The Internet of Things (IoT) is transforming the way companies design, manufacture, and service their products and manufacturing floors. ‘Service’ is one of the most notable areas to be impacted by this wave of technology and connected devices. Monitoring assets in the field and on the shop floor gives service technicians access to usage, error, and predictive analytics prior to a repair. As companies continue to adopt the IoT, more organizations are satisfying the prerequisites to easily deploy augmented reality for service.

With the convergence of the digital and physical worlds, manufacturers are using augmented reality as a tool to help improve their service capabilities. Augmented Reality (AR) can deliver the right information at the very moment that it’s needed on the manufacturing floor so that field service technicians and other factory workers can reduce errors, enhance efficiencies, and improve productivity. AR also allows for content to be presented in arguably the most contextual way possible. When accurate information is presented over real-world devices there is little room for error and misunderstanding.

If field service technicians aren’t available to be on-site for a critical situation, then technicians can remotely assist customers with the help of AR. Customers will be able to observe service manuals with interactive 3D animations to disassemble components or work on equipment with which they’re unfamiliar with. If the users need further help, then the experienced field service technician can walk users through instructions while steaming the user’s device view in real time.

Augmented Reality Barriers to Entry

Your service and parts information have to be accurate and up-to-date in order to fully benefit from an augmented reality investment. Making sure your organization has a reliable Service Lifecycle Management system in place is the first step to digital transformation. Without accurate information on parts and equipment, field service technicians could replace the wrong part or be confronted with an outdated, undocumented design.

In order to be labeled a “smart connected enterprise,” a company should have a strategy to connect all of their assets and data; this includes technical publications. Connected technical illustrations have the power to show the current status for every part and piece of equipment. For example, if a mechanic could see a 3D representation of a vehicle’s carburetor and view critical metrics it would help them understand the potential for repairs or future failure.

Your organization needs to be IoT ready – meaning that there needs to be a strategy in place to input sensors on products and equipment. The Internet of Things allows products and assets to send alerts to a maintenance system that assigns a field service technician to perform a repair. Without the sensors that relay information about the status of those parts, and accurate 3D representations, augmented reality devices would be useless because there would be no relevant or up-to-date information to leverage in the field.

The IoT and Augmented Reality are transforming service and enhancing the field service process. Check out EAC’s solutions to see how you can start using AR today.

In this article you will learn what Creo Illustrate can do for you, and exactly what value it brings to the table.
You will also discover how Creo Illustrate addresses many issues faced by OEMs and engineering organizations.

In order to fully grasp what Creo Illustrate can do for you, you must understand the current market situation.

Regardless of your industry, the current market is complex.

Here are some of the reasons why.

Customer demands are continually increasing, and manufacturers have responded by delivering more complex products.

For example, customers demand configurable products. These same customers are also demanding higher product performance, increased uptime, and low total cost of ownership.

In addition to customer demands, we are also dealing with younger generations.

These young generations commonly resort to graphical illustrations or channels such as YouTube for guidance on how to do things. Because of these new tendencies, companies must adapt the ways they produce information according to the needs of the young generation.

Aside from the complexities of increased demands and young generations, organizations strive to capture global markets.

To capture global markets, organizations need to translate much of the documentation and product information that gets shipped.

Lastly, to remain competitive organizations must reduce time to market.

Altogether, this market situation creates significant pressure.

Organizations must make products that are more deliverable, improve customer experience, reduce cost, all while improving overall time to market.

How Creo Illustrate addresses the complex market situation.

  1. 1. Creo Illustrate helps deliver more configurable products

Leveraging Creo Illustrate and some other tools you can you can produce accurate configuration specific illustrations.

This provides product-specific product information to end user and consumers as well as highly skilled field technicians.

  1. 2. Creo Illustrate helps improve customer satisfaction

In order to improve customer satisfaction, you must enhance the overall customer experience.

By using Creo Illustrate you can create interactive graphical information that is easy to understand and interpret regardless of the native language.

