AWS Partner Network (APN) Blog
Enhance Automotive After-Sales service experience using Generative AI powered Tech Mahindra iXRT Solution
By Prahlad Sarnad, Global CoE Lead – XR practice, Digital Engineering Service – Tech Mahindra
By Surajit Dasgupta, Competency Head Industry Cloud, Digital Engineering Service – Tech Mahindra
By Amit Kumar, Sr. Partner Solutions Architect – AWS
By Ansley Verzosa, Partner Solutions Architect – AWS
By Shonil Kulkarni, Sr. Manager – AWS
 |
| Tech Mahindra |
 |
Automotive Industry is continuously developing and vehicle are becoming increasingly complex and software-driven. Customer experience is one of the key factors which is driving the automotive industry to strengthen and revolutionize their end-to-end operating model to remain competitive and sustain their business. Customers are increasingly expecting automakers and dealers to provide seamless, tailored and flexible digital experiences, spanning across the entire vehicle lifecycle from presales phase to post sales phase.
Prioritizing a seamless post-sales customer experience is crucial for automakers and dealerships to establish a robust connection with customers, fostering loyalty and satisfaction. Service and maintenance are key focus areas for these businesses to boost the overall customer experience. To meet these evolving demands, automotive companies and dealerships are embracing digital transformation and adopting new technologies. Creating an immersive experience that leverages Augmented Reality (AR) and Generative AI has proved to be a powerful combination, poised to revolutionize the approach to vehicle service and maintenance. This digital-first strategy enables automakers and dealerships to provide their customers with a modern, efficient, and personalized after sales experience.
In this blog, we will learn about Tech Mahindra’s Intelligent Extended Reality Tracing (iXRT) Augmented Reality solution powered by Generative AI on AWS. It provides real-time guidance and interactive circuit schematics, enabling quicker and more accurate vehicle diagnostics and troubleshooting. It helps simplify complex vehicle circuit schematics with augmented reality technology and leverages Generative AI to integrate the knowledge base, Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), and manuals for diagnostic and troubleshooting assistance.
Industry Challenges
Let’s review some key challenges observed in the industry as outlined below:
- Vehicle Complexity: Modern vehicles are becoming increasingly sophisticated with advanced electronics and systems. This complexity makes it harder for technicians to accurately diagnose problems and perform repairs.
- Training Costs: Providing comprehensive training for technicians on multiple vehicle models and various troubleshooting scenarios is a significant financial burden for service centers.
- Skill Gap: There’s a notable disparity in technical skills among service technicians. Only a small percentage possess in-depth knowledge across all vehicle systems, creating a workforce imbalance.
- Tool Integration Issues: The tools currently used by technicians often don’t work well with existing systems and data sources, leading to inefficiencies and potential errors.
- Remote Troubleshooting Limitations: There’s a lack of affordable digital tools that allow technicians to diagnose and troubleshoot vehicles remotely, which could save time and resources.
- Underutilized Knowledge Resources: Service centers struggle to effectively use available resources such as knowledge bases, standard operating procedures, and vehicle manuals for efficient troubleshooting.
These challenges collectively impact the efficiency, accuracy, and cost-effectiveness of vehicle service and maintenance operations.
Solution overview
Tech Mahindra iXRT Augmented Reality (AR) solution streamlines complex circuits designs by offering real-time guidance and interactive schematics to enable rapid and precise diagnostics. Embracing the digital era, this solution empowers dealers to repair vehicle remotely. This field-tested solution, driven by Industry AR technology and Generative AI on AWS, simplifies complex vehicle system by providing real-time guidance and interactive schematics to diagnose, troubleshoot and repair.
This solution addresses two main use cases:
- Vehicle diagnosis, troubleshooting, and repair
- Training of dealer technicians
This AR-powered solution delivers real-time system visualization and diagnostics, facilitating multi-user engagement with voice chat to create a virtual engineering workspace for seamless collaboration. It incorporates virtual knowledge assistance, leveraging Generative AI on AWS and a cognitive search engine powered by Amazon Bedrock and Amazon Kendra, allowing users to access interactive schematic visuals that enhance system visibility and knowledge. Diagnostic data is securely stored and shared using Amazon S3, ensuring data integrity and accessibility.
The following image provides a glimpse into the user interface (UI) of Tech Mahindra’s iXRT Augmented Reality (AR) solution.
