Reduce truck rolls: what machinery service can resolve remotely.

1. How many service visits are avoidable

The question of what share of on-site visits is unnecessary has several answers, and they lie further apart than vendor slides suggest. The 2025 Field Service Benchmark by Aquant (vendor study, 157 service organisations across machinery, medical devices and printing) tracks a dedicated KPI for it, the avoidable dispatch rate: the share of on-site visits that could have been resolved remotely. The median is 14 percent, 3 percent among the top 20 percent of organisations and 24 percent among the bottom 20 percent. How Aquant decides that a visit was avoidable is not disclosed. The 2026 edition phrases it differently: one in five cases could be resolved remotely - a different base, not a time series.

For German machinery manufacturers there is an older, small, but directly asked measurement: in 2013, Fraunhofer IPK asked manufacturers of complex machine tools and plants what share of fault reports can be resolved without a technician travelling: on average 37 percent, by phone or online - with only 24 responding companies and a wide spread. The North American benchmark of the Service Council (42 organisations, data for 2016) arrives at 27 percent of issues resolved remotely. And a survey of 100 field service leaders (Field Service Insights, 2025, distributed by a telematics vendor) shows the other side: 55 percent of respondents estimate the remotely resolvable share at no more than 10 percent, a further 40 percent at 11 to 20 percent.

The honest summary: between a fifth and a good third, depending on product, connectivity and how you count - and the spread within each study is larger than the difference between them. That means your own figure is measurable and can be moved. What drives it shows in the technicians’ view: in the Insight Report Service 2022 (DACH, 44 percent of respondents from mechanical and plant engineering), a good quarter of service technicians say that in more than 20 percent of their cases a further visit was needed because information was missing. Missing information creates second visits - and first visits that an informed hotline would never have triggered.

2. Shift left: three levels on which a case can be resolved

The organising principle behind this is called shift left. The term comes from software testing (Larry Smith, 2001) and became common in IT support through the HDI and ITIL community: whatever is resolved at level three should be resolved at level two, then at level one, then by the user. In technical service the levels are:

1. Self-service: The customer finds the answer alone - in the documentation, in the customer portal, at the machine. That works for part numbers, parameter values, maintenance intervals and known messages, and only if the information can be found.
2. Hotline and remote diagnostics: Someone at the factory clarifies the case by phone, with video or with read-only access to the controller. This is where most of the avoidable share is decided.
3. On-site visit: A technician travels - ideally with the right part in the van, because the level before has already delivered the diagnosis.

Aquant describes the same staircase as a service request funnel: information questions, simple faults with a known fix, complex diagnostics. According to the vendor’s data, 33 percent of all service requests are plain information questions that could be handled by self-service or a better-equipped hotline - cross-industry and a vendor figure, but any hotline statistic sorted by request type shows the same picture.

A word on terminology, because it determines the limits later on. The German statutory accident insurance DGUV distinguishes in FBHM-133 “Secure remote maintenance of machinery” (July 2023): remote diagnostics collects data during operation without intervening in the controller. Passive remote maintenance, often called remote service, transmits screen contents or parameters read-only to the manufacturer, who guides the staff on site. Active remote maintenance changes parameters or software from a distance. The first two, according to DGUV, only touch security, not safety - and for the question of this article they are usually sufficient.

3. Which requests can be resolved without a visit

The following table sorts typical requests in machinery service by the level on which they can be resolved and by the prerequisite for it. It comes from projects, not from a study, and is meant as a starting point for your own classification.

The first three rows carry the avoidable share. What they have in common: the answer already exists - in the instructions for use, the parts list, a colleague’s service report. The visit does not happen because the problem is hard, but because the person on the phone cannot find the answer or does not trust it. The “component failure” row is the second, often overlooked lever: a visit with the right part is one visit instead of two. Aquant puts a failed first visit at 2.7 visits and around 13 extra days of resolution time on average; how to avoid those second visits is covered elsewhere.

4. The lever sits at the hotline - and the hotline only resolves what it knows

The point at which a case becomes a truck roll is intake. Whoever sits there decides within minutes whether they have the answer or dispatch a technician. Back in 2013, Aberdeen found among 156 service organisations that better diagnosis and triage at intake was the most frequently named measure against failed visits - ahead of parts access, scheduling and training. Only the means have changed since.

