We showed a demo at our booth of one of the ways to use our AI. For an unconnected device, we install a special script which creates a dynamic QR code showing the status of the device at any point in time. We call this an “Issue Fingerprint”. When there’s a service event, the user selects a function on the device that displays the QR code, then scans the code with a mobile device and submits it to the AI in the cloud, which returns a root cause and solution to the mobile device. You can see a simple demo of how this works here.
This generated a lot of interest. Imagine being able to do away with parsing log files. Just scan the code (our script can get the relevant data out of log files and compress it so significantly it can be communicated visually), submit it to the AI and get your solution. Also, more and more end users are prohibiting OEM’s from connecting devices to their network. This is a potential way to remotely manage devices that aren’t connected.
As amazing as this is, some OEM’s still had concerns:
- Their customers won’t want to use their personal phones and download a 3rd party application to scan QR codes.
- Their customers do not allow any connectivity, cellular or otherwise. (We find this to be the case in places like semiconductor fabrication plants).
- The UI of the device doesn’t have a good enough resolution to show a QR code.
RevTwo AI can, in fact, be used while addressing these concerns. Let’s discuss how.
1. No use of a smartphone. RevTwo offers an “In-Product” application so that the user simply hits a “help” button and the application collects the data and submits it to the AI, which returns a root cause identification and a solution to the application. Internet connectivity is required for this to work.
2. No connectivity allowed. With this situation, the options are a little more limited but are certainly workable.
- One method is to simply take a picture of the QR code using the phone’s camera and send it to an email address provided by RevTwo. The user would not need to download any special application. The email would be processed by RevTwo’s AI and a solution returned via the same email channel.
- Another method would be to simply download the log files on a USB stick and then send by email to the email address provided by RevTwo. In the same way that a picture of the QR code is submitted, the answer can be returned via the same email address.
3. Poor UI resolution. A QR code shown on a screen with HD resolution can contain 4 to 5000 characters of information. This is usually more than enough to show the status of a device so the AI can identify the issue and prescribe the solution. But not all devices have HD resolution on their UI. We are currently working with customers who have devices with PLC driven UI’s, with poor graphic resolution. Some of them look something like this:
In this case, our QR code would probably only be able to present 1000 or fewer characters. But this can still be used to enable our AI to determine the root cause. In this case, the script would be instructed to generate a sequence of QR codes that could be scanned. We also have other ways to squeeze the encoding so that the necessary information is packed into the QR code.
The most important thing to remember when considering RevTwo is the business impact. Are you trying to empower your customers with the capability of self-service? Are you trying to standardize how repairs in the field are performed across FSE’s? Are you trying to reduce truck rolls and improve FTR, MTTR?
We can work with you to identify the business value first. On the technology side, these are just a few of the ways that RevTwo AI can be leveraged. When it comes to connectivity, we have it covered.