Efficient service management is crucial for maximizing uptime and minimizing costs in heavy industries that rely on specialty vehicles. With the advancements in technology, businesses can leverage hyperautomation and implement condition-based and predictive maintenance strategies to ensure optimal performance, reduce downtime, and drive significant savings. 

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In this blog, I will explore the service support challenges in the connected vehicle market and discuss how hyperautomation, specifically the Waylay Digital Service Twin, can revolutionize proactive service delivery and enhance service management for specialty vehicles.

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The Specialty Vehicles Market

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The specialty vehicles market has evolved over the years to cater to various industries and purposes, experiencing significant growth and innovation. Recent advancements, such as electric and autonomous driving, have further shaped this market. The specialty vehicles market was valued at around USD $96.81 billion in 2021, and it is projected to reach USD $116.8 billion by 2027, with the highest growth rate expected in the Asia-Pacific region. This growth is fueled by the increasing usage of specialty vehicles by small businesses in the U.S. and the rising demand for travel and healthcare response vehicles.

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Service Support Challenges in Specialty Vehicle Markets

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Servicing specialty vehicles comes with its own set of challenges. These vehicles are often geographically dispersed, making it difficult to dispatch field service engineers to remote areas. Moreover, the complex ecosystem of local dealerships and country regulations adds to the challenge of creating a consistent and effective service experience across different partners. The continuous mergers and acquisitions in the market introduce multiple vehicle models from various vendors, increasing the time required for issue diagnosis and troubleshooting. Additionally, end-users have high expectations for remote support experiences, demanding higher levels of hyperautomation and clear instructions.

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Benefits of Proactive Monitoring of Specialty Vehicles

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Proactive monitoring of specialty vehicles offers numerous benefits. OEMs now include cloud connectivity and remote monitoring as mandatory features in service support contracts, providing peace of mind to customers and enabling new business models with uptime guarantees. The transition to digital products, services, and experiences is predicted to generate 40% of total revenue for organizations by 2026. Specialty vehicle manufacturers are finding more profit in subscription-based value-added digital services than in the hardware alone. Proactive maintenance, especially in industries like agriculture, can significantly impact revenue by ensuring machines are operational during critical time windows.

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Specialty Vehicles Need Specialty Rules

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Condition-based and predictive monitoring are being adopted in the specialty vehicle industry, but the development and maintenance of monitoring rules pose challenges. There are no standard rules to rely on due to the bespoke nature of these machines. Telematics tools developed for the consumer market lack the flexibility to meet the needs of specialty vehicle OEM manufacturers. Proactive service delivery requires real-time data processing, which traditional SQL-based systems cannot provide. The expertise of domain experts is essential for configuring these rules, but they are not developers or cloud experts.

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Why Waylay and Waylay Digital Twin

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Waylay offers a solution to the challenges faced in specialty vehicle service management. Their Digital Twin platform provides a flexible middleware for vehicle telematics and diagnostic code processing. It allows service operations teams to manage growth projections with limited IT resources. Waylay Digital Twin, integrated with Salesforce, enables business users and domain experts to create and deploy specialty rules without coding. The platform can handle the volume of monitoring rules required for diverse machine types and brands, ensuring consistent and efficient service support.

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Final Thoughts

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With the increasing adoption of cloud connectivity and remote monitoring in specialty vehicles, proactive service management has become essential. hyperautomation, facilitated by solutions like Waylay Digital Twin, offers a scalable and efficient approach to condition-based and predictive maintenance. By implementing specialized rules and leveraging real-time data processing, businesses can reduce operational costs, enhance customer support, and seize new opportunities for value-added services. 

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As the specialty vehicles market continues to advance, it is evident that embracing proactive service management is paramount. The integration of cloud connectivity and remote monitoring has revolutionized the way specialty vehicles are maintained, and hyperautomation solutions like Waylay Digital Twin have emerged as game-changers in this domain. 

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Through the implementation of tailored rules and leveraging the power of real-time data processing, businesses can achieve significant operational cost savings, elevate the level of customer support they provide, and tap into unexplored avenues for value-added services. As the specialty vehicles industry evolves, embracing hyperautomation and its transformative potential will undoubtedly be the key to staying competitive, driving innovation, and delivering unparalleled service experiences to customers.

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About the Author

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Dr. Tom Van Leeuwen is the VP of Product Management at Waylay. After his Ph.D. in Computer Science at Ghent University, Belgium, he honed his skills at Alcatel-Lucent, now Nokia, in 2007 and became the lead software product manager for home and access analytics solutions for the telecommunications market. He owns several patents in this domain. In 2019, he took on a new adventure and joined the scale-up Waylay as versatile, customer centric product manager with a keen eye for innovation. In his spare time, he likes to run and enjoy small scale agricultural activities in his garden, next to raising two kids together with his wife.