"We measure our reality according to our experience. As our experience expands, our reality is also altered." - Chin-Ning Chu, business author and management expert

I ran across this quote and thought it perfectly summarized the life of a remote service program. All programs begin with a goal. That goal leads to a set of requirements or constraints that define the solution. Once the solution is deployed, the process of experience begins. Only then do you begin to learn what you didn't know that you didn't know.

We see this often at Axeda as we work with new customers.  A set of 10, 30, or 100 data values are determined to be important sources of diagnostic information or business value. As the support engineers work with the data provided, they begin to learn new things about how the connected assets operate in the real world.  It may be alarm conditions that occur more (less) frequently than expected, a particular variable that doesn't correlate to a problem cause, or some variable that is useful but not recorded frequently enough.

At the same time, the support engineers find that there are problems for which the existing variable sets are not helpful or definitive enough. The problem may be detected, but you can't tell which subsystem is actually the root cause and thus what parts may be needed to affect the repair. This leads to a wish list of desired variables.  In many cases, the team looks at the list, does a virtual slap on the head, and says, "I can't believe we didn't think of that one!"

What next? Everyone looks at the leader of the remote support program and asks the obvious question, "Can you drop these variables that we don't need and replace them with the ones that we do need?"

This is one example where you need the ability to not only change the Agent functionality, but also to cost effectively deploy those changes into the field. The remote service program should not create the need to dispatch technicians just to solve problems with the system that was supposed to reduce dispatches!

The solution requires intelligent Agent design and software update tools to push out new updates. The Agent must be capable of being updated while it is running, i.e., you have to use the Agent to transport the updates and then reliably execute the update without losing communication with the server. Otherwise, you just bought an extra service dispatch.

The system must also have the tools to manage software updates so you can know Agent versions and which versions have been upgraded. The software update process has to consider how updates are defined, tested, and deployed.

Let's look at an example. A new variable is to be collected and reported by an Agent. With Axeda ServiceLink, this usually requires the distribution of new Agent configuration file(s). Step 1 is to create the new files and run them through the full testing and validation process. Once the new configuration files are released, they can be packaged into a software update. The package should include checking for prerequisites, file management, file upload/download, and update execution, all while reporting status. The completed package should then go through a round of testing and validation with special attention to handling any edge cases that may be found in the deployed systems (e.g., different file paths or file locks). Only when the package is fully tested should it be made available in the system for deployment.

It is important to consider how updates will be deployed. In some cases, an update should be sent to every Agent in the device population. In other cases, you may only want to send it to a particular region, customer, or only as the result of a support case. Pushing updates may be something that is limited only to specific people or under a controlled procedure. These choices may flow directly into the decisions around user management and privileges.

One last area to consider is the impact to customers as they receive a new update. Some may be able to take an update any time the machine is in Standby mode. Others may have strict requirements that an update can only be applied during a Scheduled Maintenance window. Others may only want to receive an update under control of a local attendant. The software update process should account for this user input and operate accordingly.

The Internet is a dynamic place. Things change all the time. Your knowledge of how your machines or systems work in the field will also change as you gain experience. The remote service evaluation process should carefully consider the options around how Agent updates will be managed. Assuming an asset life of three to ten years, the change management and change deployment process can have a dramatic impact on the total cost of ownership of the remote service program.

There was a time when Information Technology mostly meant printing reams of tractor-feed paper each day, with human analysts poring over the faint dot-matrix print, looking to yank out some intelligence from the sea of data. My first programming job was for a manufacturing company, in the "data processing" department. The data processing model was a pipeline that took 24 hours to get through a cycle. Collect, process, plan, lather, rinse, repeat.

I spent the summer close-down week toiling away in the factory, wiring the serial-bus readers to a hub that fed into our server. The factory was suddenly "wired." Instead of work-in-progress information being tabulated by supervisors at the end of a shift, management had real-time access to daily factory output. Over several months, the suite of apps that we built to visualize, react to, and filter this incredible treasure of telemetry absolutely transformed our company's approach to production. The CEO made a statement that always stuck with me, "It's tactile to me now, in my hands, I can do something with this information."

