Exploring the Impacts of Using Mobile Collaborative Augmented Reality on the Field Service Business Model of Capital Goods Manufacturing Companies

Most manufacturing companies in capital goods industries sell their products on a worldwide scale and must cope with several challenges to provide field services to distant customers. Mobile collaborative augmented reality (MCAR) provides a new way of servicing distant customers by enabling real-time collaboration between on-site technicians and remote experts. Because companies adopting MCAR to facilitate remote services are not yet operational, they are challenged to exploit arising opportunities to create, capture, and monetize customer value. However, research in this area mainly focuses on application development or usability studies. This paper contributes to this field of research by exploring the impacts of using MCAR technology on the field service business model of capital goods manufacturing companies. The two considered use cases are supporting field service personnel or directly supporting the customers’ personnel in carrying out troubleshooting and repairs. Focus group discussions with 19 industry experts have been conducted. The Business Model Canvas was utilized to structure the discussions. Multiple impacts of using MCAR on the field service business model have been identified. For example, the results show that using MCAR technology for remote services can increase uptimes and decrease service deployment costs. OEMs using MCAR can reach and serve new customer segments and might increase the customers’ dependency. Key resources are remote experts and MCAR hard- and software.