Increase Field Service Productivity and Reduce Time On-Site

Improve first-time fix rate and boost the productivity of your field service technicians through connected technology and augmented reality work instructions.

Empower technicians to shorten mean time to repair

It’s imperative for field service organizations to eliminate blind dispatches and improve first-time fix rates, both to reduce dispatch costs and improve customer satisfaction. Offer your technicians the right tools for success to enable remote diagnostics, optimize service management, and provide in-context AR instructions to shorten mean time to repair and improve service productivity. When enabled with PTC tools, customers achieve:

Up to a

Improvement in first-time fix rates

Up to a

Reduction in unscheduled downtime

Up to a

Decrease in technician training time

Up to

In savings on field technician overtime spend

Up to

Less time spent on-site

What is field service productivity and why is it important?

Many original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) offer field service support to their customers, which involves sending out a technician to a customer site to repair, maintain, or even help install OEM equipment. It’s critical that these technicians are both efficient and effective while out in the field, as strict customer service-level agreements (SLAs), when not met, can result in penalties and poor customer satisfaction.

What factors affect field service productivity?

Inaccurate instructions

Traditional paper-based and PDF instructions can become quickly outdated or even incomplete, making field service efficiency difficult. These instructions also lack any additional context to help translate 2D instructions to the physical machine that needs repair.

Inefficient service dispatches

It can be almost impossible to diagnose a machine failure remotely without the right tools or live data, which means your technicians can be sent out for problems that could have been easily solved by the customer. This results in increased truck rolls and poor technician utilization—costing your business money.

Poor parts management

There is a constant struggle to keep inventory costs low, while also ensuring parts are available and accessible when a customer needs them. Without the right management, technicians can show up to a customer site with the wrong parts, resulting in prolonged downtime and missed SLAs.

Five ways technology can improve field service productivity

Field service is complex and critical, with both higher costs and customer satisfaction on the line when not done properly. By leveraging the right technology, organizations can empower their technicians with the tools they need to be more efficient, effective, and productive.

Field service is complex and critical, with both higher costs and customer satisfaction on the line when not done properly. By leveraging the right technology, organizations can empower their technicians with the tools they need to be more efficient, effective, and productive.

Improve first-time fix rate

When provided with real-time asset performance data and in-context augmented reality instructions, technicians have all the information they need to quickly diagnose and resolve a problem.

When provided with real-time asset performance data and in-context augmented reality instructions, technicians have all the information they need to quickly diagnose and resolve a problem.

Optimize parts management

With the right service parts management solution, organizations can benefit from industrial AI optimization to balance both parts inventory and demand. This improves customer uptime when technicians are dispatched with the right parts.

With the right service parts management solution, organizations can benefit from industrial AI optimization to balance both parts inventory and demand. This improves customer uptime when technicians are dispatched with the right parts.

Increase dispatch efficiency

Remote monitoring, asset performance, and accurate failure predictions can enable organizations to more efficiently dispatch technicians based on the end customer’s needs.

Remote monitoring, asset performance, and accurate failure predictions can enable organizations to more efficiently dispatch technicians based on the end customer’s needs.

Accelerate technician training

Technicians who are onboarding or upskilling can leverage augmented reality to help accelerate the training cycle and get out in the field faster.

Technicians who are onboarding or upskilling can leverage augmented reality to help accelerate the training cycle and get out in the field faster.

Reduce truck rolls

Remote monitoring can help technicians diagnose a problem before they’re even on-site. This insight enables them to leverage remote service options to avoid unnecessary truck rolls.

Remote monitoring can help technicians diagnose a problem before they’re even on-site. This insight enables them to leverage remote service options to avoid unnecessary truck rolls.

Revolutionize your approach to field service productivity

Technicians are on the frontlines of your service organization. Ensure they have the training, tools, and data to succeed.