Suddenly information didn't come in a lump at the end of the day, but instead streamed through the nervous system of the enterprise, affecting lead times given to customers, dynamically changing shipping pick lists, and dozens of other ways that I'm sure that company is still discovering, 12 years later. All this, from a single source of information.

Sometimes what you need has a hard-line to your network. Sometimes it doesn't. You may be wondering if your transpacific shipment is still in one peice and whether it is going to arrive on time. You may be worried about corrosion on your remote pipeline. The information collected won't do you any good tomorrow. Anything, anytime, and anywhere means getting tactile - in your hands, today.

  

Wireless connectivity to devices lets you hurdle over the constraints you can sometimes face with category 5 cable. GSM or CDMA modems with GPS receivers can cheaply and easily be deployed to monitor assets in remote locations where no wire can reach. Satellite connectivity can reach the most remote locations. OEM equipment can embed sensors and telematics modules to give your customers and your business a zero-configuration solution to remote intelligence. Relocating a wireless, telematics-enabled device is simple a matter of finding a power source, and you can even track it while it moves to its new home!

Smart asset intelligence is not about wireless sensors and GSM modems. It's also not about the Internet. It's about getting devices to be participants in your information universe - in your hands, today.

As the economic slowdown slogs along, budget cuts can endanger a company's service quality and customer satisfaction. However, best-in-class companies are using this time as an opportunity to find ways to cut costs while driving revenue enhancing services to improve their bottom line without sacrificing customer experiences. A new report from Sumair Dutta at Aberdeen Group outlines how leading companies are using this period of economic uncertainty to build sustainable service models built on process optimization and RPS technology. 

Get the report here!

Business challenges identified in the report:
- The average cost of a field service visit has increased 26% in the past 2 years
- Customer demand for improved availability and performance
- Business mandate to increase service revenue

RPS opportunities:
- Collecting data directly from assets to trigger corrective or preventive actions
- Inform technicians of recommended resolution scenarios prior to dispatch
- Monitor asset usage for repair/replace decisions or pay-per-performance billing
- Execute remote repair to avoid travel related costs
- Provide value-added premium services to generate new sources of revenue

Business value created from RPS:
- 28.1% of calls resolved without technician dispatch
- 22.4% improvement in Mean-time-between-failures (MTBF)
- 21.2% increase in asset availability
- 20.3% higher first-time-fix rate

Also highlighted in the report is an RPS case study on Axeda customer Varian Medical Systems Inc.
- 50% reduction in MTTR
- Savings of $2000 to end customer per service visit
- 600 fewer service visits per month in North America alone!

The full report is available here!

 

Gartner recently published a case study on Cardinal Health, an Axeda customer and global manufacturer of medical and surgical supplies and technologies. It's always great to have an analyst write about our customers, so that you can get an impartial view.

We are a client of Gartner, but we do not pay them to write case studies; they do this based on their clients' research interests. This is not the case for all analyst firms, but it is for Gartner.

This case study, entitled "Cardinal Health Uses Support Automation to Enhance the Brand Experience," is now available to download from our site for a limited time. The case study includes some great success metrics, such as:

• 15% reduction in field service visits on products enabled with remote monitoring
• Where measured, a 10% reduction in dispatched visits by the field service team
• Complete auditing of regulatory compliance (especially regarding HIPAA) for each device
• An increase of more than 10% in service contract renewal capture rates
• 25 success stories on the Medical Products and Technologies Division Web site
• More than 15 product lines fully enabled with remote service capabilities

Read this case study and share with us how Cardinal Health's story compares to your remote service program results or plans.

This week Axeda is participating in the Oracle 2009 Sales kickoff in Las Vegas - talking about  the latest announcement:  Axeda® ServiceLink Extends Oracle Service and Maintenance Management Capabilities.  We have been meeting with people throughout Oracle's field teams and partner ecosystem. With each conversation there is growing excitement about the opportunities created by a joint Oracle/Axeda solution.

