An Internet of Things (IoT) Model for Optimising Downtime Management: A Smart Lighting Case Study

Abstract

In today’s global, competitive economy, downtime has been identified as a key performance indicator for field service organisations. The emergence of an Internet of Things (IoT) has brought new enhancement possibilities to various industries such as the manufacturing and field service industry. This paper provides a vision and motivation for using IoT in Field Service Management (FSM) in order to address data quality and service delivery issues. The theory of information quality was used to undergird the research and a model for the optimisation of downtime management in the field service industry using the IoT is proposed. The model was used to drive the design of a “proof of concept” prototype, the KapCha prototype. The paper also includes a report on an empirical study of the application of the proposed IoT model in FSM. The experiment findings showed that the prototype reduced the round trip delay time for sending and receiving data and was scalable. As a result, access to quality information supporting advanced data analytics and artificial intelligence was provided. Therefore, service technicians can be alerted more quickly as soon as any potential technical problems occur. In turn improved diagnostics and more efficient decision making can be achieved. The model and the lessons learned provide valuable guidance to other researchers and fill the gap in research of empirical studies conducted on IoT implementations.