How Salesforce Field Service and Manufacturing Cloud Support the Transition to a More Circular Economy
For many manufacturing companies, focusing on their footprint isn’t just ethical, it's just good business.
In an age when a brand's message is just as important as its products or services, how can manufacturers lead through change, and how can Salesforce Field Service management software support that transformation?
On an annual basis, national leaders meet at the G7 summit to discuss global topics such as rising atmospheric temperatures, the causes of such, and the actions that need to be taken to prevent further disruption. Part of the solution for manufacturers is to design and produce a more sustainable product, contributing to a broader shift to a more circular economy. And increasingly, the field service management platform a manufacturer chooses plays a central role in making that shift both operationally and financially viable.
To put it simply, a circular economy is “a model of production and consumption, which involves sharing, leasing, reusing, repairing, refurbishing and recycling existing materials and products as long as possible". For manufacturers, this could result in changes to how you research and develop the product, how you actively manage the product while in use, how you retire the product, and how you get performance information back to R&D for the next iteration of the product. The financial and operational impacts of this change have the potential to be large if the solutions for getting to this new lifecycle model are not approached strategically.
This is where NeuraFlash, partnered with Salesforce, ServiceMax, DocuSign, and AWS can advise and implement a cost-effective solution, facilitate organization-wide change management, and measure success based on outcomes.
How do we design the next generation of sustainability-forward products?
A large part of designing the next generation of products will come from understanding how the product is performing in the field today with regards to the rate of wear and degradation. As the product transitions to a managed Asset in the field, Salesforce Field Service (SFS) offers a range of Asset centric features to support serviceability and connectivity within your field service management system.
By actively ingesting asset data from field service technicians, customers, and the assets themselves, through mechanisms like IoT and telemetry, Salesforce Field Service management software (alongside supporting tools like Asset360) gives manufacturers complete visibility into the service life of every product. Armed with that data, you can either design products to combat regular wear modes or design them with serviceability in mind from the outset. This is field service data capture feeding directly into product innovation — a closed loop that powers both sustainability and competitive advantage.
How do we design with the customer in mind?
A large part of a successful product is incorporating the voice of the customer (VOC) into the design process. The goal should be to continuously understand VOC throughout the managed assets lifecycle with the intent of increasing overall usability and likability through iterative design.
Salesforce Manufacturing Cloud for Service offers an out-of-the-box Survey feature to help gather VOC frequently through automated processes, at scale. This takes a traditionally large task and automates it to fire in standard intervals or when key field service workflow milestones are completed (i.e. Work Order complete). Adding an analytics package to this, such as Tableau CRM, we can quickly start to add value to sales and marketing teams by delivering product acceptance trends to help support more targeted selling strategies grounded in real field service data.
How do we effectively service a product, designed to be serviced?
This is where Salesforce Field Service truly differentiates itself from any other asset-centric field service management tool. Salesforce Field Service facilitates foundational asset management service requirements such as warranties, service contracts, maintenance plans, and work orders, all within a single, unified field service management platform.
Additionally, using conditional and usage-based maintenance criteria combined with the power of field service AI, Salesforce Field Service can now identify the needs for service at the optional time as a form of predictive maintenance. Through the full suite of asset servicing capabilities within the Salesforce Field Service cloud, manufacturers gain a complete field service management solution for proactive, reactive, preventative, and predictive maintenance across the entire asset lifecycle. This is field service optimization at its most strategic — extending asset life, reducing waste, and directly supporting circular economy goals.
How do we measure the revenue impact of a larger service program?
Leveraging Service Forecasting Framework and Digital Process Automation (DPA) that comes with Manufacturing Cloud for Service, you can build a service forecasting model that allows you to understand the overall cost and profit of service, and parts demand across your organization.
This allows accounting and finance to understand potential revenue, manufacturing operations to understand parts demand, and field service teams to understand future capacity requirements. This feature coupled with Tableau CRM can also provide crucial insights for the development of new revenue streams for formal service offerings, turning your field service management platform from a cost center into a profit driver.
Why would we invest in a new service model?
Ultimately, to sustain the greater goal of a more circular economy, there needs to be an incentive for both the business providing the product/service and the customer receiving the product/service. Salesforce Field Service combined with Manufacturing Cloud for Service is the foundation for accomplishing both of these goals.
Leveraging rebate is a popular option to incentivize customer loyalty and maintenance adherence. Manufacturing Cloud offers robust Rebate Management features to help businesses create custom rebate programs quickly. New service revenue models will also be a crucial piece in sustaining growth. Salesforce Field Service offers a vast set of features to create new service options to help expand monetized service offerings.
Together, these capabilities transform sustainability from an ethical commitment into a genuine business advantage — supported end-to-end by a connected field service management solution.
Why partner with NeuraFlash?
NeuraFlash offers deep product expertise and professional services tailored specifically to service transformations for manufacturers. As a leading Salesforce Field Service consultant, we understand that every company is a unique blend of use cases, people, and technology — and our solutions are built accordingly.
If you don't know where to start, NeuraFlash's Advisory Services team helps your business develop strategic digital transformation roadmaps that align short-term goals with long-term vision. If you're concerned about how your teams will adapt to a new field service management system, our differentiating Change Management program is purpose-built to facilitate that transition. And throughout implementation, we take a system-user and customer-centric design approach — building a field service management solution that's truly tailored to your business and your sustainability goals.
For manufacturers, focusing on your footprint isn't just ethical — with the right Salesforce Field Service management software foundation, it's good business.
Want to build a brighter, more circular future together? Contact NeuraFlash today!
Learn more about how NeuraFlash can help with:
🔗 AI integration for Manufacturing
References:
“Circular economy: definition, importance and benefits | News | European Parliament.” European Parliament, 2 December 2015, https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/headlines/economy/20151201STO05603/circular-economy-definition-importance-and-benefits. Accessed 12 April 2022.
