. I get even more excited when I tie the ends of the thread and create an infinity loop.

What’s so compelling?

Having been a service executive for 25 year I’m rather practical and down-to-earth. I like to talk about service excellence, but my actions are more around service basics. When I hear a phrase like “data is the new oil”, I’m sceptical at first, immediately followed by curiosity.

I’d like to illustrate this through a research we commissioned about the rise of “Asset and Service Data Gravity“. Though friend and foe agree on the value of data, siloed organisational design and behaviour inhibits the flow of information. Since the publication of the report in 2018, I’ve seen and heard many more stories about the value of data, but I’ve always missed the handle, the story to break the siloes.

What is the ‘binding entity’ across all the business functions of an organisation? Yes, the product they sell! Some people have the idea, others design the product, next you produce it, then you sell it. Once the product goes into the ‘field’, you’ll help your customers install, operate, sustain and decommission the product. The common demeanor is the product lifecycle.

In each phase of the lifecycle the product creates data. Instead of each organisational function creating its own siloed representation of the product, you can picture a ‘thread’ where each station passes the baton onto the next. That is a compeling message for me.

Design-for-Service

One of my favourite activities in my current job is that I get to do frequent ride alongs. I ‘staple’ myself to a service request and observe each step in the process. The eye-opening part in the ride along is the ‘field’ piece. I mean the part where either the customer, technician or depot repair operator is in front of the product, tasked to fix it.

Sometimes it appears like we ask customers, technicians and operators to perform service activities ‘blindfolded’. Some examples:

The engineering of the product is optimised for manufacturing but not for service.
The service and operating manuals are available as reference documents, but not as actionable bite-sized instructions contextual to the job at hand.
There is a spare parts catalogue, but finding the right part is like finding Wally. Especially when the product is a configure-to-order product.

All these bullets make it harder to service products. More effort. More cost. Less efficiency. Less margin. Lower customer experience.

With Digital Thread we can picture an alternative future. Engineering designs a product with an intended use case in mind. Maintenance engineering ‘translates’ the product design and use case into a recommended preventive maintenance scheme, spare parts kit and component MTBF. Wouldn’t it be great if all that knowledge ‘flows’ into the after-sales and service delivery function? On the same platform?

Closing the loop

Now we have a linear thread starting with the definition of a product all the way up to sustaining and augementing the product, what would happen if we close the loop? Why is that important and who benefits?

Let me tell you a true story when I managed a field service organisation. The engineering department asked me to collect 25+ data points during the debrief of every service activity. Knowing that my technicians had not signed up for the job to do admin, I needed a lever to steer the conversation.

The good news, engineering recognised the value of data once the product was in the ‘field’. The bad, the cost of collecting the data was in after-sales/ service. To solve this dilemma, I played a game.

25 Data points equals 15 minutes admin time. Multiplied by volume. Multiplied by fully burdened cost. “Engineering, the cost of your data request is 581k per annum”. Can you guess the response? Isn’t this internal money? Endgame, engineering reviewed the list of 25+, settled on 5 questions that had an impact on value creation. Engineering funded service to collect the data. Technicians understood the reasoning of the 5 extra questions. Technicians got extra time (and pay) for retrieving the additional data points.

In all, we closed the loop, created value, balanced cost/ effort, got lasting funding and mitigated adoption. We all won.

There is more

Once engineering receives relevant and quality feedback on the performance of products in the field, you can setup a ‘plan versus actual’ process. In designing revision 1, engineering had a plan. Now the product is in the field, they receive actual. The comparison of ‘plan versus actual’ is useful in designing revision 2 of the product. This will benefit both the sale of new products as well as allow the service function to target the existing installed base with engineering and upgrade offerings.

Knowing that modern products are getting more complex and have an ever increasing digital component, establishing a closed PLM-SLM loop is critical to a sustainable and profitable business model.

Let me end with a personal note. Throughout my career it was fashionable to say “customer first”. Being in service, I deliberately voiced a counter message: “design your business processes along the axis of the product and service lifecycle”. Hence you can see why I am so enthusiastic about the Digital Thread concept and the infinity loop. For me it is a game changer.

I have no doubt why organisational siloes should, even must, work together. When you plot each organisational function on the digital thread and infinity loop, you have a simple, powerful and reinforcing visualisation. The graphic emphasises both the organisational dependencies and value amplification.

No surprise, I will repeat this message infinite times .

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.