Figure 1: Tech Mahindra iXRT Augmented Reality (AR) UI
This solution consists for three major components:
- Client Application: AR feature is developed using Unity and Vuforia which resides on dealers’ handheld devices.
- Web-based augmented reality application: The solution leverages serverless, AWS cloud-native services to provide dealer technicians with a web-based augmented reality platform. It follows a serverless design pattern, where the web layer utilizes Amazon CloudFront, Amazon API Gateway, Amazon Cognito, and Amazon S3. The business logic layer is built using AWS Lambda, with multiple business logic components implemented as separate Lambda functions. The database layer consists of Amazon DynamoDB, which securely stores all the relevant data.
- Generative AI Capability: The solution leverages the deep search capabilities of Amazon Kendra combined with the knowledge of the Foundation Model accessible through Amazon Bedrock to provide precise and context-aware answers to service technician queries. Amazon Kendra indexes and processes the documents stored in Amazon S3, and when a user queries, the contextual data from Amazon Kendra is directed to the foundation model to generate a response.
Figure 2: Tech Mahindra iXRT Augmented Reality (AR) Architecture
The solution utilized the following services:
- Amazon CloudFront – A Content Delivery Network (CDN) which securely delivers content with low latency, including 3D and 2D diagrams, to the iXRT application.
- Amazon Route 53: Provides a reliable and cost-effective Domain Name System.
- AWS WAF: A web application firewall that helps protect web applications from attacks by allowing to configure rules that allow, block, or monitor (count) web requests based on defined conditions.
- Amazon Cognito – A Cognito user pool is deployed to secure the API calls in API Gateway.
- Amazon API Gateway – A fully managed service, acts as a trigger point for a Lambda function, serving as the front door for the application to access data.
- Amazon S3 – An S3 bucket is utilized for storing graphical diagrams and PDFs to facilitate the visualization of wires and connectors for a vehicle in both 3D and 2D views. Additionally, it stores vehicle data in the form of SOPs, Manuals, and Troubleshooting guides for querying and troubleshooting purposes, which is used for Amazon Kendra query search.
- AWS Lambda – Lambda functions are deployed to execute the business logic.
- Amazon DynamoDB – DynamoDB database is used to store the chassis, parts, and connector data for a vehicle.
- Amazon Kendra and Amazon Bedrock are leveraged to power the chatbot functionality, enabling technicians to search for relevant information and receive assistance for troubleshooting vehicle issues.
The solution combines AR technology, customizability, seamless integration, AI-driven efficiency, global support, and an intuitive user experience, offering an unparalleled solution for the automotive customers. Tech Mahindra employs an industry-specific cloud strategy to deliver customized and scalable solutions that cater to the unique needs of customers. The solution seamlessly integrates with a knowledge base driven by artificial intelligence (AI) technology, offering faster and more precise diagnostic capabilities that boost technician efficiency.
Customer Benefits
- Enables faster repairs, resulting in minimized vehicle downtime and reduced inconvenience for customers.
- With a 40% reduction in errors, enhancing accuracy and leading to a more precise and reliable repairs.
- Real-time remote support facilitates quicker issue resolution, providing timely assistance when needed.
- Accelerates diagnostics and repairs by 30%, boosting efficiency and saving valuable time to minimize vehicle downtime.
- The easy-to-understand visuals cater to all skill levels, simplifying the learning process for users.
The solution optimizes efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and peace of mind for customers during vehicle diagnostics and repair processes.
Conclusion
Tech Mahindra’s iXRT solution offers the immersive capabilities of augmented reality combined with the intelligence of Generative AI, making vehicle diagnostic, troubleshooting, and repair more efficient, accurate, and cost-effective. It helps technicians visualize complex wiring diagrams and component layouts in real-time, overlaid on the actual vehicle. The Generative AI can analyze diagnostic data, identify potential issues, and provide step-by-step guidance tailored to the specific vehicle and problem at hand.
By adopting this solution, automakers, and dealers can enhance their digital customer experience, providing best-in-class aftersales service to their customers and building a strong brand-owner relationship.
.
Tech Mahindra — AWS Partner Spotlight
Tech Mahindra is an AWS Premier Tier Services Partner, MSP and AWS Competency Partner that specializes in digital transformation, consulting, and business re-engineering solutions.