In the age where technology is brimming and redefining the way we think, act, process information and work, artificial intelligence is quickly bridging the gap between humans and technology. According to a recent Forrester reporting, Artificial Intelligence or AI could actually help businesses grow to $1.2 trillion in revenue by year 2020. It will now be possible for companies to come out of the shell they have been in for too long and actually leave the limitations of the human mind behind and progress faster given the technological elevation of AI will help them solve the problems which once looked impossible to solve.
Concepts of Artificial Intelligence
Weak or Narrow AI
These are non-sentient machine intelligence focused on narrow paths and work goals. At most, majority of the existing systems considered as Artificial Intelligence are actually weak AI. Example: Siri, Cortana, Alexa, are all narrow or weak AI. Siri and Cortana both operates within a restricted pre-defined range. There is no self-awareness, no life and no genuine intelligence of its own. Weak AI, does not attempt to perform any full range of human cognitive and neuro abilities.
Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) or Strong AI
A machine which can perform strong intelligent tasks and actions just like humans is known to have Artificial General Intelligence or Strong AI. AGI can basically perform tasks like reasoning, solving puzzles, making judgments, planning, learning, communicating in natural language and integrating skills towards common goals just as humans do. AGI also has the ability to sense, act and behave in a certain way. There are computer based systems now which do exhibit many of the above mentioned capabilities. Example: Decision Support Systems, Robots, Intelligent Agents etc.
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Super Intelligence
The intelligence surpassing far from what the human brain can imagine, think and grasp is referred to as super intelligence. Philosopher Nick Bostrom of University of Oxford defines Superintelligence as “an intellect that is much smarter than the best human brains in practically every field, including scientific creativity, general wisdom and social skills”. Only time will decide whether humans will use superintelligence to modify their cognizance or thinking capabilities or whether superintelligence will constantly be updates and will lack the limitation human cognition has.
Artificial Intelligence has a tremendous role to play in several industries and in various ways. It will be interesting to know and observe the significant changes it is making or will make in the future to businesses. The potential AI has to infuse businesses has grown exceptionally well in the past. It is time now to see where do executives and managers start and how do they implement it.
The study Reshaping Business with Artificial Intelligence published in September 2017 by Boston Consulting Group and MIT Sloan Management Review based on interviews with more than 3,000 business executives, managers, and analysts in 112 countries and 21 industries reveals that:
84%
Obtain Competitive Advantage
83%
AI is a Strategic Priority
75%
Move into New Businesses
The research also found several gaps between the companies who have already adapted AI and the laggards. The major difference is with context to their approach to data. As we write and speak of it, there are various research and discovery in process knowing and understanding AI and AI for business better.
Save time and cost by automating routine tasks and processes
Use insights and predict customer preferences and consumer behaviour
Increase operational efficiency and enhance productivity
Avoid human errors provided the system is setup properly
Crunch and mine large amount of data to drive insights
Increase revenue and maximize profit
Redefining Field Service Management with Artificial Intelligence
We are in the era where technological advancement and changes are modifying and constantly re-shaping the way we use or know them. AI is one such advancement which is helping businesses modify the way they work. In the Field Service Management, there are various progress and improvement which we as an industry have witnessed.
Before the use of AI started, filed service staffs had to personally visit your customers in order to find out whether the machine/ product is in working condition on not. They had to manually check the machine parts, and basis the observation, age of the machine, age of the parts and the related occurrences, used to suggest how good the machine was or for how long will it work or when will it require maintenance. Thanks to the technological growth, AI can perform these tasks with regular checks right from your computer and save time of your field service staff making accurate judgements on maintenance, repair and age of the machine. The whole process of identifying and resolving the issue has now become convenient and easier with the help of AI. It is now possible to leverage data and predictive intelligence in order to help humans and businesses make smarter choices and decision driven by data automatically.