Oracle is already positioned as a leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Field Service Management. When you add the Axeda capabilities -  remote service, usage monitoring, and configuration management to Oracle's proven solutions it raises the customer value and competitive differentiation to new levels. As we've discovered first-hand, Oracle's sales people like that combination. Based on the high level of interest from the Oracle team, the system integrator community and manufacturers, we're kicking off a partnership that is sure to be beneficial to many constituents.

A tipping point is defined as the levels at which the momentum for change becomes unstoppable. In the book The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell he describes it as a sociological term, "the moment of critical mass, the threshold, the boiling point. The point where ideas and products and messages and behaviors spread like viruses do."

Last week, industry analyst firm Aberdeen Group released their latest study on the Remote Product Service market. Here are a few key data points from the study that may indicate the tipping point is near for the remote service software market:

• 41% increase in the percentage of assets being monitored remotely = Rapid market growth!
• 16% increase in MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure) for remotely monitored assets = Real business results!
• 19% increase in percentage of calls resolved without technician dispatch = Big cost savings!
• 16% overall percentage of assets being monitored = Huge market opportunity!

All of these indicators mean exciting times for our industry!

We see it first-hand with our customers' remote service success.  Case in point is a company featured in the Aberdeen report - Diebold, Inc. Diebold uses Axeda ServiceLink to remotely service Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) around the world - the solution is branded as OpteView^TM.

The report highlights the impressive business metrics for MTTR (Mean Time to Repair), remote resolution of issues, and increases in availability that Diebold has achieved with remote service.  Additionally, the population of OpteView-enabled ATM's will grow from 1200 at the beginning of the year to 3,000-5,000 by the end of the year - potentially a > 400% growth in connected devices. 

We are featuring Diebold in an upcoming live webinar - register today to check it out!

This is the title of a new book on customer service by Bill Price and David Jaffe. I read a review of the book in the Wall Street Journal.  

One of the main ideas in the book is that customer service organizations tend to measure the wrong thing. They measure how fast the phone is answered, response time, or average call handling time. This results in the wrong behavior, the example given is that if you set a goal of 12 minute average call time, reps will say whatever it takes to get the caller off the phone before the 12-minute mark.

The authors suggest that instead, you should do what Amazon.com does and focus on contacts per order or contacts per unit shipped. Now the motivation is to get the organization focused on improving the customer experience so that a call to customer support is not required in the first place. One recommendation is to charge the cost of customer support back to the product team that created the need for the call.

Remote service is a great way to improve your customer contacts per product by proactively solving problems before they become support problems. Selecting the right metrics to measure for remote service is a key success factor. If your support reps are only measured on calls taken, they will ignore the proactive alerts generated by your remote service system.

Have you ever heard the story of the blind men and the elephant? In the story, six blind men were asked to determine what an elephant looked like by feeling different parts of the elephant's body.  

The blind man who feels a leg says the elephant is like a pillar; the one who feels the tail says the elephant is like a rope; the one who feels the trunk says the elephant is like a tree branch; the one who feels the ear says the elephant is like a hand fan; the one who feels the belly says the elephant is like a wall; and the one who feels the tusk says the elephant is like a solid pipe.

A successful remote service program has the potential to impact business processes in every part of a company.  Like the blind men, the perception of remote services will depend on each stakeholder's own goals and perspective of where value is created.

Based on my experience with software evaluations over the past 7 years, I offer 10 suggestions for conducting a comprehensive evaluation of remote service solutions.

