Terms and Conditions

Introduction

These terms and conditions apply between you, the User of this Website (including any sub-domains, unless expressly excluded by their own terms and conditions), and Si2 GmbH, the owner and operator of this Website and the Si2 Partners consulting brand. Please read these terms and conditions carefully, as they affect your legal rights. Your agreement to comply with and be bound by these terms and conditions is deemed to occur upon your first use of the Website. If you do not agree to be bound by these terms and conditions, you should stop using the Website immediately.

In these terms and conditions, User or Users means any third party that accesses the Website and is not either (i) employed by Si2 GmbH and acting in the course of their employment or (ii) engaged as a consultant or otherwise providing services to Si2 GmbH and accessing the Website in connection with the provision of such services.

For an explanation of Si2 GmbH practices and policies related to the collection, use, and storage of our users’ information, please read our Privacy Policy (link)

Intellectual property and acceptable use

  1. All Content included on the Website, unless uploaded by Users, is the property of Si2 GmbH, our affiliates or other relevant third parties. In these terms and conditions, Content means any text, graphics, images, audio, video, software, data compilations, page layout, underlying code and software and any other form of information capable of being stored in a computer that appears on or forms part of this Website, including any such content uploaded by Users. By continuing to use the Website you acknowledge that such Content is protected by copyright, trademarks, database rights and other intellectual property rights. Nothing on this site shall be construed as granting, by implication, estoppel, or otherwise, any license or right to use any trademark, logo or service mark displayed on the site without the owner’s prior written permission
  2. You may, for your own personal or business use only, do the following:
    1. retrieve, display and view the Content
    2. download and store the Content in electronic form on a disk (but not on any server or other storage device connected to a network)
    3. print one copy of the Content
  3. You must not otherwise reproduce, modify, copy, distribute or use for commercial purposes any Content without the written permission of Si2 GmbH.

Prohibited use

  1. You may not use the Website for any of the following purposes:
    1. in any way which causes, or may cause, damage to the Website or interferes with any other person’s use or enjoyment of the Website;
    2. in any way which is harmful, unlawful, illegal, abusive, harassing, threatening, obscene, libelous or otherwise objectionable or in breach of any applicable law, regulation or governmental order;
    3. posting or otherwise publishing any material that would i) encourage conduct that would constitute a criminal offence or give rise to civil liability or otherwise violate law; ii) is threatening, abusive, harassing, libellous, obscene or otherwise objectionable or in breach of any applicable law, ii) infringe the intellectual property, privacy or rights of others; iii) contain advertising; iv) constitute or contain false or misleading statements; v) contains any computer virus or other destructive element.
    4. making, transmitting or storing electronic copies of Content protected by copyright without the permission of the owner.
    5. Si2 GmbH does not and cannot review all information posted to the Website by Users and is not responsible for such information. However, Si2 GmbH reserves the right to refuse to post and the right to remove any and all information for any reason whatsoever.

Registration and User Policy

  1. You are responsible for ensuring that any details provided by you on registration or at any time are correct and complete.
  2. We may suspend or cancel your registration with immediate effect for any reasonable purposes or if you breach these terms and conditions.
  3. You may cancel your registration at any time by informing us in writing to the address at the end of these terms and conditions. Cancellation or suspension of your registration does not affect any statutory rights.
  4. You acknowledge and agree that Si2 GmbH shall own and have the unrestricted right to use, publish, and otherwise exploit any and all information that you post or otherwise publish on the Website in postings, survey responses, and otherwise, and you hereby waive any claims against Si2 GmbH for any alleged or actual infringements of any rights of privacy or publicity, moral rights, or rights of attribution in connection with Si2 GmbH’s use and publication of such submissions.

Links to other websites

  1. This Website may contain links to other sites. Unless expressly stated, these sites are not under the control of Si2 GmbH or that of our affiliates.
  2. We assume no responsibility for the content of such Websites and disclaim liability for any and all forms of loss or damage arising out of the use of them.
  3. The inclusion of a link to another site on this Website does not imply any endorsement of the sites themselves or of those in control of them.

