Bell and Howell Drives Innovation with IoT Process Automation | Velotic
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Bell and Howell Drives Innovation with IoT Process Automation

Bell and Howell drives innovation using IoT process automation to deliver proactive service and predictive maintenance.

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Overview
71%
of service calls are now fixed remotely
60%
reduction in mean-time-to-repair
92%
first-time-fix rate
30%
reduction in maintenance frequency and duration
Background

Bell and Howell achieves 60% reduction in mean time to repair

A multi-year service journey
Service technician in orange suit
The challenge

The challenge

Moving from reactive field service to predictive, data-driven support

Bell and Howell supports more than 30,000 assets from over 30 OEMs, backed by more than 800 field technicians and continuous customer and technical support. As customer expectations moved closer to uninterrupted uptime, the company needed to transform a manual service process that often depended on on-site troubleshooting.

When equipment issues occurred, the call center manually created a service ticket and assigned it to an available technician, who would typically travel to the customer site to diagnose and resolve the problem. The multi-step process took an average of two and a half hours, while analyzing machine data and communicating diagnostic information to technicians remained cumbersome.

To improve service speed and prevent downtime, Bell and Howell needed more than equipment connectivity. It required a scalable foundation for aggregating machine data, applying analytics, and delivering actionable insights to technicians and customers.
The solution

The solution

A ThingWorx-deployed connected service solution, expanded from remote diagnostics to advanced and predictive analytics

Bell and Howell selected ThingWorx as the foundation for a connected service strategy spanning equipment connectivity, application development, analytics, and administration. Integration with the organization’s existing Microsoft Azure environment provided the cloud foundation needed to build, manage, and deploy a growing portfolio of service applications at scale.

The initial deployment introduced remote monitoring, diagnostics, and repair capabilities. By giving service teams remote access to equipment information, the solution replaced much of the time-consuming “drive-diagnose-repair” cycle with faster remote diagnostics. In many cases, technicians could identify and resolve problems without traveling to the customer site.

Building on that foundation, Bell and Howell added advanced analytics to collect and analyze connected-machine data and present insights in accessible formats for technicians, customers, and management. Service teams gained actionable information at the point of need, helping them diagnose issues, make informed decisions, and reduce equipment downtime.

The solution continuously monitors machine data for performance, operating status, environmental conditions, expected behavior, wear, and indications of potential problems. Analytics establish normal operating patterns, detect behavioral changes, identify likely causes, and prescribe actions that can prevent malfunctions. This created a path from remote service to predictive and prescriptive maintenance.
Service technician on roof
The results

The results

Faster repairs, more remote resolutions, and a scalable path to predictive service

The connected service model transformed how Bell and Howell responds to equipment issues. Remote diagnostics gave technicians earlier visibility into machine condition and, in many cases, enabled them to complete repairs without an on-site visit. Where the solution was implemented, remote service accounted for 71% of service calls and mean time to repair decreased by 60%.

Advanced analytics also helped Bell and Howell move beyond resolving failures toward detecting and addressing problems before they caused downtime. Maintenance could be completed on or ahead of schedule, parts could be replaced before end of life, and unavoidable issues could be diagnosed with greater context and minimal operational interruption.

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What's next

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