Furthering Service 4.0: Harnessing Intelligent Immersive Environments and Systems
Anasol Peña-Ríos, Hani Hagras, Gilbert Owusu, Michael Gardner · IEEE Systems Man and Cybernetics Magazine · 2018
With the increasing complexity of service operations in different industries and more advanced uses of specialized equipment and procedures, the great current challenge for companies is to increase employees' expertise and their ability to maintain and improve service quality. In this regard, Service 4.0 aims to support and promote innovation in service operations using emergent technology. Current technological innovations present a significant opportunity to provide on-site, real-time support for field service professionals in many areas. It should be no surprise, then, that intelligent immersive environments have the potential to enhance service operations by improving customer service and increasing overall efficiency. Intelligent immersive systems combine immersive technologies with computational intelligence mechanisms to produce adaptive, context-aware environments for advanced decisionmaking support. Such technologies, e.g., mixed reality (MR) and augmented reality (AR), can potentially enhance working environments, optimizing resources by reducing time and location restrictions, leading to much faster knowledge transfer and a deeper understanding of different processes. These methods can also promote faster response times to provide field service technicians with on-the-job assistance in unfamiliar situations.