  1. 3. Creo Illustrate helps lower costs

Lowering costs is an essential part of a competitive business.

Using Creo Illustrate you can leverage the CAD data you’ve already produced for downstream deliverables; work instructions, manuals, etc. This helps reduce redundant illustration and tracing effort, and keeps your technical communications up to date – event if documentation is created in parallel with the engineering and design process.

  1. 4. Creo Illustrate helps reduce time to market

Creo Illustrate helps streamline the process of creating illustrations and animations of your products. It eliminates the need to interrupt Engineering to gather screenshots of products and then laboriously trace images to create thin/thick illustrations. This allows you to accelerate the end-to-end creation, management, and publishing of dynamic technical information.

A field service technician is a product expert who goes on site to assess, install, repair, or troubleshoot problems. Often when a company does not use field service software, or SLM software, these technicians have a hard time troubleshooting the problem in a quick and efficient manner.
Having a Service Life Cycle Management (SLM) tool in place can help your field service department have access to the right information at the right time. Technicians have higher first-time fix-rates (FTFR) when they are dispatched with the right information and parts on the first trip, instead of discovering they did not have the information, tools, and parts required to service a product.

Most technicians use some kind of portable device whether it be a tablet, smartphone, or laptop – all of which gives them access to relevant information needed for the job. This information could include inventory, service tasks, customer history, and new product details, and it may also reference an opportunity to cross-sell or up-sell with another product or service. SLM software provides access to relevant service information and opportunities, and this minimizes downtime, increases customer satisfaction, and improves financial performance within your organization.

Tech Clarity found that top performing companies had rated their top initiatives in support of their 2017/2018 service goals in their Buyer’s Guide for Managing Service Information:

  • Get product information to the field sooner – 79%
  • Connect technical information to product support and field – 74%
  • Reduce duplication of efforts, use existing engineering – 63%
  • Streamline technician access to technical information – 63%
  • Increase the use of graphics in documentation – 58%

Having an SLM software solution can get accurate product and service information to the field efficiently and quickly, where it will provide to most value to field service technicians. Learn more about how your organization can implement a service life cycle management tool to provide value for your field service technicians here.

Having more technical illustrations than information is beneficial in many ways—and the solution to do so is easier than you think.

Here’s why you should be using more technical illustrations and the best way to create them.

Technical Illustrations are Easy to Understand

We all know the saying “ a picture paints a thousand words”—and in this case, it’s more than true.

It’s much easier to interpret a picture than to understand and read through lots of text. Using illustrations in tech pubs, user manuals, and service manuals reduce user errors.

Illustrations Take Away the Need for Text

Have you ever bought anything from Ikea? Sure you have! They sell their flat pack furniture all over the globe using the same manuals. That is the power of illustrations. You can drastically reduce the amount of text that is needed by producing illustrations.

Using Technical Illustrations Reduces the Need for Translation

With less text that is needed or used, you can reduce your translation costs.

So Why Doesn’t Everyone Use Illustrations?

The traditional process to create illustrations is time-consuming and can be froth with problems.

Let me illustrate it for you.

Odds are if you are using the traditional illustration process, your technical illustrators most likely work with engineers to get snapshots of CAD information to use in illustrations.

These snapshots are usually static because they are captured at only a moment in time, usually near the end of the product development process.

Because the illustrations are static, they are not always easy to interpret. This means the text is still required to properly convey the information.

If your snapshots were taken at the end of the product development process because there was ‘ less likelihood of the product changing’ – you could be delaying your shipment process.

Often a product cannot ship until the technical information that is associated with it is ready to ship with the product.

Now consider all the back and forth communication between both the engineering department and the illustration group.

Traditional illustrations are difficult to keep up to date. Commonly the illustrator needs to go back to the engineer for updates every time there is a change to the product.