Privacy Policy and Cookies Policy

  1. Use of the Website is also governed by our Privacy Policy, which are incorporated into these terms and conditions by this reference. To view the Privacy Policy, please click on this link.

Disclaimers

  1. The Content and functionality of the Website is provided with the understanding that Si2 GmbH is not engaged in rendering professional services and advice to you. All Content and functionality and any online facilities, tools, services or information, including information on linked websites, information provided by third parties and user submissions, that Si2 GmbH makes available through the Website (the Service) is provided “as is” and on an “as available” basis. To the maximum extent permitted by law, we provide no warranties of any kind, either expressed or implied, including without limitation, implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose or warranties, expressed or implied, as to the ownership, accuracy, adequacy, compatibility or quality of the Content.
  2. Si2 GmbH is under no obligation to update information on the Website.
  3. Whilst Si2 GmbH uses reasonable endeavours to ensure that the Website is secure and free of errors, viruses and other malware, we give no warranty or guaranty in that regard and all Users take responsibility for their own security, that of their personal details and their computers.
  4. Si2 GmbH accepts no liability for any disruption or non-availability of the Website.
  5. Si2 GmbH reserves the right to alter, suspend or discontinue any part (or the whole of) the Website including, but not limited to, any products and/or services available. These terms and conditions shall continue to apply to any modified version of the Website unless it is expressly stated otherwise.

Limitation of liability

  1. Nothing in these terms and conditions will: (a) limit or exclude our or your liability for death or personal injury resulting from our or your negligence, as applicable; (b) limit or exclude our or your liability for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation; or (c) limit or exclude any of our or your liabilities in any way that is not permitted under applicable law.
  2. We will not be liable to you in respect of any losses arising out of events beyond our reasonable control.
  3. To the maximum extent permitted by law, Si2 GmbH accepts no liability for any of the following:
    1. any losses, such as loss of profits, income, revenue, anticipated savings, business, contracts, goodwill or commercial opportunities or any special, indirect, incidental, consequential, or punitive damages whether or not advised of the possibility of such losses or damages and regardless of the theory of liability.
    2. loss or corruption of any data, database, software or any IT systems or installations;

General

  1. You may not transfer any of your rights under these terms and conditions to any other person. We may transfer our rights under these terms and conditions where we reasonably believe your rights will not be affected.
  2. These terms and conditions may be varied by us from time to time. Such revised terms will apply to the Website from the date of publication. Users should check the terms and conditions regularly to ensure familiarity with the then current version.
  3. These terms and conditions together with the Privacy Policy contain the whole agreement between the parties relating to its subject matter and supersede all prior discussions, arrangements or agreements that might have taken place in relation to the terms and conditions.
  4. The Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999 shall not apply to these terms and conditions and no third party will have any right to enforce or rely on any provision of these terms and conditions.
  5. If any court or competent authority finds that any provision of these terms and conditions (or part of any provision) is invalid, illegal or unenforceable, that provision or part-provision will, to the extent required, be deemed to be deleted, and the validity and enforceability of the other provisions of these terms and conditions will not be affected.
  6. Unless otherwise agreed, no delay, act or omission by a party in exercising any right or remedy will be deemed a waiver of that, or any other, right or remedy.
  7. These terms and conditions will be governed by and interpreted according to English law. All disputes arising under these terms and conditions will be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the English courts.

Si2 GmbH details

  1. Si2 GmbH of Heidelberg, Germany operates the Website https://si2partners.com. The company registration number is HRB 734144 at Amtsgericht Mannheim. You can contact Si2 GmbH by email at [email protected].

Service in Industry

Deep dive into the industrial service business.

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Service Innovation for value-driven opportunities:

Facilitated by Professor Mairi McIntyre from the University of Warwick, the workshop explored service innovation processes that help us understand what makes our customers successful.

