Situation adapted field service support using business process models and ICT based human-machine-interaction

The use of conventional service manuals is still common among service technicians during on-site support. If problems occur during the service process, service technicians have to analyze the situation and react accordingly. Problem analysis is subject to uncertainty in time, because the optimal course of action strongly depends on the current situation. Therefore, intelligent situation adapted support is needed to replace static guidance. This article describes a concept for the generation of interactive and situation adapted service instructions that are dynamically derived from a service process model. After a brief introduction to on-site service support, the article describes in detail how service processes can be modelled by using the method of Integrated Enterprise Modeling (IEM). Subsequently, it shows how and in which phases automated test routines can be used to support the service process, followed by a critical discussion of possible information and communication technology (ICT) architectures to implement human-machine-interaction. The concept includes an ICT-based approach for human-machine-interaction to trigger test routines on the machine to receive information about the condition of the machine. For Industrial Product-Service Systems (IPS2), the presented approach offers several benefits compared to existing approaches. These include the ability of tracking and influencing service processes as well as the simple adaption of new IPS2 modules in case of changing business models or customer requirements. The article concludes giving a specific scenario and an outlook on future research to be done.