Improving service efficiency requires bringing your field technicians’ skills and preparedness to the next level. Are they sufficiently trained? Do they have advanced data visibility into the nature of a service call? Do they have the parts they need to be dispatched? Will they have the resources and data to resolve issues quickly on their first visit? Empower your technicians with field service productivity solutions that help manage and control incidents, optimize call planning and on-site reactivity, and improve first-time fix rate.

Technician Training

 Ensure service technicians are ready to expertly handle on-site challenges safely and efficiently. Equip frontline workers with the knowledge they need through augmented work instructions and expert procedural guidance, or enable end customers and field technicians to connect with off-site experts to keep first-time fix rates high. Improve Training

Reduce Truck Rolls

 Accelerate mean time to repair and improve first-time fix rate by enabling field service technicians with remote diagnostics, predictive maintenance, and service parts management—eliminating the need for additional truck rolls. Get Started

Improve Workforce Productivity

 Making the right digital investment in your existing talent can offer huge returns. Enable your most valuable asset—your frontline workers—with the tools they need to maximize efficiency. Increase Productivity

Optimize Service Dispatches

 Provide key insights service technicians need before the trucks roll, so they're equipped with everything they need to complete fixes the first time they're on site. See how augmented reality and industrial IoT technology innovations are empowering service organizations to save time, reduce costs, and increase customer satisfaction. Read the E-book

Remote diagnostics

Harness the power of SCP

Service parts management

Augmented reality (AR) remote support

Augmented reality component location

Remote diagnostics With advanced root-cause analysis, your technicians will arrive on-site properly equipped with the parts and plans needed to solve customer problems in a single service visit. Harness the power of SCP Discover how, by using smart connected products, it’s possible to maximize results with minimal resources at minimal cost. Service parts management Having the right parts on hand ensures your technicians can respond and resolve service calls quickly. Optimize your inventory for minimal costs and maximum availability. Augmented reality (AR) remote support Provide expert, AR-enhanced remote support to customers or service technicians in the field to improve efficiency and reduce unneeded truck rolls. Augmented reality component location Improve the efficiency and search times of technicians by offering them clear, AR-powered X-ray views of the inside of machines, paired with easy-to-follow 3D work instructions.
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Field service productivity FAQ

What are the three most relevant KPIs in the field service industry?

The field service industry has no lack of key performance metrics (KPIs), but there are three that are the most critical to monitor:

  1. Customer satisfaction: As industrial organizations become more customer-centric, there is a new focus on the importance of customer satisfaction. A satisfied customer will trust you with their business longer, while a dissatisfied customer will seek out other options in the ever-growing industrial market.
  2. First-time fix rate: This refers to the number of times a service issue on a machine or product is solved in a single visit. The better your first-time fix rate (FTFR) score, the better your service team's reputation. This metric can also be used to influence other decisions involving training, parts, or repair schedules.
  3. Technician productivity: Tracking the productivity of your technicians is vital not only to your bottom line, but to your customer satisfaction as well. The longer it takes for a technician to work on a machine, the longer that customer experiences downtime and the higher SLA penalties will be.

What are the key elements of field service management?

  1. Job scheduling:
    • Dispatchers are under a lot of pressure to achieve high productivity to ensure the best outcomes for your customers and technicians. A good job scheduling functionality will allow organizations to improve technician utilization with shift management, maps, personalized views, and live notifications.
  2. Work order management:
    • Comprehensive work order management capabilities are essential. Organizations should be able to manage and monitor work orders from creation and assignment to job execution and debrief.
  3. Parts and inventory management:
    • Keeping the balance between parts inventory and demand is a delicate process. Capabilities to enable full visibility into parts across storage, facilities, and technicians are key—as well as the ability to order new parts when needed.
  4. Analytics:
    • The ability to capture data about technician performance, work orders, and other KPIs is critical. This offers you actionable insights into the operations of your service organization.

Drive business value with IoT and AR

Discover how connecting people, processes, and products with IoT and AR can improve efficiency and productivity.

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