We’ve all been there. Your oven breaks, usually before a major holiday, or your hot water heater finally quits, or something goes haywire that you can’t easily replace or put in your car to get repaired.  What do you do?  Usually you contact the place where you bought it and they schedule a service appointment. One of two things will now happen: 1. You have a positive experience. 2. You have a negative experience. Each one has implications for how you perceive a brand or product, and each one will influence whether or not you purchase from the brand or vendor again.  While these are consumer-based examples, taken from home life, similar situations occur every day in complex business operations—with similar outcomes.

Aberdeen Group recently reported that organizations that satisfy more than 90% of their customers see significant loyalty retention and profitability advantages over those that satisfy less than 50% of their customers. (These results seems obvious but it’s nice to have it validated as fact.) Sumair Dutta, Research Director for Service Management at Aberdeen wrote “While those bounds may seem extreme, it shows that there is a real monetary impact to improving customer satisfaction and organizations are getting savvier around quantifying this impact.”

A positive customer experience is influenced by several factors: timely arrivals, fast service, quality repair, reasonable cost. The technician’s ability to provide that experience is influenced by: streamlined fault isolation, accurate and complete service information, reduced paperwork and automated data routing. For many of those steps success is determined before the technician is ever dispatched on a service call, and is tied to the sophistication and integration of IT and business systems. Once on-site however, the key to ensuring customer satisfaction is the technician’s ability to address unforeseen problems: incorrect diagnosis, additional failures/damage, neglected maintenance, undocumented (previous) repairs, etc.  Having the ability to handle the unexpected can make all the difference for impressing the customer and resolving their issues in a timely matter. Products that can improve a technician’s ability to understand and resolve  complex problems, whether those problems are related to identifying proper parts or procedures, help service engineers become more efficient and consistent. 

With the right software application in place, companies can easily publish and distribute accurate, updated parts and service information that enables technicians to resolve customer issues quickly, the first time, leaving behind happy customers, ready to do repeat business.

 

An article in the April edition of Field Technologies Magazine spoke at length about how SMB companies are looking to leverage mobility.  According to the SMB Group, a market research firm, the number of SMB enterprises considering giving their workforce mobility solutions has tripled. This is a significant number but it doesn’t mean that all field engineers will be getting company hardware.  Service delivery is a key factor in driving adoption of mobile technologies, especially as a means to stay competitive. Firms that pursue a mobility solution have a number of choices related to deployment and implementation.

Some of the unique implementation challenges for mobility solutions are that most companies don’t have the time or capital to roll out a pilot program.  Heavy leveraging of BYOD hardware (bring your own device) is another emerging trend for companies trying to cut costs while maintaining a competitive edge. Initially this may reduce hardware expense but, it poses interesting challenges when choosing software solutions.  Off the shelf software usually needs some modification to be effective on mobile platforms.  On the other hand, solutions that work well on mobile devices may not be scalable to support enterprise-level integration, interactivity and expansion.

Finding reliable, compatible solutions requires partnering with organizations that have mastered aftermarket parts and service processes and successfully deployed them into multiple environments (online, offline, mobile).  Companies need powerful solutions that aggregate, integrate and deliver content that is relevant and accurate.  

Mobile solutions that are designed for the enterprise and deployed to the field bring the collective experience of the entire organization to every service problem. Companies need solutions that provide a structured and methodical approach to problem solving, so that service technicians are prepared to face a constantly changing set of requirements and multiple types of equipment with whatever mobile device is available.

Mobile devices have uncovered multiple opportunities to improve field service operations. However, those opportunities cannot be realized without enterprise quality software that can: 1) leverage the hardware; and 2) improve efficiency and consistency across the enterprise.  Enigma has proven expertise in both these requirements so if mobility is part of your company’s strategy for product service and support, it may be worthwhile to see a demo.

Field Service 2012 has come and gone in Las Vegas, but there is much to report from the event. Not counting the hardware and software vendors, FS 2012 hosted over 200 attendees from over 100 companies. General manufacturing and high tech companies were the biggest industries represented, followed by A&D, medical equipment and semiconductor tool manufacturers.

