As the Fujitsu World Tour continues, Graeme Wright, a Director of IoT at Fujitsu, explains how the Connected Van could help streamline services for field-based workers.
Transforming Customer Service with the Connected Van
Last month Fujitsu launched their Connected Van concept at the Fujitsu World Tour, a potentially game changing concept for field and customer service delivery.
There are an estimated 3.2 million vans on the road in the UK alone leaving a huge swathe of the workforce largely disconnected from digital services. Connecting them will essentially create an office or warehouse on wheels which can transform operational efficiencies and enhance customer experience.
Transforming operational efficiency
Desk-based workers take ICT and particularly secure ubiquitous connectivity for granted but front-line workers rarely share similar levels of access. The Connected Van enables service personnel to quickly ‘popup’ a local Wi-Fi hotspot and access enterprise services and applications via a secure mobile broadband backhaul.
Another significant benefit is getting the right person, with the right tools and components, in the right place at the right time, every time. A capability which we showed can be built by seamlessly linking the van with specific tools and parts – tracked by RFID tags – with back-end inventory and logistics systems via a secure, resilient mobile broadband connection provisioned and managed by our partners at Arkessa.
It is estimated around 30 per cent of engineers currently arrive at a job without all of the tools or parts required. However if a fleet of vans are connected to the Enterprise systems, a business can know exactly which vans have which equipment and their locations – potentially allowing “peer‐to-peer” supply, rather than costly returns to central depots. As well as greater efficiency for the business, it creates a superior customer experience by reducing ‘second visits’.
Many organisations spend tens of millions of pounds per year on diesel alone, so reducing second visits by 50% could significantly benefit the bottom line, not to mention savings in vehicle maintenance and servicing costs – or the environmental benefits.
For organisations with a large proportion of the workforce out in the field, you have to enable them with the tools to do the job. The connected van is an actual real-life application of IoT technology that will have a positive impact on business but also on people and society.
For more details on the Fujitsu Connected Van, click here.