On a recent trip to my local Volvo dealership to shoot a short 3DVIA Composer “in action” video clip, I explained my purpose for the visit to the technicians, and went to set up my equipment nearby. I then overheard them talking about their frustrations with their existing service instructions. How difficult it was to understand how to assemble a vehicle part for the first time – especially for a new model. It was also interesting to hear, how their productivity often suffers because the service instructions contain irrelevant information or hyperlinks to useless details. Most notably, many also expressed how they wanted to be able to access information from anywhere on the shop floor or, even better, from inside or even underneath a vehicle.
While I carried on setting up my camera in preparation for the recording, a small group of service technicians began to congregate around me, bringing me into their conversation. At this point, I told them about my role and how 3DVIA Composer provides “pretty amazing” service instructions. Their conversation continued without me, however, and to my amazement, the entire conversation changed the moment I pulled the Windows 8 tablet running 3DVIA Composer out of my bag. I gave the group a quick demo and showed them how easy it was to step through various service instructions. What really blew them away was that I could manipulate the model and view it at any angle or zoom to a scale of my choosing. Plus, they loved the fact that once I was done looking at a particular part I could quickly access any step of the service instruction. Then I passed the tablet around and each began clicking through the service instructions that I had on the device. Almost immediately, the technicians began asking when it would be available for them to use!!! Then the technicians started telling me how this could help them so much in their everyday work. When I explained that the instruction could be easily updated if a part needed to be replaced or something else changes, they were looking in the pockets for cash to pay for it. I was also interested to hear as some of them started telling me how this could help raise the quality of their service and help them better understand new or complex maintenance procedures.
In the end, and after I finished recording my video clip, I left the dealership really excited that I got to see first-hand how the products we create gets people so excited when they see the potential. Plus, I knew it doesn’t hurt to be friendly with the service guys who will be working on my car!