Is The iPhone Tough Enough For Field Service?

By Brian Albright, Field Technologies magazine

Replacing leased rugged devices with rugged-case-clad iPhones and eliminating the need for a service-specific help desk will save Johnson Controls close to $3.6 million in operating costs.

Technology deployments can only succeed when the technology works the way it is supposed to. Processes are put in place to ensure that the technology can enable the expected benefits; and the end user community supports and uses the new solution. Fail to deliver on any of those three key elements, and the deployment itself may very well fail.

Johnson Controls is a $42 billion global diversified company in the building and automotive industries. The company recently completed the deployment of a new mobile field service automation solution that combines workforce management software with iPhones and rugged protective cases, replacing an older solution that suffered from poor performance and a lack of end user adoption.