Farmers in recent years have often complained about relatively new and highly technical machines going down and stopping field operations for what turn out to be minor problems, which cause fault codes or derate the machines until they’re repaired.
It’s a concern which has put pressure on dealers to solve service problems quickly, so getting mechanics the access to service procedure information they need, fast, is important.
In September CNH, the parent company of Case IH and New Holland, launched an online resource called AI Tech Assistant, which relies on artificial intelligence to help mechanics quickly find the information they need, allowing them to efficiently search the CNH database, which now contains a pretty complete library of service manuals.
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“I believe it’s 1.5 million pieces of material we’ve ingested into our tech assistant in regard to all of the products covered in our technical library,” says Danielle Waterworth, vice-president of global ag service and maintenance development at CNH. “All of that is ready and applicable with a few typings.”
With an ordinary digital database, technicians would still have to sift through manuals to find the information they were looking for. And that takes time. AI Tech Assistant pulls those procedures out quickly. All that’s needed is to input the machine information.
“If you just have the 17 digits of the VIN number or even the abbreviated nine digits, then everything will pop up for you, the year, the model, the series,” Waterworth says. “So you’re immediately into the catalogue.
“Before, I would have to really drill in to find what I’m looking for. Even if it’s just a few minutes we’re shaving off on every workshop ticket, those minutes add up to improving a customer’s uptime. I can get that machine back up and running faster.”
Titan Machinery in the U.S. was one of the first dealerships to participate in the AI Tech Assistant’s initial pilot project.
“It gives us the ability to find stuff faster,” says Brad Meyer, director of service operations at Titan Machinery. “And, especially, it’s available 24 hours a day. A lot of times, the harder questions could come in after hours, during the weekend or holidays.”
Those are times when technicians may not be able to get help from other staff members who have experience with that repair.
Waterworth says the system allows dealers to comment directly on the site, informing CNH how useful the AI responses were.
“They get to use the thumbs-up, thumbs-down. Was this an accurate response? If it’s a thumbs-down, they have the ability to tell us why. We look at every one of those responses. Some have just been to do with the training of how they ask the question. So we can engage directly with the dealers to give them feedback.
“Others have been the material (wasn’t there). So that gives us an opportunity to improve the resources available to our dealers and make sure the proper answers and responses are in the library.”
Meyer recalls one occasion where Titan staff decided to challenge the AI Tech Assistant and see how good it really was.
“It’s kind of the new kid on the block. At one of our store meetings we started asking it questions, kind of going through it and trying to stump the professor. After asking 30 questions, it answered them all.”
He adds that staff at Titan, including senior technicians, have begun using it regularly.
“Last I checked we used the tool about 4,300 times. It’s answering 80 or 90 per cent of our questions. What we find with that tool is the less experience you have with the issue, the more the tool helps you, because it has all that information. We don’t need to worry about where to find it anymore, we just go to one spot. It takes us to where we need and kind of sticks with us through the repair.”
The AI Tech Assistant also really shines when it comes to repairs on older equipment technicians may not see very often.
“That’s where I get the most excited,” says Waterworth, “because we don’t train on legacy (equipment) as much anymore. You can’t expect our dealer techs to be trained on 40-plus years’ worth of machinery. This really speeds up that repair.”
As CNH continues the system roll out, Waterworth expects it will grow into an even larger and more useful source.
“We believe this could be the front end of a single digital dealer experience. What is it you’d like to do, based on that serial number? Instead of having disparate tools open at the same time, have a singular experience.
“It explains to a tech how to make the repair, he asks for the part number, it gives that back through AI Tech Assistant and says ‘Would you like me to order that part because I see it’s not in your inventory?’ That’s the experience we want.”
That’s an idea that Meyer says would make it even more valuable: “To continue to broaden the range. It’s giving us a lot of technical information. We want to cross that over to parts, integrating it into telematics. All those things reduce response time.
“Much of our success is only as good as the resources we have, and I can’t think of a better resource than the AI Assistant.”
