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.
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. Check out our services here.
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.
Here’s why engineering processes affect services and why streamlining information could solve the whole problem.
The Problem: Lack of Communication
Let’s be honest, engineering and manufacturing departments do not always communicate product changes to service. This is just the start of how your engineering processes affect services.
The Result: High Costs
When technicians reference outdated product information and arrive with incorrect parts, this leads to longer service visits, extraneous costs, longer downtime, and lowered customer satisfaction.
The Solution: Streamlining Information
Streamline the way you service teams access and use product information. The best way to accomplish this involves accurately transforming eBOMs (engineering bill of materials) to sBOMs (service bill of materials) and maintaining the fidelity of that information after engineering changes.
It’s time to stop letting your engineering processes affect services.
Take full advantage of the product data your organization has already created.
Structure service manuals and part information based on how a specific product is configured and serviced. Reuse engineering and manufacturing data in the service environment. Provide configuration-specific information to service technicians. Create a single point of access for your service content. Avoid text – use and repurpose graphics, animations, and CAD information when possible. And link service information to engineering information so changes propagate.
Next: Identify Your Service Needs
Identify what should go in your sBOM to ensure your sBOMs meet the needs of the service department. Examples might include what is serviceable versus what is replaceable, the status of a part, the components, models, grouped items, and more.
The Goal: Transforming Your Services
Remember: the ultimate goal is to make your customers happy. As a result of combining best practices with the right technology to support service and parts information management and publication you will see a higher customer satisfaction, improved technician effectiveness, improved brand reputation, higher profitability (due to lower revenue and service cost), time savings, and higher revenue (from repeat business and customer loyalty).
We have a team of technical communications specialists that would love to talk with you about your current state and current initiatives…
There’s no question about it, in business, we all have an area for improvement- and for many companies, this ‘area” has to do with service. Here’s how to deliver higher levels of service.
According to PTC, and this infographic, a recent survey of more than 100 service leaders by Tech-Clarity discovered 54% of respondents experience poor customer satisfaction due to poor service information.
Think about how poorly managed service information could be impacting your customers and costing your organization money. It’s time to deliver higher levels of service. We can’t wait to show you how.
Look at Current Processes
The first step to improving service delivery and documentation requires an in-depth analysis of how you currently manage service information. In order to successfully achieve higher levels of service, you must evaluate all aspects of your current people, processes, and technology.
Recognize Areas for Improvement Needed to Deliver Higher Levels of Service
There is always room for improvement! For example, do your service leaders need to search multiple locations to gather all required information? Have you ever-experienced situations where changes made during production were not documented? Would you say that your information is intuitively structured for service? Do you fully understand how product changes impact service? The list goes on and on, but it’s important to recognize the areas your organization may struggle with in order to take your service delivery to the next level.
Realize the Costs of Your Challenges
Try to quantify what service challenges cost your organization. Companies dealing with poor service information management face real financial repercussions. Some of these business costs include poor customer satisfaction, extended downtime, high service labor costs and even damaged service and brand reputation and more. You must realize the cost your organization faces from poorly managed service information if you ever intend to achieve higher levels of service.
Determine Your Needs in-order to Achieve Higher Levels of Service
This is the part where you align business goals with initiatives. Perhaps for your organization, this could be as simple as getting product information to the field sooner. Maybe your company would flourish by connecting technical information to product support and field operations. What would happen if your company could ensure engineering CAD models remain linked so that information never became outdated? How might a new focus on improving technician productivity by getting the right people the information and parts at the right time, benefit you? Could your organization greatly benefit from an ability to leverage existing engineering data to produce service content? Whatever your needs are, it’s important to define them in order to achieve higher levels of service throughout your organization.
Realize That Technology Is Your Key To Success
The truth is, the right service information management solutions can greatly improve your service levels. You could avoid many costly challenges by using software that dynamically publishes and delivers service information based on engineering and product data within a Product Data Management (PDM) or Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) system.
