How can remote equipment monitoring improve service performance and profitability? Our buyer’s guide shares tangible, practical steps companies can take to improve service through IoT remote equipment monitoring, how IoT platforms help deliver value, and how they can increase benefits with increased maturity.
Please enjoy the summary* below. For the full research, please visit our sponsor PTC (registration required).
Table of Contents
- Improving Service Profitability with Remote Monitoring
- Begin the Remote Monitoring Journey to Service Performance
- Set Your Business Targets
- Access Equipment and Equipment Data
- Communicate with Equipment
- Transform Data to Increase Value
- Analyze Data to Create Service Intelligence
- Share Actionable Service Information
- Implementation and Adoption
- Selecting a Strategic Partner
- Next Steps
- Buyer’s Guide Checklist
- Acknowledgments
Remote Machine Monitoring Drives Operational Improvements
IoT Machine Monitoring Opportunities
Monitoring machines using the IoT offers significant business value including increased quality, manufacturing throughput, and service performance. Of these opportunities, transforming service has become a proven way to improve equipment performance and profitability in the field and in the factory.
Service transformation is a good target because service organizations have increased their maturity in the last decade and are now more sophisticated and data-driven. In addition, IoT platforms are now available to ensure companies get beyond a “proof of concept” to improve performance and profitability at scale. And as Dr. Yuri Hovanski, Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Brigham Young University (BYU), explains, “Companies have been using predictive maintenance for decades. It’s not new, but the cost to deploy it 20 years ago was phenomenally expensive.”
The Time for Service Transformation is Now
The leaders now have the opportunity to expand on early efforts, apply lessons learned from initial projects, and drive repeatable value that they can grow over time. Those that have not started, on the other hand, likely face competitive threats from more mature organizations.
Improving Service Profitability with Remote Monitoring
Service is a Proven Value Driver
The most common way that companies gain tangible performance gains from IoT is through improved service. The IoT lets companies transform service to generate more – and more profitable – service revenue. They do this by moving from reactive to proactive to predictive service. Service is an excellent opportunity to leverage advanced technologies like AI, machine learning, and big data analytics. The most common first step is reducing the cost of service through remote monitoring and is within reach for most companies. In addition, companies can improve performance through new service delivery processes like remote service.
Use this Guide to Achieve Results
This guide shares the tangible, practical steps companies can take to improve service through IoT remote equipment monitoring, how IoT platforms help deliver value, and how they can increase benefits with increased maturity. Then, the buyer’s guide focuses on the essential needs companies must consider to ensure a successful initiative. The requirements are intended to help companies frame their search process and efficiently find the right solution. The checklists go beyond software functionality to cover factors important to implementation, adoption, partner choice, and more. These are the factors that drive long-term business success from an IoT initiative.
Manufacturers can see double-digit increases in throughput from predictive maintenance
Dr. Yuri Hovanski, Associate Professor, BYU
A machine failed in 2020 that cost $450k in downtime and repair to get it back up and running. We implemented a monitoring solution and got an alert allowing us to take the machine down in planned downtime and repair it for $20k to $30k.
Todd Earis, EATON
Next Steps
Recognize the Potential
Leveraging the IoT can help companies improve service for themselves and their customers by reducing cost and transitioning to proactive and predictive service. Remote monitoring allows companies to identify and resolve issues remotely, providing faster service and increased uptime for the customer while reducing the cost of truck rolls and putting service technicians on site. It can go beyond cost savings to create a new source of revenue from paid upgrades or remotely enhancing equipment capabilities or permissions by “unlocking” enhanced capabilities via a subscription.
Get Started
Now, more than ever, it’s critical to get started. Service transformation has gone beyond the early adopters and is now becoming necessary to compete. Companies have to avoid “paralysis through analysis” and make tangible progress. As Danny Jackson of Autoliv advises, “Done is better than perfect, start doing some things. We lost some time trying to do it perfectly, then made more progress by doing things and learning from them.”
Adopt a Pragmatic Approach
Companies have to get started, but they shouldn’t try to accomplish everything at once. Instead, it’s essential to adopt an incremental approach. Companies can organize their service and machine monitoring efforts in small, manageable, incremental “sprints” that will result in broader, transformational value. Each effort should build on the prior one. Companies should create a framework as they solve the first problem, focusing on operationalizing their capabilities and building repeatable solutions.
Extend the Value
As companies become more experienced and data-centric, they can increase the maturity of their service applications and analytics. They can apply results in their own facilities to improve how they service smart products at customer locations. They can extend to other use cases such as customer self-service, remote maintenance, predicting yield, optimizing manufacturing processes, predicting scrap/rework, or reducing process variability. There is a lot of value available across the enterprise and the value chain in addition to improving service.
Buyer’s Guide Checklist
Set Your Criteria and Get Started
Remote equipment monitoring is a proven way to improve service. It’s also a valuable first step in the IoT journey and digital transformation. Companies embarking on a remote monitoring initiative to improve service should look for the capabilities outlined in this guide to help ensure they get the value they seek. In addition, they can use the following checklist as high-level criteria to compare offerings.
Machine Monitoring Solution Checklist:
- Develop a strategy to improve service performance
- Start small and expand value quickly
- Identify a problem that would be valuable to solve and will make a meaningful business impact
- Get the right capabilities to monitor equipment, analyze data, put data in context, and create actionable service intelligence
- Look for predefined connectivity, dashboards, analysis, and applications and don’t start from scratch
- Avoid the cost, repeatability, integration, and scalability pitfalls of “do it yourself” initiatives
- Adopt a platform approach to remote equipment monitoring
- Get the right business and technical help to drive successful adoption
- Create a foundation for future growth
- Look for a partner with IoT and business expertise and a comprehensive ecosystem
- Get started with remote monitoring to reduce service cost, grow service revenue, and develop stronger customer relationships
- Expand to other use cases to drive additional value
*This summary is an abbreviated version of the ebook and does not contain the full content. For the full research, please visit our sponsor PTC (registration required).
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