Industrial Manufacturing & Equipment

Field Service for Industrial Manufacturing & Equipment Industry

Industrial scale manufacturing has no set operational hours. That is why the Industrial Manufacturing & Equipment industry has to provide machines and equipment that perform 24 hours a day to produce the products and assets sustaining the business. The increased demand for the kind of regular maintenance needed to maintain this level of productivity, efficiency, and high performance, has led to an increased focus on servitization.

SAP Field Service Management offers the connectivity you need to manage inventory, accommodate real-time repairs, measure progress, and ensure reliable service. Our connected services are using the power of IoT to empower your field service technicians.

7 challenges in Field Service of Industrial Manufacturing & Equipment Industry

(1) Meeting extensive customer demands

Customers expect the best possible output from their machines. This has resulted in more rigid SLAs that factor in greater outcomes, in this case, longer uptimes.

(2) Providing customer self-service

More customers are embracing a hands-on approach to service. They want to understand their problems and help implement potential solutions. This has made the adoption of customer self-service tools a critical factor for driving customer satisfaction.

(3) Increasing the profit margin

With reduced sales of machinery, manufacturers now look to their service operation to generate profit. In some cases, service profit is greater than machine sales. Therefore, the pressure is put on the service organization to be more efficient and productive and continually look for ways to reduce costs. Automation is one way, Crowdsourcing is another.

(4) High demand for efficiency

Maintaining and increasing productivity levels is no longer a matter of hiring unskilled employees to do menial tasks. Instead, the aim is to automate time-consuming and laborious processes so employees can be more efficient at supplying high-quality service.

(5) Customer retention

Since industrial manufacturers rely more on repairs than replacements, the growing number of affordable service providers is posing a real source of competition for the manufacturers of equipment and machines. Those who do not offer affordable field services run the risk of losing valuable customer contact.

(6) Providing a safe working environment

Manufacturers must conform to regulations ensuring safe working conditions for technicians. A large part of this safety is documenting workplace incidents and injuries to determine how best to improve on processes and procedures to guarantee maximum safety.

(7) Talent gap

The industrial sector is facing a critical decline in skilled labor. In particular, companies that are more than 30-40 years old are losing large numbers of service technicians to retirement. The next generation of workers is immersed in digital solutions and looking for employment that offers the kind of flexibility and freedom that mobile solutions offer.