Skip to main content

IoT drives field activity


For this discussion let's think about work in two buckets, scheduled and unscheduled. Scheduled covers things like preventative maintenance, project work, essentially anything that is scheduled or preplanned.  Unscheduled work; also known as a service call or any ad hoc request for work. In context of remote monitoring, which has been around for many years, a significant impact in the coming years will materialize for both scheduled and unscheduled field activity.



The idea is not really that novel; however, the world is changing significantly with regards to sensors and monitoring. For the most part the costs per point and the availability of data, it's mash up, and the analytics to make it relevant and actionable, are all becoming more accessible with this new wave often referred to as the "Internet of things". These points of input, when digested by folks that actually understand what they mean, can influence who we send to an unscheduled activity or when we are actually going to the field to perform scheduled routines.



"Transactional work order management systems in five years may not even exist, with the exception of very sophisticated plant operations requiring component and subcomponent monitoring and reporting". Instead the arduous process that currently takes place today to set up either rounds for patients, activities through a care plan, or PM visits for piece of equipment or building will all shift from a calendar based or subjective important point of reference to condition generated activities. The patients or equipment will reach out when maintenance needs to be performed.  We will see the outcomes driving the need for service activity.



Next post:  blending internal and external labor
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

entusiastic about preventative maintenance

Why do I really care if my field technicians are enthusiastic or not? When you look at a person's work output, as directly related to workforce sciences, you come up with three primary ingredients required to achieve your desired results.   These ingredients are; attitudes, attributes, and capabilities and when mixed properly with enabling tools can yield unbelievable outputs. So what does any of this have to do with routine maintenance? If your maintenance routines actually become way too routine then pretty soon performance will be replaced with complacency. In order to keep any piece of equipment running as trouble-free as possible the maintenance performed, and the thoroughness of the inspection and tasks at hand, have a direct impact on the asset's life expectancy.   There are some strategies that help service organizations keep the enthusiasm at all-time highs. Switch techs from time to time :   One of the best ways to ensure maintenance is being performed...
Post a Comment
Read more

why transform?

Why do I want to change, who said anything was wrong with my stack of papers and sea of Excel files?   We solve problems, that is a key characteristic of any successful service organization, if it isn't broke why fix it?   Often, when discussing a transformation from paper or cobbled together systems to a cohesive digital approach, folks struggle with the gap between what they currently do and how digital tools can help.   You really need to look at where the pain points are in your organization and how these compare to your business objectives.   Consider writing down these points on the whiteboard in no particular order, spend a few days shuffling and consolidating into a prioritized list.   Once you have the "why" and the "what" identified, the old remaining step is "how".   Some of the most popular observations over the years have been; Slipping through the cracks :   you know, not the major muscle movements, instead those little i...
Post a Comment
Read more

empathy and service, required?

When you think about the definition of empathy, which is to understand and share feelings of another, you may be curious why this would be included in posts regarding the operation of a service business. When I think about empathy from a service technicians point of view, and one who spent most of his career troubleshooting problems, empathy for me is as strong as one of my previous posts on LSD. The closer a person can get to understanding the initial design intent of a control system or operating environment, the better off they will be in suggesting potential modifications, repairs or updates. I never really thought about the sales side of the equation until my later years, and of course as you can imagine empathy plays a significant role with a salesperson, the closer you get to understanding the customers challenges, the higher the probability of close. Over the years, while interacting with many different service providers, I have discovered that sometimes people just g...
Post a Comment
Read more