The Enigma booth was incredibly busy, answering questions from attendees and demonstrating the advanced capabilities of InService® EPC. Based on these conversations it’s apparent that more and more companies are looking for knowledge management solutions, and Enigma has the technology and expertise to turn their piles of documentation, parts catalogs and service bulletins into an interactive, integrated field service solution.

Some of the comments from attendees reminded us of how much work is still to be done to improve aftermarket service and support. One VP of Services said, “All of my support content is in paper format. I have 1500 field technicians and the only electronic device they have is a cell phone. Now what?” Now what, indeed. After a fairly comprehensive demo, this VP realized Enigma has solutions that can improve any field service environment, whether it’s based on paper, smart phones, tablets or laptops.

Another VP of Field Service told Enigma, “We spend far too much of our budget on printing costs. I’m thinking of buying tablets or laptops for the field but I don’t know how to get all the necessary data into the right format and onto these devices." They went on to say that maintaining the accuracy of technical data and making sure it was safe from prying eyes was a significant worry. Again, a demonstration was all that was necessary to relieve this executive’s concerns and help them grasp the reality of Enigma’s technology as a profit driver. 

Jonathan Yaron, Enigma’s CEO, was part of a panel titled, “Delivering Faster Service With Higher Quality And Fewer Support Calls: Integrating Knowledge Tools And Technical Libraries.”  One of the concerns raised during this session was the use of social media: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Chatter, etc. The panelists almost universally felt that sharing maintenance advice and best practices on such an open, unregulated environment carried very high risks to the service organization. In fact, one of the speakers said, “Using social media for sharing best practices carries significant risk because such content would be part of any future legal investigation. If a technician makes a repair based on a Twitter or Facebook post, and there’s a problem down the road, then there will probably be a liability claim and any unsanctioned maintenance instructions will be brought into the discussion. What’s needed is a secure way to collect, evaluate, enhance, approve and distribute service and parts information and best practices quickly and safely.” That’s exactly what’s needed. Enigma couldn’t have said it better ourselves.

These issues, and more, were addressed at FS 2012 in Las Vegas. For those who attended, we’d love to hear your feedback on what you learned and what you plan to do with what you learned. For those who didn’t get a chance to see Enigma’s product in action, visit our home page to request a personalized demo. You might find what so many at FS2012 found; Enigma’s software improves service execution and increases profits.

Field Service 2012 is being hosted in Las Vegas from April 16-19 and Jonathan Yaron, Enigma’s CEO, will be participating in a panel called “Delivering Faster Service With Higher Quality And Fewer Support Calls: Integrating Knowledge Tools And Technical Libraries.”  After talking to the panel moderator, it’s clear that the panel has a single goal: to help the audience learn how to improve field service speed and quality.

A number of questions have been planned to engage the panelists, but audience participation will be the key to success for the session. To avoid spilling any secrets we’ll share four of the panel questions, just to get your minds working.

1. What are some of the goals of a knowledge library?

• Faster service/ higher uptime
• More (and bigger) service level agreements (SLA)
• Lower warranty/ no fault found (NFF) costs

2. What are the best sources of information—both quality and quantity?

• Engineering
• Field service
• Customer/ technical support

3. What type of information should go into the knowledge library?

• Fault isolation/ troubleshooting
• Service manuals/ bulletins
• Part lists/ BOM/ Illustrations
• Best practices/ best known methods (BKM)

4. What are the best ways to deliver knowledge to field service, engineers, customers?

• Online, offline, mobile
• Training—internal, field, customers, etc.
• Controlling user access—protecting intellectual property (IP)

All of these topics, and more, will be addressed at Field Service 2012 in Las Vegas so we hope to see you there. If you go, please attend the panel session and then stop by the booth to speak with Jonathan. You can also see a live demo of Enigma’s InService® EPC product. Enigma’s panel session is scheduled for 2:00 pm on the 17th, and we will be demonstrating our field service solutions in booth #5.

The 2012 MRO Americas Conference was held last week at the Dallas Convention Center. The opening keynote address was delayed over an hour because a number of tornadoes touched down around Dallas, which forced everyone to shelter in the lower levels of the facility. The tornadoes outside foreshadowed the storms that would soon be raging inside, caused by OEM restrictions on sharing critical MRO information.