The hotline’s problem is not competence but reach. The knowledge that resolves a case on the phone sits with a few experienced technicians, in heads, notes and service reports that nobody searches - and it leaves with their retirement. Whoever cannot reach those sources within seconds has two options: guess or dispatch. Dispatching feels safer.

The VDMA/McKinsey study on competitiveness in service (September 2025) calls the archetype that does it differently the “digital service expert”: remote support teams that draw on extensive knowledge bases and therefore solve problems quickly and precisely; series manufacturers, the study says, benefit most from remote support, plant manufacturers from pooling their knowledge. Technically that means: the answer at the hotline comes from the company’s own documents, service reports and parts lists, in the context of the specific machine (serial number, variant, modifications), and it shows its source - document, page, section. Only the source makes the answer reliable enough not to trigger a visit; a plausible answer without a source has the opposite effect. How to recognise a system that meets this condition is in our checklist.

The side effect: the same source grounding saves the technician on site the search, which costs more than half an hour a day in many companies.

5. The limits of remote diagnostics

Remote diagnostics does not replace the visit, it replaces the unnecessary visit. Four limits determine how much of that is achievable in a given company.

Physics. A failed bearing is not replaced over the phone. The Fraunhofer survey put it as a section heading: “Not replaceable: fault correction on site” - remote access mainly affects the diagnostic phase. Fault corrections there averaged 45 percent of all service visits; the rest - maintenance, commissioning, modifications - is largely plannable.

Connectivity. Remote diagnostics requires the machine to be reachable. In 2013, according to the same survey, an average of 39 percent of machines sold had remote access via the internet; the BCG survey of around 100 industrial machinery manufacturers (2025) counts 28 percent of newly delivered machines as connected. The installed base is mostly out of reach, and on the customer side there is resistance to outbound data connections, which the Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences names as the main point of contention in its VDMA-supported survey of 130 machinery and plant manufacturers (2022/23). The hotline with knowledge access is therefore the more robust first step: it needs no connection to the machine, only one to your own knowledge.

Tools. Remote technology is not “plug and play”. In the same survey, 32 percent of companies had completed the introduction of remote AR, 30 percent were still testing - and of those that had finished, almost a third were dissatisfied with the result, according to the authors mainly because the people involved had not been brought on board.

The law. As soon as something is written rather than read from a distance, safety requirements apply. The Machinery Regulation (EU) 2023/1230, which applies from 20 January 2027, requires in Annex III section 1.1.9 that connecting a remote access device must not lead to a hazardous situation and that the machine collects evidence of interventions in its software; under section 1.2.2 the operator must be able to make sure before starting that nobody is in the danger zones - an argument against any remote start without a person at the machine; section 1.6.1 provides for maintenance with the machine stopped. Anyone who modifies software via remote access in a way that creates a new hazard performs a substantial modification under Article 3(16) and moves into the manufacturer’s role. The Cyber Resilience Act requires access controls for connected products and the reporting of possible unauthorised access (Annex I Part I point 2(d)); its reporting obligations for actively exploited vulnerabilities have applied since 11 September 2026.

6. Finding the suitable cases in your own data

Your own avoidable share is not in a benchmark but in your service reports. Four steps that need no new software:

1. Sort the last twelve months of visits by outcome. Not by error code, but by what the technician did in the end: replaced a part, changed a parameter, instructed the operator, found nothing. The last two categories are the avoidable share in raw form. A sample of 200 reports is usually enough.
2. Count hotline requests by type. For four weeks, assign every request to a row of the table in section 3. The result shows how large the rows “information question” and “known error code” really are - and how often the answer was missing at the hotline even though it existed in the company.
3. Define the remote resolution rate as a KPI. Share of fault reports closed without a visit - with a clear rule on whether a later visit for the same case cancels the remote success. The KPI belongs next to the first-time fix rate, not inside it.
4. Put a triage rule in front of dispatch. No visit without documented pre-clarification: which message, which serial number, which steps were tried on the phone, which source was checked. This one rule produces most of the effect - and the data to prove the rest.

