Lodges and dynamic distribution of product information.

Read about how Lodges came to life and why the solution is being used by hundreds of thousands of people in a number of different industries.

The right information exactly when it is needed

Imagine that you are a service technician and the machine you should service gives you all the information you need to do your job. Or that your car lets you know if you have installed the child’s car seat wrong, and shows how you should do it instead. Semcon’s content delivery platform Lodges makes it possible.

It’s for the people we’re doing this - not the products. Lodges can help anyone who’s using a technically complex product to make more use of it, which is what really matters.

Fredrik Larsson, Manager Digital Development Semcon and information specialist within aftermarket

In 2009, having produced Volvo Car’s printed owner manuals for many years, Semcon started, together with Volvo Cars to look into ways of digitalising the content. The aim was to be able to continuously update and reuse information, thereby lowering printing costs and reducing the weight of the cars.

“The first step was a simple app, which was forward-thinking in itself at the time”, Fredric Larsson recalls.

But building a new app for each car model and each production year soon felt unsustainable. There was a need to gather everything in one place. This is when the idea of Lodges was born; a platform for databases with product information, and with APIs so all channels communicating with current or potential users can extract the exact information that is needed at that moment.

Creating product information as user manuals, which many organisations still do, does not fit a digital world. Even if it is available on a website or in an app, such static documents don’t allow for searching for information in a satisfactory way, let alone presenting an answer in a useful manner. The information that is relevant right now simply cannot be filtered out. For example, if you want to know how to clean the filter in your washing machine, only that part of the information is interesting. Internet theorist Clay Shirky says that the problem of our time actually is not ”information overload” but ”filter failure.” And this is where Lodges makes a difference.

As of today, Lodges is helping hundreds of thousands of users across the globe in a number of industries. The platform can be implemented for manufacturers within any industry and is scalable in all dimensions. From a local web to a global infrastructure. With Lodges, product information goes beyond contributing to aftermarket communication by also becoming a tool for improvement and development of new products.

“When the manufacturer and customer exchange information, it is more likely that the customer will stay. Someone who is already owning a product is at the same time a potential new customer. We see that users and manufacturers are communicating more and more with each other – the relationship is kept alive in multiple ways. Fact is, that information is often a part of the product nowadays”, says Fredrik Larsson at Semcon.

Examples of use:

With access to data about issues and location from your vehicle or machine, Lodges can tell what needs to be done to solve the issue.

Knowledge exchange between manufacturer and user can lead to smarter use and customised offerings.

With Augmented Reality, a smartphone camera can show additional layers of information. The user can see hidden parts or cabling within for example closed cylinders.

With a QR code or RFID chip, a service technician can get information about exactly what model a machine is and how it is configured.

By understanding more about how products are being used, one can develop better services and products. With the right information at the right time the products can also be used in smarter ways, which results in longer product life or more energy efficient use. This is why product information has an important role in building a sustainable society.

Fredrik Larsson, Manager Digital Development Semcon and information specialist within aftermarket

Five arguments for Lodges:

Lodges is developed by experts with vast experience in production and consumption of product information. This experience has been used to create an efficient content delivery platform that can manage all types of information (e.g. text, images and animations) and present it in a tailor-made way for each user in each situation.
Lodges is constantly being developed further. New functions and improvements are continuously made available for all customers.
Lodges has forefront features such as a distribution API, incremental updates, feedback possibilities and offline support.
With Lodges you can be up and running in short time – and as the implementation is scalable you can start small and extend on output channels, features, user groups or products over time when the needs arise.
Lodges gets you closer to your users and helps you understand them better. These insights can be used to improve the product information and experience of it but also to improve the products themselves.