Service program diagnostics and decision support technology for improving health technology service efficiency and...

Our in-depth survey of both the state of the art and the results of application, implementation, and rollout of problem resolution diagnostics in control help desks and field service clearly shows the potential of online remote diagnostics technology (Figure 9) to improve service force productivity and efficiency and to make more effective use of service resources (people and parts). Our survey of the current and planned future expenditures for diagnostics used in field service clearly indicates that the overall service diagnostics market is currently sizable, in the range of $2 billion as of 1997, and is projected to grow to approximately $2.6 billion by 2000. This current expenditure and growth will occur primarily in the electronics arena, but there are still substantial development and application investments occurring in both electromechanical and mechanical areas. We believe that the pace of investment will fall off as the service industry shifts from development and experimental research to the application and rollout of standard off-the-shelf technology. Thus, the overall pattern of the diagnostics market indicates a continuing increase in expenditures by the field service industry for electronics-oriented service diagnostics and some increase with respect to use of this technology in electromechanical and mechanical applications. The application and use of diagnostics technology will also be affected by the ability of the field service management community to recognize the need to search for an optimum as opposed to a feasible solution to dispatch, assignment, call screening, call avoidance, and logistics deployment. The further rollout of affordable wireless communications technology such as Ardis and Ram mobile and the new cellular-based CPDP technology, coupled with the increased availability of inexpensive wireless-based laptops, portables, and CD-ROM-based problem resolution and diagnostics technology clearly shows the value of this technology in improving service productivity, efficiency, and profitability. As we move from very expensive academically and research and development-oriented diagnostics applications to the purchase and use of off-the-shelf software and predeveloped knowledge bases, it is clear that this technology will be broadly applied.