During a session titled “Customers Speak Out,” executives from FedEx Express, TAP, Spirit Airlines and Atlas Air shared their concerns regarding the current MRO environment. George Silverman, VP Materiel at FedEx Express described how certain suppliers are unwilling to share data with airlines and MROs, which increases costs and inventory levels. Valter Fernandes, EVP Operations at TAP described the difficulties they experience when performing repairs outside of documented manuals. When performing heavy maintenance TAP sometimes needs help from the OEMs, however they often wait more than 10 days (and sometimes more than 30 days) without receiving an answer. (Similar to TAP, FedEx's Silverman claims that out of 30,000 service requests addressed to the OEMs, 50% are not returned on time.) Fernandes said he believes the OEMs are trying to achieve a monopoly in maintenance, which harms both the independent MROs and the airlines. Guy Borowski, VP Technical Operations at Spirit Airlines, said that the OEMs seem to be withholding technical information to help them dominate the MRO service business.

George Silverman offered a very specific and timely example of how the OEM’s strategy is causing delays and driving up costs. It turns out that the violent weather that caused tornadoes in Dallas also dropped a lot of hail at DFW International Airport, which damaged a number of elevators on FedEx aircraft. Because FedEx does not have access to the necessary Airbus repair data they must ship these elevators to Spain for repair, which will take 9-12 months to complete. (Aviation Week’s Frank Jackman posted a blog titled “OEMs Criticized For Not Sharing Data,” which described the same story.) As a result, Fed Ex will probably need to purchase replacement elevators to repair these aircraft. Following this session, I asked Silverman how long it would take FedEx to fix the elevators if they had the data and he said, "less than two months." Furthermore, Silverman has heard reports that the facility in Spain is running 12-24 months behind on repair work, so the estimate he received may not be accurate. This is an example of how the information policies of certain OEM’s is increasing MRO costs and delaying aircraft from being returned to service.

During a session titled “In or Out? Knowing When and What to Outsource,” Bill Meehan, CEO of Pemco World Aviation Services and Kent Horton, Director of Aircraft Programs for Southwest Airlines both agreed that access to technical information is the key to making critical MRO decisions. Without this data, airlines have very few alternatives for what, when and where to outsource maintenance—and likewise very little control over costs.

In the closing keynote session titled “Global Markets, Financial Instability, and MRO,” Jim Keenan, SVP Technical Operations at United Airlines said that he understands the OEM’s business motivation to restrict maintenance and repair information. However, he also said the issue of technical content must be resolved because the current strategy is counterproductive to the industry and is increasing costs unnecessarily. He said that when fuel is removed from the cost of operations (CASM ex-fuel) MRO activities are the single largest driver of cost—at 15-20% of total. During the Q&A time, someone in the audience suggested that OEMs have no alternative to monopolizing MRO because they must recoup the billions of dollars they invest in R&D. Keenan’s response was fairly blunt, saying he has very little sympathy for OEMs that engaged in a market share grab (to drive competitors out of business) by under pricing their products. The airlines didn’t force OEMs to do this and for OEMs to try to cover their R&D investment by employing a “razor blade” business model is unfair to their customers. Trying to dominate the MRO space by using a “have vs. have not” approach with maintenance information doesn’t serve the industry well and won’t work in the long run. Keenan finished by saying that the current inequity in profits—OEMs gaining at the expense of airlines—causes him to be very concerned for the future of the industry.

While MRO Americas 2012 had plenty of dialog about OEM information policies, it didn’t resolve the current impasse between OEMs, airlines and MROs regarding access to technical content. The people I spoke to agreed that OEMs have a right to protect their intellectual property but there is significant disagreement regarding whether or not MRO information constitutes intellectual property. Unfortunately, just as the automotive industry is now grappling with “right to repair” laws, the aviation industry seems to be headed in the same direction. It would be better however, if all three parties could find a way to work together to avoid legislation and lawsuits.