Keep your customers happy
Quick responsiveness to situations of stress and emergency
Providing technicians with easy access to relevant information
Decrease the total time taken to perform a task
Reduce travel and waiting time
Increase the total number of tickets closed or jobs completed per day
With AI and FSM together these tasks can be performed with more ease and efficiency. Some of the use cases of AI in field service management are:
Smarter Scheduling
Trying to organize and distribute tasks among your field staff when your field staff managers have other obligations to address becomes a difficult task on a daily basis. Historic scheduling before the advent of AI was done using excel, pen and paper or through verbal directions given to the field service staff. With the help of AI it is now possible to fix problems and derive to a better conclusion than ever!
Route Optimization
It sometimes might get difficult for your field service staff to choose the best suitable route to reach your customers and hence result not only in delay or become too time consuming but will also be costlier. Route Optimization is the process to eliminate long routes and determining the most cost-efficient and less time consuming route in order to help your field service staffs navigate properly. There are several factors which needs to be kept into consideration before analyzing and finalizing the route such as the total number of stops to be made in a day, closest locations and possible stops that are to be made before reaching the location.
FieldEZ & How we use Artificial Intelligence to help serve you better
Artificial Intelligence enables and opens a plethora of opportunities with a speed of optimization which would have otherwise been impossible. With the technologies FieldEZ incorporates and functions with, there are various advantages of using FieldEZ’s service management application which is AI based.
Providing Hassle-free & Brilliant Customer Experiance
Customers expect responsiveness and great service is less time when there is any breakage or lag in the machine. Artificial Intelligence is currently reshaping customer experience and feedback processes. In order to meet customer expectations and come out as the one who cares, your field service staffs need to constantly be on their toes and prove that they care about your customers. With chatbots and real time updates, FieldEZ helps keeping your customer up-to-date and in solving their issues with accuracy and on a timely basis. These bots can also help your field service staff to find out the exact problem and suggesting accurate solutions to perform the task with authority and reliability. Since AI aims to predict the problem and solve it even before it arises, it helps in achieving maximum levels of customer satisfaction. It not only assures consistent performance , operation and customer satisfaction, it also assists in finding out and forecasting problems proactively.
Increasing Productivity at Work
Managing your workforce and job scheduling has since inception been a tiring task. With different roles to play and tasks at hand. From a small and mid sized company to a multinational corporation, optimal scheduling of jobs do become quite difficult to perform. FieldEZ uses Artificial Intelligence to help perform this task better and in overcoming the hurdles faced in assigning the right job to the right field service staff.
Jobs with the help of AI are now dispatched to the right and designated person based on past history, skills, route and navigation, time taken, time required, tools and availability of the right field service staff. This is also a paper-less approach wherein the jobs are automatically scheduled and assigned to the right field service staff reducing the time and effort to manually do it and reducing the chances of errors. AI therefore helps increasing the job completion rate and reduces chances of errors whatsoever.
Predictive Maintenance Now Possible through Artificial Intelligence
Predictive maintenance is a way to find out the accurate time and condition of the in-service equipments and machines predicting when the task of maintenance and servicing should be performed. One of the best implications today with AI is Predictive Maintenance. FieldEZ with the help of AI, brings a breath of fresh air in the industry where most of the companies and service providers still rely on the theory of take action when the issue is raised. Instead, the FieldEZ application, keeps your field service managers and field service staffs updated with the possible time and date when the service and maintenance needs to be performed or carried out.
Predictive Maintenance also helps in increasing the life of the equipment and the machine enhancing performance and keeping your customers satisfied. It also eliminates the unnecessary machine check manually and technician visit at customer’s location. It therefore utilizes your resources in a better manner cutting down cost and increasing efficiency.
Data-driven Patterns to make the Right Decisions
Data, Analytics and Insights: Artificial Intelligence is all about finding and mining the accurate data in order for your field service manager to derive crucial and relevant insights from the data at hand making it possible to take strategic and beneficial decisions for your organization.
With the help of continuous evaluation and less human biases and interventions, it becomes easier to process and extract data and giving a clear picture with analytics. It helps streamlining projects, planning the next steps, strategic interventions, helping in new product development, tracking customer surveys and patterns, recruiting new field service staff based on the historical data depending on major skills required, tasks needed to perform, etc. AI thus can help empower your organization in helping you and your field service managers take an informed decision.
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