In particular, the Customer Value Iceberg principle goes beyond the typical Total Cost of Ownership view of the equipment world and explores how that equipment impacts the success of the business. It forces us to consider not only direct costs associated with usage of the equipment such but also indirect costs such as working capital and risks.

As an example, we looked at how MAN Truck UK used this method to develop services that went beyond the prevailing repairs, parts and maintenance to methods (through telematics and clever analytics) to monitor and improve the performance and  fuel consumption of their trucks. This approach helped grow their business by an order of magnitude over a number of years.

Mining Service Management Data to improve performance

We then took a deep dive into how Endress + Hauser have developed applications that can mine Service Management data to improve service performance:  

Thomas Fricke (Service Manager) and Enrico De Stasio (Head of Corporate Quality & Lean) facilitated a 3 hour discussion on their journey from idea to a real working application integrated into their Service processes. These were the key learning points that emerged:

Leadership

In 2018 the Senior leadership concluded that to stay competitive they needed to do far more to consolidate their global service data into a “data lake’ that could be used to improve their own service processes and bring more value to customers. As a company they had already seen the value of organising data as over the past 20 years for every new system they already had a “digital twin” which held electronically all the data for that system in an organised fashion. Initially, it was basic Bill of Material data, but has since grown in sophistication. So a good start but they needed to go further, and the leadership team committed resources to do this.

  • The first try: The project initially focused on collecting and organising data from its global service operations into a data lake.  This first phase required the development of infrastructure, processes and applications that could analyse service report data and turn it into actionable intelligence. The initial goal was to make internal processes more efficient, and so improve the customer experience. E+H looked for patterns in the reports of service engineers that could:
    • Be used to improve the performance of Service through processes and individuals
    • Be used by other groups such as engineering to improve and enhance product quality.
  • Outcome: Eventhough progress was made in many areas, nevertheless, even using advanced statistical methods, they could not extract or deliver the value they had hoped   for from the data. They needed to look at something different.
  • Leveraging AI technologies: The Endress+Hauser team knew they needed to look for patterns in large data sets. They had the knowledge that self-learning technologies that are frequently termed as AI, could potentially help solve this problem. They teamed up with a local university and created a project to develop a ‘Proof of Concept’. This helped the project gain traction as the potential of the application they had created started to emerge. It was not an easy journey and required “courage to trust the outcomes, see them fail and then learn from the process”. However after about 18 months they were able to integrate the application into their normal working processes where every day they scan the service reports from around the world in different languages to identify common patterns in product problems, or anomalies in the local service team activities. This information is fed back to the appropriate service teams for action. The application also acts as a central hub where anyone in the organisation can access and interrogate service report data to improve performance and develop new value propositions.
  • Improvement:  The project does not stop there. It is now embedded in the service operations and used as a basic tool for continuous improvement. In effect, this has shifted the whole organization to be more aware of the value of their data.

Utilizing AI in B2B services

Regarding AI, our task was to uncover some of the myths and benefits for service businesses and the first task was to agree on what we really mean by AI among the participants. It took time, but we discovered that there are really two interpretations which makes the term rather confusing. The first is a generic term used by visionaries and AI professionals to describe a world of intelligent machines and applications. Important at a social & macroeconomic level, but perhaps not so useful for business operations -at least at a practical level. The second is an umbrella term for a group of technologies that are good at finding patterns in large data sets (machine learning, neural networks, big data, computer vision), that can interface with human beings (Natural Language Processing) and that mimic human intelligence through being based on self-learning algorithms. Understanding this second definition and how these technologies can be used to overcome real business challenges is where the immediate value of AI sits for today’s businesses. It was also clear that the implication of integrating these technologies into business processes will require leaders to look at the change management challenges for their teams and customers.

To understand options for moving ahead at a practical level we first looked briefly at Husky through an interview with CIO Jean-Christophe Wiltz to CIOnet where we learned that i) real business needs should tailored drive technology implementation, and ii) that before getting to AI technologies, there is a need to build the appropriate infrastructure in terms of database and data collection, and, most importantly, the need to be prepared to continually adapt this infrastructure as the business needs change.

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