The world of work is changing, and even more so with the Covid-19 crisis. This upheaval is particularly felt by those who are responsible for the start-up, operation and control of our machines and installations: mobile technicians.
The tools available to these technicians haven’t changed much because the control of interventions remains complex due to their number and diversity. As a result, these interventions remain relatively unreliable and struggle to meet new customer expectations. Added to this are structural problems such as the ageing of the workforce, recruitment difficulties and high employee turnover. This observation forces companies in the sector to look for solutions and one of them consists in digitizing the processes by providing professionals in the field with a computer vision solution: they become Augmented Technicians. These technicians, assisted by a Computer Vision application, see their capacities, efficiency and speed increase.
Field service management : a key market for AI
The market for field services is booming. In 2022, it will represent 4.45 billion dollars, with an annual growth of 16.5%. Today, any company that installs, repairs and maintains equipment or infrastructure can benefit from augmented technician applications. If you would like to know more about the sectors involved, download our guide here.
These solutions allow to respond effectively to the 6 main challenges faced by field services:
- Ever-increasing customer expectations.
- Sub-optimal worker productivity.
- Difficulties in workforce training.
- Increasing costs related to the sector’s structural flaws.
- Maintaining a high degree of security for technicians.
- Lack of visibility for managers due to the low volume of reliable data.
AI makes it possible to reinvent existing trades without having to replace them. Rather, this technology aims to better accompany each person in their work to enable them to be more efficient. The automation of processes and real-time feedback on operations allow companies to optimize their operations.
Computer Vision for augmented workers
Computer vision is an artificial intelligence technology that consists in processing and analyzing images and videos to automatically understand their meaning and context. Artificial Intelligence programs can therefore help workers do their jobs faster, more efficiently and without errors. For specific examples of how computer vision is used in field service management, download our dedicated White Paper.
How does it work ?
- A technician takes one or more pictures with their smartphone by following the instructions.
- The image is processed by neural networks trained to detect and recognize one or more specific concepts on the image.
- The system sends back information to the technicians concerning the intervention (an oversight, an anomaly, the reference of a part, etc…).
- When there are no more anomalies on the pictures, the intervention is validated as compliant.
Conclusion
Now you know how an Augmented Worker solution works. If you would like to know more about this subject and read a complete use case with the solution provided by Deepomatic to Bouygues Telecom, download our White Paper here.
To find out the 6 steps to follow to build your own image recognition system, download our guide.
