How to Reduce Field Service Costs to Attain Optimization Goals

Field service costs are the biggest issue that many businesses face. Industries that manufacture consumer goods are the primary part of this, and they lose a lot of money while providing services to the users. There are a plethora of reasons for this, such as manual process, unskilled technicians, and delay in the delivery of device information with augmented reality remote assistance.

As per stats, 47% of the respondents say that quality and number of technicians is the biggest challenge for their business. Moreover, some agree that meeting customer demands is the other challenge. No matter what the issue is, the ultimate effect is always on the overall revenue of the company. So, what’s the solution here?

Businesses can control the losses incurred in field services by various methods. Let’s take a look at those ways!

Top ways to reduce field service cost

Here are some ways that many businesses have integrated and others can leverage to meet their optimization goals.

1. Focus on providing remote services

One of the key ways to reduce field service costs is by providing remote services. There are various things that a normal individual can do without any technical knowledge but with proper guidance. To help such people with equipment issues, you can leverage the power of video and Augmented reality remote assistance tools.

Statistics suggest that video service has been deployed by 50% of the field service organizations. Other than that, 40% of field technicians say that AR technology is really helpful. Therefore, you can provide these tools to your technical support team and resolve customer issues on the spot. Providing remote services will ensure that reducing cost and time both at the same time. Also in addition field service technician will get online training to save time and efforts to improve productivity.

This will, in turn, help in lowering dispatch costs, increase first-time fix rates and customer satisfaction.

2. Leverage the power of AI

It can become a bit difficult to handle everything on paper. Which technician is fit for the job, when was the last service visit, what issues have the equipment faced so far, and many other questions need to be answered before you can dispatch a technician. However, if you leverage the power of AI, these questions can be answered within seconds, and before you know it, the ideal technician would be dispatched. Artificial intelligence works very faster to increase the quality of work and efficiency of machines.

AI can automatically allocate field technicians based on the analysis of various factors like past history, technician’s skills, location of the job, the priority of the issue, tools required, and availability of the technician. This can help save time spent manually looking for a skilled technician or sending an unskilled technician on the job. AI can definitely change the way of work and improve overall productivity of manufacturing plant. Artificial Intelligence is super powerful weapon to improve performance of each employee to reduce human error and give accurate location of faulty machinery to reduce downtime of machine and improve productivity of manufacturing plant.

Also Read : Scaling Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) with Digital Transformation

3. Promote remote expert support

There can be situations where you may have to deploy trainees to resolve customer issues in the field. This is crucial for your workforce; therefore, you need to train them well. As the trainees will be new, you have to ensure that they have professional support backing them up. 

Here you can use the help of an expert. No matter where the expert is, with the help of technologies like IoT and AR, experts can provide step-by-step instructions to the person on the field to resolve the issue in minimum time. This will be way quicker if you invest in a remote assistance app. Apps like these use Augmented Reality remote assistance where an expert can use on-screen annotations to guide the on-site technician.

4. Invest in IoT tools

IoT is the concept in which all the devices or machines of a manufacturing plant are connected to the internet. If you are a manufacturer of consumer products, you must integrate IoT devices like sensors into your modern or old machinery. The upfront investment is a bit high, but the outcome will be way better than you possibly imagine. industrial internet of things will definitely reduce operational cost and improve machine downtime to improve manufacturing plant’s productivity. IoT tools like sensors, artificial intelligence will enhance the quality of work in manufacturing industry.

The integration of IoT sensors will ensure that every performance parameter of your machine is monitored and displayed on your dashboard. With real-time access to the device’s performance, you can plan and dispatch a technician if anything abnormal about a device is observed. For instance, if the temperature level is more than required, it will be shown on the dashboard and you can immediately take action to prevent losses. IoT is very ultimate tool to perform such a quick operations in plant.

5. Predictive maintenance

Equipment failure can lead to unplanned downtime and revenue loss for a manufacturing company. Therefore, you must collect performance data from the machinery. For example, using IoT with machine learning and data analytics can help you devise valuable insights from the machine data. You can use both past as well as present machine data to generate insights for predicting future behavior.

With all this info in hand, you can keep your device running for longer without downtime by maintaining it beforehand. Equipment failure result in time loss and reduce productivity of manufacturing plant so predictive maintenance reduce downtime of any faulty machinery and  improve overall productivity of machines. 

Final Words

The rise of field service costs can lead to a lot of issues for the company. Therefore it is necessary to apply tested methods to control it. As mentioned, the use of remote expert advice, remote technical support, and an augmented reality remote assistance can help you turn the game around. These methods can help you save a lot on field service costs and optimize the overall cost.