According to a recent Aviation Week article, “U.S. Navy Manual Details New Focus,” the Navy’s Surface Force Readiness Manual (SFRM) is calling for improvements to fleet maintenance. According to the article, “The manual boasts that it ‘provides the overarching strategy and policy required to generate and sustain surface ship material and operational readiness to perform operational tasking and reach expected service life.’” Put another way, the new manual explains how to maximize uptime of a Navy ship, so it can perform as expected throughout its lifecycle. Interestingly enough, the needs of the Navy aren’t that different from the needs of other industries like energy exploration, refining, utilities, transit, process plant, high-tech, medical equipment, etc.

Admiral J.C. Harvey, Jr., commander of U.S. Fleet Forces Command, described the manual as “a robust and highly scrutinized readiness policy that I believe will better prepare our ships and crews for the many significant demands we face today.” The author makes it clear that the goal is for Navy maintenance to become more efficient and consistent, both in port and out on the ocean. It's all about making sure that a very complex ship is prepared to meet the mission that’s required. That means creating a self-sufficient ship and crew.

“Training a ship’s crew to execute maintenance availability, perform routine operations in and around homeports, and conduct sustained combat operations requires a sequenced and coordinated maintenance and training effort,” the manual continues. “This strategy is ship-focused and synchronizes training among multiple readiness stakeholders.”

The Navy’s strategy is ship-focused—each ship is treated as a unique asset. That means when a mechanic or technician is looking for parts and procedures, the only information they should find is data that relates to the specific equipment on that particular ship. (i.e. Information must be filtered according to hull number effectivity.) More than that, this information must be readily available regardless of network connection, which can be limited by weather conditions, location/deployment or combat environment.

The Navy’s strategy synchronizes across multiple stakeholders—effectively combining elements of planning, inventory, training and execution. That means when a mechanic or technician is selecting parts and procedures, they should also see other relevant information such as part availability, alternate parts, service bulletins, best practices and previous maintenance reports. Not only does such an approach augment previous training, because it provides complete technical information in real-time service is both accurate and effective.

What does this mean for other industries? The Aviation Week article indicates that the Navy looked at how it maintains its ships and decided it was time for a change. They realized that the quality and quantity of maintenance was deteriorating, which was adversely affecting readiness. A ship that can’t be deployed is not an asset, it’s a liability. For industries that rely on capital equipment, a similar investigation may turn up similar results. The question is, “What can these companies do to improve the situation?”

Enigma’s customers consistently say they deliver faster, more accurate service and support for their own customers, dealers and any equipment under service contract. The Enigma InService® EPC product ensures that mechanics, technicians and field engineers always have the right information at-hand, whether they are online, offline or mobile. With the ability to integrate to back-office systems, Enigma customers have a complete technical library that provides all necessary information for a particular machine or situation. Click here to see why more and more companies are turning to Enigma to improve their aftermarket service and support.

According to an article in the December issue of MRO News Focus (“TAP M&E Takes on the OEM Bullies”), TAP M&E is being denied access to critically important repair information. The article says that certain OEMs have dramatically changed the quality and quantity of technical content they provide to airlines and MROs. In TAP’s case, some maintenance and repair manuals have been cut from 50 pages to five pages. This results in two significant problems for TAP, 1) as an airline it becomes impossible to diagnose and repair certain aircraft components so they must be sent back to the OEM; 2) as a third-party MRO provider it becomes impossible to fulfill maintenance contracts already signed with other airlines.

The experience of TAP is essentially an extension of a trend that started back in 2003 when some OEMs stopped providing rich SGML-based information and instead switched to delivering dumb PDF documents. At that time, according to one MRO facility, the lost productivity on the shop floor increased costs by a million dollars per quarter. Naturally, this MRO was forced to pass on the higher costs to the airlines (who then passed it on to the travelling public).

Since that time, many large airlines have found ways to get the original OEM content (SGML/XML), which they need for their internal maintenance planning and inventory systems. On the other hand, smaller airlines have been forced to work with PDF, which is more challenging to load into the ERP. The key point is that the current battle over who has rights to usable service and parts content began years ago when OEMs started reducing the quality and quantity of service and parts information they provide to their customers. Now, some OEMs are refusing to make any technical content available in a format that is useful for the airlines, insisting that they use proprietary systems to gain access.