1. Have a vision of what success looks like.  This will enable you to define goals and the outlines of the business case. The best programs are focused on creating strategic value.
2. Work with a cross functional team. Everyone doesn't need to be involved in every meeting, but having many different perspectives will help in making the right choice. Hey, which part of the elephant are you holding?
3. Answer what's in it for your customers.  If you can't explain to your customers why remote services are good for them, they won't be motivated to help you make it happen. Which part of the elephant is most important to them?
4. Agree on a scoring matrix and an evaluation process.  Remote service products have a wide variety of capabilities and options.  A well designed evaluation process will keep you on track and on schedule.  It will also help the vendors help you.
5. Security matters.  Does your industry have specific security requirements or concerns?  Look for certifications and evidence that the solution exceeds the requirements of today and the vendor has a plan for how to handle changes in the future.
6. Scalability is more than just multiplication.  Things that don't seem like a big deal at 100 connected devices can become show stoppers when you hit 10 or 100 times that amount!  How much IT infrastructure do you need as your device deployment grows over time? (Not all elephants are the same size.)
7. Usability means user acceptance.  Pay close attention to the people that will use the solution every day.  Does the user interface make sense to them?  Can they do the job that is expected?  As part of your scalability testing, see what happens to the UI with thousands of devices...
8. Focus on Total Cost of Ownership. TCO is much more than just the initial software and infrastructure costs.  What are the development costs to integrate the solution into your products?  Into your business systems?  Into your operational processes? Don't build hopes and wishes into the cost line of your business case. (How much do elephants eat?)
9. Software + Internet = Change. You have to be able to upgrade software in the field without visiting every remote device (talk about a business case killer). You also have to be able to receive upgrades without completely recompiling your system.  Upgrades are an often overlooked component of TCO.
10. Check References!  These are the people who have lived through the process you are entering.  Learn from their experiences.  Ask what they would do differently. Did their vendor really deliver what was promised?

I hope to blog on some of these topics in more detail in the coming months.  If you have more ideas to add to the list, please contribute.  We can all learn from your view of the elephant!

 

OK, not really, but it should behave like one.
If you are reading this blog you more than likely are involved in an organization that makes a complex product -- perhaps one that operates in a data center, hospital, or factory. You are thinking, my product is a business-to-business product, and perhaps it is:

• Expensive
• Complex
• Heavily featured

I will reiterate, no matter the complexity, sophistication, cost, or size -- smart companies everywhere are starting to think about their products as iPods.

Why?

"As Is" and "To Be"
Let's look at what has made the iPod a success. Borrowing a term from consulting -- let's look at the "As Is" and "To Be" processes of music consumption.

"As Is": Get in your car, drive to the music store, browse through thousands of CDs, pick the one you want (often without a preview), buy it, and then lug it everywhere you may want to use it.

"To Be": Go on the Web, flexibly browse/search an extensive song library, listen to samples, buy the ones that you want with one click, sync them with your iPod, and carry your entire library everywhere that you want.

The combination of a smartly designed product with a Web presence enabled the iPod's runaway success and changed the way music is distributed and consumed.

The Situation
Now let's look at your business situation. More than likely, your company is facing one or many of the following challenges:

• Shrinking Profits
• Aging Workforce
• Global Competition
• Escalating Travel Costs
• High Customer Expectations

Your R&D teams are working feverishly to add the next great feature. Your service organization is focused on keeping your products in the field up and running. You are fighting the same "As Is" battle as the CD. What is needed is a quantum leap forward.

Enter "Remote Services"
I define "Remote Services" as the delivery of your expertise through the Internet to your product operating at your customer locations. In effect, remote services, combined with your expertise and product, enables the desired quantum leap forward. It not only redefines how you service your products, it changes what you define your product to be. Done right and the product will become secondary to the solution that drives your customer's experience. In short, it will become like an iPod.

Since this is my first post in this blog, I would like to comment briefly on its scope. I see this blog as a location where people can come and get both tactical and strategic advice on how to leverage remote services to change the game of their businesses. I believe that this technology will not only change the way business is done, it will change people's perception of products. Having been in this industry since its inception, I am very excited by the traction that major organizations are getting with their remote service programs. Hopefully, we can provide you with some insight that can help you along this journey and provide you with the hard fought insights of others.