ServiceMax from GE Digital Unveils Next-Generation Field Service Management Solution

Author photo: Ralph Rio
ByRalph Rio
Category:
Company and Product News

ServiceMax from GE Digital, a provider of field service software, announced a new release of Predix ServiceMax Field Service Management (FSM), a next-generation field service offering that brings new ways of working to all professionals in service delivery.  Predix ServiceMax FSM 18.3 introduces new capabilities enabling technician autonomy, dispatcher empowerment, and complex work execution to help companies better plan and execute complex service projects.

Predix ServiceMax Field Service Management Offers:

Granting Technicians Greater Autonomy

Traditionally, technicians receive guidance from a central dispatch in a linear and prescriptive manner.  As the face to customers, field service engineers need the flexibility to make decisions that best serve customer needs.  Giving technicians and contractors the ability to make autonomous decisions on a mobile device without depending on the central dispatch supports more confident and effective execution of work – ultimately helping them be more responsive to customer needs.

ServiceMax FSM 18.3 is the company’s fourth generation mobile application and the culmination of its history and experience in empowering and enabling service technicians.  Today’s service operations rely increasingly on combinations of third-party and on-staff service teams, requiring a higher grade of usability, easy adoption and a variety of mobile devices.  This new release represents a consumer-style field service mobile app running on the device of their choice.

Empowering the Dispatcher

Additionally, service organizations have evolved the role of service dispatchers.  Most do not plan to replace their dispatchers with automated scheduling algorithms – but they do want to free them from the mundane task of day-to-day scheduling to focus on complex, strategic decision making.  To support this, ServiceMax FSM 18.3 gives dispatchers tools to be more effective – with software serving up recommendations at every step.

Where dispatchers previously relied on their experience and intuition about how to deploy technicians, this FSM offering delivers a new user experience for the dispatchers and planners called Service Board. Featuring an intuitive UI and significant added functionality over the existing Dispatch Console, the Service Board adds new features that support more efficient planning, scheduling and dispatching.  This solution gives dispatchers the flexibility to deal with escalations or problems, focusing on more sophisticated work where human decision making is required.

Addressing Complex Work

Not all types of service jobs are the same; they range from short duration and low complexity, such as cable TV installations in the consumer world, to much more complex and sophisticated service calls, as in the manufacturing and energy space.  Major projects – overhauls, equipment decommissioning, installations and upgrades – can be highly complex.  Additionally, industries, such as power and utilities, aviation, and oil and gas, must follow strict regulatory requirements.  As service organizations look to expand their service offerings, they must be able to effectively manage service jobs that span multiple days, require multiple technicians, and even work done in multiple shifts.  ServiceMax FSM 18.3 offers a new way of solving these challenges.

The new FSM solution helps service organizations scale this complex work, giving companies the ability to define standard or complex shift plans. This includes jobs with multiple technician skill sets, management of multiple resources, and situations when technicians must work on a job for days rather than hours. Additionally, FSM 18.3 can incorporate data from predictive maintenance software, such as GE Digital’s Predix Asset Performance Management, giving companies greater understanding of an equipment condition for highly complex assets.

The new capabilities introduced in ServiceMax FSM 18.3 are currently available in beta. During this beta period, ServiceMax is working closely with select customers to refine use cases and the product experience, after which the features will become generally available in the first quarter of 2019.

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