Surely, OEMs have certain rights and expectations regarding the information they publish, and some of that data may truly qualify as intellectual property. On the other hand, since airlines have always relied on this data to maximize aircraft safety and uptime, they too have certain rights and expectations. (This was described in a previous blog, “Safety Held Hostage?—FAA Enters the Debate” where we highlighted that airlines are responsible for safety, costs and schedules.) It appears these OEMs are trying to leverage service and parts information to: 1) recapture parts revenue that is being taken away by PMA sales and; 2) capture or control the maintenance, repair and overhaul services business. And they are doing this with fancy names and marketing pitches like “Boeing Edge.” (You can see their new glossy brochures glued into almost every recent aviation publication.)

The issues at hand really come down to one question, “Who do airlines trust to keep their fleets airworthy?” The answer depends on who has access to accurate service and parts information and who has the demonstrated expertise. For years airlines have used tools like Enigma to fully-integrate technical content into maintenance and inventory processes. (For PDF data the Enigma InService MRO product actually allows it to perform like XML.) As a result, airlines have gotten very good at safely maintaining their own fleets and those of other airlines. In fact, according to this article 2011 was the safest year yet. To continue this trend, airlines must have access to service and parts data.

For OEMs, as aircraft reliability increases they've seen a reduction in the number of spare parts they sell. To counter that trend, these OEMs are now limiting access to technical content, preventing airlines from fully leveraging it within their own maintenance and inventory systems. From a business standpoint it is fair to ask, “Is this a good thing for airlines or for the public?”

According to the MRO News article, TAP doesn’t believe the OEM's strategy of limiting service and parts information is good for the industry. As a result, TAP is now joining with other airlines to consider legal options. Clearly there’s a battle heating up with OEMs on one side, and airlines, MROs and PMA providers on the other side. With the MRO Americas conference right around the corner, it will be interesting to hear what the OEMs have to say for themselves.

 

 

According to a recent Carlisle & Company report, when it comes to satisfying the needs of automotive parts managers, “the industry is collectively raising the bar for average OEM parts performance.” Furthermore, “the gap between the “best in class (BIC)” and “worst in class (WIC)” performance has been shrinking.” However, the detailed survey data shows room for improvement because OEMs received high scores (close to 100%) for supply chain issues but much lower scores for sales and marketing issues. According to Carlisle, “Clearly, the industry is doing a better job of meeting our customer’s expectations with respect to supply chain than with sales and marketing issues.” The question is what to do about it?

Carlisle doesn’t address how to resolve the sales and marketing issues; however, our experience with OEM customers indicates that sales and marketing problems are often related to cumbersome, out-of-date parts and service catalogs. It should be obvious that fast delivery doesn’t help the dealer if the wrong parts were ordered. When OEM products have multiple option packages, or multiple product lines, it’s critically important to give Parts Managers accurate information. This becomes even more important as the complexity of the OEM’s product increases, because the dealer needs to know if any components have been revised, superseded or made obsolete by the supplier. (When the latest electronics components are factored into this discussion accurate information cannot be over emphasized, especially when software is tracked and managed like a discrete part.)

Parts managers tend to be happiest when supply chains are running predictably, service is happening quickly and costs are being kept low. Making sure managers and technicians quickly find the right parts for a specific problem is critical to achieving that goal—and Enigma InService® EPC can help. While other solutions focus on automating inventory and logistics (the supply chain) Enigma focuses on automating the delivery of accurate information (online or offline). After all, it’s hard to make good decisions off bad data. Overcoming the parts manager’s sales and marketing issues will require both approaches, but the result will be a dramatic improvement in customer and dealer satisfaction—for any industry.

 

There’s a lot of buzz about social media tools today, especially since Facebook recently filed to go public, but do maintenance engineers, planners and technicians currently use social media tools to help them perform their jobs? Will social media become more embedded in the daily operations of maintenance professionals, or will it always be something people use only in their spare time for news, networking and educational purposes?

