The Internet of Things (IoT), as a concept, wasn't officially named until 1999. One of the first examples of real connectivity (pre- IoT) was from the early 80s; a Coca Cola vending machine, located at the Carnegie Melon University. Local programmers could connect by Internet to the refrigerated appliance and check to see if there were any cold drinks available before making the trip to the vending machine.
It took many more years before IoT was introduced to the Services world. The Services operating model was based on individual solutions with no interconnection. Installation Services, FLM and SLM were the key solutions and for most customers onsite repair was the key metric. There were no tools and/or information available allowing data analytics. At the very beginning this was just based on going out on a service call without knowing what to expect.
Slowly, data usage came into play. However, all the data being used was still based on historical data and not originating from the actual device/product itself. Nevertheless, results were improving.
At the same time a new buzz word was introduced: predictive service. But was it really predictive?
Device manufactures started to introduce counters. For a printer it was possible to replace the cutting knife on time (by reaching a predetermined count threshold) or clean, repair or replace a read-head after a certain number of transactions. This was Predictive Service in its infancy. It was pre-IoT.
There was no real intelligence in the device, and it was not used very actively.
Forrester estimates that benefits for business are twice as big as for consumers when it comes to connecting devices. Customers’ expectations are changing from solving a problem to making solutions easy and adding real value. For many years, customer satisfaction relied upon meeting and possibly exceeding SLAs. Nowadays, expectations have grown to become entirely focused on creating a great customer journey.
Another important development to increase the value for Service solutions is Artificial Intelligence (AI). IoT and AI are closely related areas of technology. IoT is useful and powerful because of the enormous amount of data that it generates. When you have hundreds or thousands of devices all talking to each other in an industrial network, analysing all this data is beyond the ability of humans. Training machine to learn algorithms and spot opportunities for efficiency in the data, or to provide early warning of an upcoming problem, is the primary task of AI within an IoT environment.
Deploying IoT and AI drives a significant risk. If you don’t know how to use and analyse the data, you run the risk of over analysing. So, it is important to balance the time spent on data extraction and understanding it. McKinsey estimates that by 2025 all the IoT devices will generate 25+ trillion GB of data. Introducing IoT is great, but it is important to focus on what really matters.
IoT brings a lot of opportunities. In many of the articles and studies, the key focus is around predictive maintenance. This is obviously the base, but many other Service solutions will benefit from it.
By interpreting the data in the right way, you can:
- enhance your efficiency. Fewer 2nd visits, better travel plans etc. and - especially important - you reduce your carbon dioxide emissions.
- reduce the downtime risk. This means you will have less failed customer interaction. (a better customer journey)
- Manage your inventory. It gives you a real-time status of all products in your network down to the smallest device
- Track your assets. When you need to upgrade certain devices in your network you instantly know where they are. This can go as far as geotagging for security reasons.
And if you don’t think that IoT is the future, you might be right… It’s actually already here!
You are experiencing this impressive technology every day, look no further than your home: Doorbell, thermostat, lights, TV, watch and probably many more. All these items are connected in your house via smart phone/tablet.
Technology is a great tool to make our lives easier, at home and/or in the Service world.
Find out more about how Glory’s UBIQULARTM software suite uses IoT to further improve the performance of your cash automation devices in the financial industry and the retail industry.
