OEM&Lieferant Ausgabe 2/2018 / OEM&Supplier Edition 2/2018

146 Requirements are thus increasing continuously for the availability of information to tech- nicians. STILL provides a comprehensive ser- vice information system. In its youngest gener- ation, this is a web-based information portal presenting a multitude of information by means of uniform user interface and naviga- tion. Thus, it is guaranteed that the system can be used easily and intuitively. A suite of system components is thus made accessible for any technician, e.g. fleet management, spare parts management, vehicle data analytics, and ve- hicle diagnostics. Diagnostics cause special challenges because a diagnostic system does not only access in- formation sources centrally prepared but also has to evaluate live data from a vehicle. A tech- nician’s diagnostics notebook often represents the one bridge between a vehicle at a customer and the information network of the manufac- turer. At a typical service incident, the situation may arise that a technician on-site “is at a loss”, or that he lacks the access rights necessary to solve the problem. In such a case, he tele- phones his coach, a colleague in the vicinity, or a support expert in the service central. If the support by phone is not successful, the coach or the colleague drive to the problem site themselves, thus causing a significant prolon- gation of the downtime of the vehicle as well as additional costs for manufacturer and cus- tomer. STILL is therefore restructuring their diagnostic solution in such a way that seamless integra- tion into the service information system is fa- cilitated while simultaneously optimizing re- mote support. A support expert gets the opportunity to participate in a running diag- nostic session from a distance via the internet. He thus gets access to the same data and screens that the technician sees. He also gets the means to actively intervene in the session and influence the vehicle. The principle of “co-operative diagnostics” combines the advantages of remote diag- nostics and screen sharing while avoiding their disadvantages: When doing plain re- mote diagnostics the expert has no physical access to the vehicle, when doing screen sharing the expert is restricted to the view of the on-site technician of the system and the vehicle. Co-operative diagnostics allow the expert to make use of his own access rights to gain access to extended functionality of the system. He may also execute investi- gative steps in parallel and independent of the technician’s activities on-site. At the same time, the technician on-site maintains sover- eignty and full control of the vehicle and the diagnostic session in all aspects relevant to security. The introduction of a new diagnostic system poses significant challenges to vehicle manu- facturers with respect to the compatibility with “old” diagnostics for “old” vehicle gener- ations. Migrating existing diagnostics data into a new system environment is often so difficult that only new vehicles are supported by the new system while the old system is put into the new solution as a subsystem to support old vehicles. STILL decided to use a different strategy to- gether with their provider of the diagnostic system, ServiceXpert Gesellschaft für Service- Informationssysteme. The core functionality of the existing system, i.e. the evaluation of Integrated service portal with web-based, co-operative diagnostics By Andreas Hartwig, STILL und Dr. Roman Cunis, ServiceXpert STILL GmbH is a manufacturer of forklift trucks who provides a world-wide service network to its customers. 4,500 service technicians support a sophisticated overall system consisting of forklift trucks, warehouse technology, and intralogistics. Vehicles and devices are very complex and are available in many variants. A modern forklift truck often contains 15–20 electronic control units for diverse functional areas like e.g. lifting, driving, energy management and driver assistance. High variance results from support of modern technologies, from integration of products into individual customer environments, and from the commitment to service trucks of every generation for more than 15 years. Graphics: © STILL GmbH Illustration 1: Worldwide, web-based, co-operative diagnostics Engineering Partner