Contribution and impact on the Sponsor

The thesis provides fundamental knowledge and guidelines, as discussed in the key findings and the creation of the roadmap in sections 5.1.1.1, 5.1.2.1, 5.1.3.1 and 5.1.4 as well as Appendix O, Appendix P and Appendix Q for the sponsor to further develop bespoke mechanisms that will allow effective analysis of all necessary data for a proactive real time service strategy. The contribution of these mechanisms to the successful operation of a proactive real time service strategy is reflected in the significant drop of, faults per machine rating by 150 % after 3 months and stabilization at that level (Appendix U). The bespoke mechanisms were built on Microsoft Excel platform and have become an essential part of the daily fleet performance analysis for the sponsor. It provides a common language between the engineering and service departments to tackle the DTCs, and supporting information such as descriptions and service protocols are included in the basic level of the report, as this promotes communication between departments. The mechanism also accommodates any unrecognizable DTCs or faults captured by the telemetry system.

To maximise the impact gained from this EngD research, the sponsoring company are

are identified. This could result in product improvement requests being raised for engineering or in new service protocols being implemented to address the identified root causes. The excel model based mechanism is a physical representation of the benefits that the roadmap possesses and the mechanism has provided immediate benefits and impact to the sponsor, raising awareness among employees as well as demonstrating the intangible value that dynamic data have when utilised at the operational level. In summary, this EngD research has made three key contributions to the sponsor:

1.) The assessments and knowledge gained in work package 1, 2 and 3, as detailed in chapter 5.1, exposure of the fundamental requirements for PSS and knowledge of how to support and satisfy the PSS requirements.

2.) A PSS roadmap mentioned in work package 4, as detailed in chapter 4.6, an infrastructure has been built and tested within the sponsor’s environment, enabling them to convert their service strategy from a passive focus to a proactive focus (use-oriented PSS), through a telemetry data driven analysis approach. This roadmap also draws out another critical PSS characteristic, to ensure any service protocols, databases, components information etc. are up-to-date, as discussed in section 5.1.4.

3.) The mechanisms built in accordance with the roadmap created in Microsoft Excel environment as discussed in chapter 6.1, have helped to restructure the existing documents that define telemetry data and thereby simplify and improve the interpretation of information that is needed in PSS.

The research has also produced three key contributions to the academia:

1.) The roadmap created in this research connects and enables commercialisation of critical PSS developments addressed by academia into OEMs’ industrial

environments, hence providing the missing link between theoretical PSS and the application of PSS.

2.) The roadmap addresses the academic assumption that most OEMs would have an extensive understanding of the product usage by their customers or remote monitoring analysis systems, which are essential to the application of PSS.

3.) There has only been a limited amount of focus from academia into the development of service applications within PSS. OEMs would need an infrastructure to ensure that the links between service protocols and product feedback can be exploited to deliver the right service at the right time, as flexibly as possible, especially when an unknown issue is identified.

6.1.1.1 Impact

The major physical impact for the sponsor is the creation of a new department that is dedicated to customer support that is driven by the analysis of telemetry data. The sponsor has recognised the benefits of using the analysed telemetry data, as the main source of information to estimate the actual service or repair requirements requested by the machine without the need to contact the dealers. The analysis and reporting methods determined in work package 4 have helped the sponsor to shorten their response times dramatically and enable the company to investigate issues before they escalate to a critical level. The new department will monitor customers’ machines at a global scale, and raise instructions for any required service based on the information gained from the analysed data. All the data analysis will be conducted by in-house analytical software powered by the central computer, using the approach specified and demonstrated in the roadmap and work package 4. Another major impact for the sponsor is the integration of telemetry data analytical procedures into their current data analytical system. In order to support the new department at a global scale, the

prototype analytical infrastructure designed by the RE will be migrated into a larger-scale, highly analytical environment.

As a consequence of the above changes for telemetry driven service provision, there are various other changes and impacts in different departments within the sponsor, including the new product introduction and internal standard departments. A new procedure will be included in the sponsor’s new product introduction process, to ensure that all documents as shown in the KH are validated to protect the integrity of the outputs in PM and DM as shown in the roadmap. This is necessary to fulfil one of the usages of the roadmap, i.e. to act as a prerequisite check list for OEMs to assess their PSS readiness at the machine level. The new procedure will focus on the verification of DTC information available for triggering the service protocol, should the DTC be flagged during usage.