If at any time there is a miscommunication, your illustrations could easily become inaccurate; exposing your organization to the risk of unsatisfied customers, frustrated field technicians, and the possibility of lawsuits.

It’s easy to see why the traditional methods to create illustrations are downright time consuming and prone to error.

So How Can You Make Technical Illustrations Easily?

The answer is Creo Illustrate.

Creo Illustrate leverages CAD data to create illustrations that, depending on your PDM/PLM setup, maintain an associative link to the original CAD data.

This means any changes you make with your CAD data can automatically update all your illustrations and possibly your publications.

With Creo Illustrate you have the ability to start creating illustrations early on in the product development process, with a guarantee that your illustrations are always kept up-to-date. Start developing product documentation during the product development process instead of after the product development process.

See Creo Illustrate in action! Watch this short video.

Service organizations typically receive recurring revenue, less fixed capital, and higher margins than strictly product-centric businesses. Aftermarket services now account for almost 24% of manufacturers’ total revenue and 40% to 80% of their total profits (Pollack, B., PTC Video: Transforming Your Service Organization with SLM (part 3 of 3)). When executed properly, after-sales service and support can provide increased revenue and invaluable customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Customer relationships are both a huge benefit and a huge risk.  Companies without a comprehensive plan to ensure high customer satisfaction often jeopardize customer relationships and risk affecting their company brand. Businesses often suffer when they overlook their role in service performance. Why focus solely on putting your product into the hands of customers? Why not also focus on service, and manage the performance of your products to ensure high customer satisfaction?

Customer Satisfaction Matters

Consumers who are willing to pay a premium for a product are looking for a company that provides the best value. If your company cannot deliver the value that your customer is willing to pay for, then you are going to disappoint that customer.

To build and maintain high customer satisfaction, companies need to look beyond traditional approaches.  It is no longer sufficient to provide good customer service by staffing a call center for customer support.  Customers need more than a call center or email.  They need their product to provide that expected value and perform well.  Businesses need to figure out how to deliver that value, maintain high product performance, and keep a happy customer.

Service as the Main Course

Viewing service as an extension of the product can help companies deliver added value and improve customer satisfaction. So what, then, is the hesitation that executives face when delivering service as a strategy in their organization?

Making strategic decisions can be challenging when confronted with numerous variables. Employing an effective service strategy can be especially challenging when organizations are divided into separate silos, with each department concerned only with its own objectives but missing the main objective: the customer.

To execute a service strategy well, companies must look to transform their current approach to service. They must optimize service performance and service functions across all departments and ensure everyone is working collaboratively to deliver a unified service experience that joins parts, product and service information, remote service, and predictive analytics that maximizes the product value to each customer.

Service Lifecycle Management (SLM) is the solution to a service transformation within an organization. SLM provides a platform to deliver on-demand parts, accurate and relevant product and service information, global remote service, and predictive analytics for maximum product performance.

The Right-Sized Service Lifecycle Management Solutions

Service excellence prepares your organization for years of satisfied customers and service related revenue streams. Don’t miss out on revenue opportunities and the chance to provide your company with a competitive advantage. Apply service as a strategy within your organization.

We have an entire team that is dedicated to helping you manage service life cycle.

A customer purchased your product. Is that the end of your relationship or the beginning?

To stay competitive and keep customers satisfied, companies are finding they need to provide more value. Instead of treating a product sale as end point with a customer, successful companies are thinking about how to provide value to customers as their product is used, for as long as it is used, to maximize the value and relationship with the customer.

Service Lifecycle Management (SLM) is a way of managing the lifecycle of a product, as it is used by the customer, to maximize the value of that product. SLM gives companies a competitive advantage by perpetuating the relationship with a customer and creating value over the lifetime of the customer’s products.

SLM gives companies new ways to add value for products, such as:

  • optimizing performance with smart connected products
  • minimizing downtime with predictive analytics
  • provide access to accurate and relevant documentation, illustrations, and part lists
  • improving service response time and first-time fix rates
  • optimizing service parts availability and pricing
  • paying for product performance with product-as-a-service (PaaS) models

What is a Service Life Cycle Management (SLM) solution?