I was curious to find out what others are saying on this topic, so I searched online to see what’s been published. The search yielded few results. One of the articles was titled “People Power,” recently published in Air Transport World. But it was mostly about how airlines are using Facebook on the operations side, to support customer relations and drive ticket sales. It seems that most commercial airlines or transit agencies use Facebook only as a sales or ridership promotional tool. 

If you are a maintenance planner, engineer or technician, which social media outlets do you turn to for news, tips and discussions that help you accomplish your professional objectives? Below is a brief summary of three major platforms—LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook—and my observations about their value to maintenance professionals in the aviation and transit industries.

LinkedIn

In the past couple of years LinkedIn has become an important network for plenty of maintenance, planning and engineering professionals. Look around for a LinkedIn group in various industries, and you’re sure to find one that’s relevant, with educational discussion threads that are pertinent to your profession. LinkedIn is not a tool that one uses to actually perform one’s job (unless your job is to research best practices in your industry), but it’s becoming a go-to source for industry knowledge and networking.

Twitter

Twitter serves as a source of micro-blogs; it’s a handy way of hearing the latest buzz from industry experts, vendors and colleagues. Compared to LinkedIn, however, it is more difficult to 1) find the most relevant Twitterers for your industry and 2) scroll through all the Tweets to find ones that are relevant to your job.

Facebook

As of this writing Facebook offers some pages and posts that are pertinent to the maintenance profession, but it can be hard to locate them. (This may be a function of Facebook’s search engine, and/or the lack of pages and posts.) A brief search on Facebook for “aircraft maintenance” yielded a substantial number of results; most were for MRO shops, aircraft maintenance schools, and interest groups. Many, if not the majority, of aviation-oriented Facebook pages exist to promote products or services rather than sharing useful information. That could be changing, however; some pages contained numerous posts/updates that were indeed educational; for example, look up “Aircraft Maintenance General Knowledge.”

Are these trends likely to change? Are there other social media platforms that are gaining traction in the maintenance profession? Please post your thoughts/comments on this topic. And, of course, feel free to follow Enigma on Twitter and LinkedIn.

 

 

If your company relies on a Web portal to distribute service and parts information to service technicians, consider the disadvantages of that approach. Although web portals are one way to eliminate the need to track and update DVDs and paper manuals, there are several problems with portals:

• Service portals are typically nothing more than large repositories of similar documents (manuals, bulletins, part lists, drawings, etc.) with little in the way of user guidance.
• There is little or no search functionality in a portal; technicians must look at multiple repositories and folders for relevant titles and open each document to determine if it’s applicable.
• Web portals cannot help the technician when there is no Internet connectivity.

Service technicians often have to work in areas with limited or no internet connection; access may be blocked due to electronic interference, low bandwidth, lost signals, weather outages, spotty coverage or a variety of safety/security rules. Technicians that work in field locations and/or isolated environments, without the internet, still need access to technical information.

When making offline service visits, technicians must pick and print the manuals they’ll need, and hope that those will cover the job. Without the right information they’re forced to call customer support to diagnose problems, order parts and perform repairs. Every call to the hotline delays the repair and drives up the cost of the service visit, which decreases profits and brand perception.

To address this challenge, technicians need all product, parts and service content—a complete technical library—to be available online and offline (also referred to as “standalone” or “disconnected”). Enigma InService® EPC responds to this need, providing the same navigation, search and selection capabilities whether online or offline. Technicians and parts managers can install InService EPC on a PC, laptop, tablet, etc. and be fully productive in a standalone environment with no network connectivity. Enigma, rather than someone in customer support, provides the answers the technician needs.

With Enigma, all the ordinary offline concerns have been addressed: diagnosing problems, identifying repairs, keeping data accurate, finding and ordering the correct parts, sharing best practices and up-selling parts and services. Even if a portal could do all these things, which is rare, if the network is down even the best of them is of no value.

Without a standalone/offline parts and service application, technicians spend valuable time printing documents, calling customer support, and ordering parts after they leave the job site. It takes more time, and results in more errors.

Enigma’s offline parts and service application improves the speed (MTTR) and accuracy (FTFR) of maintenance and repair. For more on this topic, download the fact sheet, “Service Self-Sufficiency: Online and Offline Service and Parts Information.”