Just imagine, if your company implemented the right technology to manage service information, you could:
- Enable your technicians to find, understand and trust your product and part information.
- Reduce customer downtime by improving first-time fix rates.
- Increase service and technician efficiency.
- Significantly lower overall service costs by reducing unnecessary repeat service visits.
- Improve your brand reputation through superior service.
By selecting the right software, your technicians will improve their ability to find, understand, and trust product parts information. Doing this will help your organization achieve higher levels of service and increase revenue. So what are you waiting for? It’s time to achieve higher levels of service and success.
Download the Service Transformation Journey Ebook
To create accurate, up-to-date technical information, 84% of OEMs reuse engineering data – converting engineering bills of materials (eBOMs) into service bills of materials (sBOMs).
This eBook details the successes companies in the aerospace, automotive, and other industries have experienced as a result of transforming their eBOMs into sBOMs. Download now to read their stories.
Setting up enterprise systems can be difficult. For 55% of companies, integrating data has been cited as the most significant hurdle in their data management efforts, along with additional costs from distributing data across the firm. Despite these complications, over 60% of companies still prefer to handle system integrations themselves. It’s time to avoid these costs. Discover our 6 Powerful Reasons to Hire Experts to Implement Your Product Data Management (PDM) and Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solutions.
1. Implementation is what they know best
Implementation specialists regularly install, implement, and configure product data management (PDM) solutions as well as product lifecycle management (PLM) solutions. Implementation is what they do best! By leveraging the collective experience from a team of implementation specialists, you can ensure that your systems will be properly designed, setup and configured to meet your organizations unique business workflow.
2. You will avoid the creation of an unstable system
Leaning on PLM Integration specialists will help your organization understand the organization’s dilemma, review its actual needs and define a company-wide PLM strategy. Think about the reason you decided to implement these systems in the first place. Odds are your company was attempting to change processes, boost productivity, simplify management and many other things.
There are many cases where companies attempt to configure things on their own, only to end up with an unstable system that is hard to connect. And what good is your new system if your organization is unable to use it?
3. You will reduce your operating costs
A highly experienced staff that specifically focuses on your system’s needs allows your team to avoid wasted time on “the learning curve.” This frees your team to focus on the specialties for which they were hired.
Beyond productivity, implementation support ensures your engineering data is secure, stable, and available; no matter what department is using it. With a properly implemented system, you can be sure your organization will get the most out of your investment, and save time and money.
4. Implementation specialists are familiar with difficult tasks and situations
Implementation teams are trained to handle advanced tasks, no matter the situation. For instance, In the case of a corporate split or a corporate merger, implementation teams are well trained to handle data splitting or data combinations. By using an implementation specialist your organization will greatly accelerate the time and value of your system investment while providing an environment for swift adoption of your new technology. These experts have experience implementing systems right the first time, for companies of all sizes.
5. Implementation specialists can support a variety of products
There are many technical challenges such as customization and data migration that make implementing PLM and PDM solutions complex. Implementation specialists recognize the choices your organization has when it comes to implementing different styles of PDM and PLM solutions. They understand that the out-of-the-box functionalities of your system do not always meet all of your organization’s unique business needs and requirements. By hiring an implementation specialist, you can ensure your system is properly customized and designed to fit your organization’s needs.
6. A successful implementation will motivate system adoption
After implementation comes adoption. This includes training and usability of your system. A trained implementation specialist will help you shift from a traditional technology-centered implementation effort to an end-user centered approach that promotes user acceptance and in turn an accelerated adoption of new processes and technology. This will help your company achieve desired business objectives faster, with less disruption to your organization.
Everything else aside, if you are at the decision stage contemplating whether you should hire an expert to implement your PLM/PDM solution or not, the answer should be a “no-brainer.”
A team of implementation specialists will leverage their technical knowledge, industry expertise, and experience to design and implement a cost-effective system that meets your organization’s unique needs.