An SLM solution helps organizations deliver new value to customers by leveraging embedded software and connected systems to manage the events and performance of product being used by a customer.

Typically SLM solutions add value by reusing existing engineering and CAD data, automating accurate service and parts documentation and illustration, connecting to smart products in the field, predicting product service events and failures, and optimizing service and parts operations.

With the additional opportunity created through an SLM solution, companies gain greater insight into how products perform with customers, when products need service, and how to best service products.

How to profit from Service Life Cycle Management software

Engaging with customers beyond the point of sale opens up new opportunities for companies to provide value, and this value can be monetized into new revenue streams. Moreover, existing parts and services operations can be shifted from a cost center to a profit center by leveraging SLM and maximizing efficiency.

Smart connected products give companies new ways to provide valuable features to customers, who may opt to pay more for these benefits over non-connected products. High brand affinity is often attributed to products with accurate and relevant product and service information, which can be created efficiently and automatically. Companies can reduce service and parts costs through service optimization, and capture new revenue opportunities created by product value though PaaS offerings.

Should service companies be using PLM and SLM together?

Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) is typically used to manage all stages of product development with a specific focus on engineering and product revision. PLM often helps manage a cycle of continuous improvement, whereby products are created and sold, then improved to be created and sold again. Service Lifecycle Management extends this cycle, by information about the product journey after its sale and during which a product is used by a customer.

Before SLM software existed, companies had to focus on operational efficiencies and service management as separate entities from the rest of their business. Companies can finally approach service operations as a means of collaboration between product development from PLM and product performance from SLM. Implementing PLM and SLM solutions together gives companies the power to have a complete process in how a product is made and how it is used by a customer.

Which SLM software solutions does EAC provide?

EAC Product Development Solutions has many Service Lifecycle Management solutions depending on your company’s needs. We would be happy to help you find the right-sized solution for your team. Reach out to our Director of Information Services, Mike Simon, or browse our website for more information.

Creo Illustrate

Creo Illustrate simplifies your 2D and 3D illustrations by creating them from CAD data, and it provides a wealth of features including: art styling, BOM management, illustrated parts lists, callouts, service procedures, and 3D animations.

Arbortext Editor / Styler

Arbortext Editor / Styler helps your authors create structured content and technical publications used for service procedures, illustrated parts lists, operator and service manuals, work instructions, help and training, and other technical publications based on XML standards such as DITA, S1000D, and DocBook.

Windchill Service Information Manager

Windchill Service Information Manager allows you to organize and manage service content, reuse common content, managing content translation to multiple languages, and create automated technical publications.

Windchill Service Parts

Windchill Service Parts allows you to build service bills of material and spare parts for every product configuration and enables the automated delivery of illustrated parts lists throughout the product lifecycle.

Arbortext Publishing Engine

Arbortext Publishing Engine powerfully and intelligently publishes accurate and relevant product and service information to a variety of formats including PDF, HTML, and EPUB, and can be scripted and extended to publish to other formats and systems.

Arbortext Content Delivery (formerly Windchill InService)

Arbortext Content Delivery (formerly Windchill InService) provides service teams, dealers, distributors, and customers a parts and service portal with accurate and timely product and service information in both online and offline formats. Users have access to product information and parts illustrations to help them with service procedures and order parts.

Vuforia Studio

Vuforia Studio allows you to easily create engaging AR experiences by leverage existing 3D content and connected product performance analytics, and deploy those experiences to those engaged with your connected product.

ThingWorx

ThingWorx is an industrial internet of things (IIoT) platform that allows you to build smart connected products and interact with those products with smart connected operations. Connected service with ThingWorx allows you to connect and observe product performance, enable predictive analytics, and assess service needs for optimizing product performance and first-time fix rates.