For many asset-intensive industries, such as manufacturing and utilities, managing, servicing and maintaining internal or customer-owned assets is a massive undertaking. Field work without the right information at the right time hurts productivity at best. At worst, it can lead to costly downtime and outages.
Technology such as IoT, wearables, automation software and AI can all help field technicians. But many organizations are still early in their digital evolution, and transformation can be months or years away.
So before jumping in, take a step back and identify the asset maintenance challenges that get in the way of your technicians' daily work.
I have talked with many customers about those challenges over the years. What I found were common problems that automation software can readily solve. Here are three ways to use it.
1. Mitigate risk: Automate preventive maintenance schedules
The job is never done when it comes to maintaining assets. Parts fail, buildings age and equipment breaks down. You can't control all of that, so the real goal is reducing risk.
For instance, I often see significant lost productivity when a technician is dispatched without the right parts or equipment. As covered in asset and inventory management for field operations, this kind of gap shows up quickly in the field. It can affect key operating metrics, including:
- First-time fix rate
- Number of jobs completed in a day
- Percent complete on a single job
One way to address this risk is to automate your maintenance schedule. Recurring work orders can be created automatically through enterprise asset management software, so routine service doesn't depend on someone remembering to book it.
2. Reduce data errors: Automate updates across systems
Asset maintenance work often touches more than one system. A utility may use GIS to enrich its asset data, and its guides and manuals may live somewhere else entirely. That usually means re-entering data.
Inaccurate data comes from combining manual processes with multiple systems of record. A single source of truth should be the goal for any business doing asset maintenance work.
Take a simple example. A technician responds to a service request but can't diagnose the issue, so they look up troubleshooting documentation. They find a solution and do the work. Then they need to schedule a follow-up check-in and submit a paper form to several internal teams. Here's where automation helps:
Problem: A paper form has built-in weaknesses, including legibility and getting it to the right people.
Digital mobile forms solve both. Completed forms can be sent automatically to customers, partners, operations or management.
Problem: Support documentation sits in another system.
That can add time to the job, especially when connectivity is poor. A good mobile workforce management app should bring what the technician needs into the work order, so they don't have to switch systems or hunt through a website.
Problem: The follow-up check-in relies on an email or text.
A simple check box on the mobile form can automatically notify the operations team once the form is submitted.
3. Communicate: Automate status updates and notifications
In a perfect world, all asset maintenance work would start and finish on time. Reality has different ideas, and a technician will sometimes be delayed getting to the next job.
Automated job status updates keep operations managers, customers and partners informed of schedule changes. They can plan their day better, and the technician knows nobody is left waiting without an update.
Email is another place to use automation. When a service request arrives by email, a work order can be created automatically and assigned to a technician or team.
Automation also helps when SLAs and response times are in play. Escalation rules take away the burden of remembering who needs to do what. For example:
- If the technician doesn't acknowledge the request within 15 minutes, send a second notification.
- If there's still no acknowledgment after another 15 minutes, send a third notification to the technician and a new notification to their supervisor.
- Continue up the chain until someone takes ownership and the work is complete.
Each of these three steps helps on its own. Together, they can change how your maintenance work runs day to day. And once the basics are in place, predictive maintenance is a natural next step to explore.
FAQs
What is asset maintenance automation?
Asset maintenance automation uses software to handle repeatable maintenance tasks, such as scheduling recurring work, updating records across systems, sending status notifications, and escalating requests that nobody has acknowledged.
How does automation reduce asset data errors?
Errors often come from combining manual processes with multiple systems of record. Digital forms and automated updates reduce the need to re-enter the same information, so records stay more consistent.
Where should a team start with asset maintenance automation?
Start by identifying the maintenance challenges that slow your field technicians down each day. Recurring schedules, digital forms, and status notifications are practical places to begin.