7. Economics: a model calculation, not a projection

There is no current, dated primary source for the full cost of a service visit; the figures in circulation come from vendor blogs. The calculation therefore works with disclosed assumptions built on two documented figures: labour costs in German manufacturing (Destatis, 2025: 49.50 euros per hour worked) and the drive-time share of 27 percent of a technician’s working day from the Service Council benchmark, which supports the assumption that a visit including travel there and back ties up a working day.

The calculation leaves out what is harder to prove but usually weighs more: downtime at the customer. A case resolved on the phone is done in hours, one waiting for a visit in days. According to a survey by ABB (vendor study), an hour of unplanned downtime costs German industrial companies 147,000 euros on average - a self-reported figure, not a measurement, but the order of magnitude explains why customers are more willing to pay for fast remote diagnostics than for a fast drive.

8. When reducing visits is not worth it - or not first

Honestly calculated, there are four situations in which this topic is not the first priority:

1. Travel is revenue. Anyone who bills for travel and travel time and provides remote support free of charge loses revenue with every avoided visit. Then the pricing model comes first - remote cases as a flat fee, service contract or time budget - and the rate afterwards.
2. Cases do not repeat. With special-purpose machinery whose faults never resemble each other, the share of known error codes is small; here remote diagnostics helps prepare the visit, not avoid it.
3. The hotline is understaffed. Shift left moves work forward. An intake that today only forwards tickets cannot pre-clarify without time, access and tools - then the triage rule becomes the bottleneck instead of the lever.
4. The documentation is not searchable. If instructions exist only on paper or as scans and service reports as free text without serial numbers, no hotline and no system can answer from them. Structuring the material is then the first step - the Machinery Regulation provides the occasion in 2027 anyway.

9. Frequently asked questions

10. Sources

All figures cited in the text with their origin. Studies by vendors with a commercial interest are marked as such. German-language sources are kept as they are the actual evidence.

• Aquant, 2025 Field Service Benchmark Report (January 2025; vendor study, 157 service organisations): avoidable dispatch rate, information questions, service request funnel. 2026 edition (19 February 2026, 161 organisations): one in five cases resolvable remotely. 2024 edition: consequences of a failed first visit.
• Fraunhofer IPK, Support potential of automation technology in technical customer service (December 2013; 24 of 107 surveyed VDMA/VDW members, April to July 2013; research): fault reports resolvable without travel, remote access, share of fault visits. In German.
• The Service Council, Field Service Benchmark 2017, Early Results (June 2017; 42 organisations, 92 percent North America, self-reported for 2016; member network): issues resolved remotely, drive-time share.
• Field Service Insights / Geotab, The 2025 State of Field Service Report (2025; 100 field service leaders; distributed by a telematics vendor): estimate of the remotely resolvable share.
• kothes with KVD, KVA and SKDV, Insight Report Service 2022 (October 2022; technician survey DACH, n not stated; service provider with associations): additional visits due to missing information. In German.
• Aberdeen Group, Fixing First-Time Fix (March 2013; 156 service organisations; analyst firm, copy hosted by a third party): measures against failed visits.
• VDMA and McKinsey, Competitiveness in a new era - Service (September 2025; association with consultancy): the “digital service expert” archetype. In German.
• BCG, Aftermarket Services Drive Growth for Industrial Manufacturers (18 February 2025; around 100 industrial machinery manufacturers; consultancy): share of connected new machines.
• Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences, Introducing remote augmented reality in mechanical and plant engineering (January 2024; 130 companies, 2022/23, VDMA-supported; research): adoption status, satisfaction, customer resistance. In German.
• DGUV, FBHM-133 Secure remote maintenance of machinery (as of 31 July 2023; statutory accident insurance): remote diagnostics, passive and active remote maintenance. In German.
• Destatis, press release no. 148 of 29 April 2026 (federal statistical office): labour costs per hour worked, manufacturing 2025. In German.
• ABB, Value of Reliability (vendor study, survey): cost per hour of unplanned downtime. In German.
• Legal acts: Machinery Regulation (EU) 2023/1230, consolidated version (Article 3, Article 54, Annex III sections 1.1.9, 1.2.2, 1.6.1); Cyber Resilience Act (EU) 2024/2847 (Annex I Part I point 2(d), Article 14, Article 71). Shift left: Larry Smith, “Shift-Left Testing”, Dr. Dobb’s Journal, September 2001; HDI SupportWorld (30 January 2019) on its transfer to IT support.