Bucher Municipal develops an AI chatbot based on Microsoft Azure

Bucher Municipal AG

Bucher Municipal AG is a global leading provider of vehicles and machinery to keep public and private traffic areas clean and safe. Staffed by 2,500 people worldwide, the company delivers solutions for street cleaning, sewer cleaning, winter services and waste disposal. Its extensive portfolio of products is flanked by an array of digital services. As part of Bucher Industries, a Swiss group with an international reach spanning more than 50 locations on five continents, Bucher Municipal operates in markets such as Australia, Scandinavia and Asia. As a leading manufacturer of special-purpose municipal vehicles, Bucher Municipal uses advanced technologies and ground-breaking innovations to constantly improve its operating efficiency and minimize vehicle downtime. Reliability is of critical importance. Vehicles must be ready for service at any time, and maintenance and repair work must be completed quickly.

Option 4.0

Swiss IT consultancy Option 4.0 covers its clients’ entire technology lifecycle. It is accredited as a Microsoft Solution Partner in the fields of Data & AI, Digital & App Innovation, and Infrastructure.

Until recently, one central challenge for Bucher Municipal was to make relevant data available to maintenance teams. Because of the organization’s decentralized structure, this data was often stored at different locations. Getting the right technical documentation and vehicle information for the various vehicle types to where it was needed therefore often involved a huge amount of work. Especially with older models, whose documentation was mostly not available in digital form, time-consuming searches delayed maintenance processes. New recruits and external partners often had a hard time finding the documentation they needed. In addition, vast quantities of data had to be dealt with. Since some maintenance manuals ran to 1,500 pages, looking for specific information took a lot of time even with the support of service centers.

To master these challenges, Bucher Municipal developed an AI chatbot based on Microsoft technologies. “The flexibility of the Microsoft tools, plus the fact they are integrated in our Office infrastructure, were key reasons why we opted to work with Microsoft on this project too,” explains Christian Johansson, CIO at Bucher Municipal. The company has been working with Microsoft technologies such as Microsoft Dynamics and Microsoft Azure for several years, so choosing Microsoft again was the obvious thing to do. The innovative chat app uses AI to make the requisite information available quickly and precisely. It speeds up the search process and supplies exactly the answers needed. “The smart chatbot supports our teams around the globe, shortens maintenance times and improves operating efficiency,” Johansson adds.

Microsoft partner Option 4.0 supplies an innovative solution

The bosses at Bucher Municipal initially saw developing the chatbot as an experiment, as AI technology was still a relatively unknown quantity at their company. Particularly close attention was paid to data security: Only company-internal information was to be used. To make sure that happened, Johansson and his 23-person team worked closely together with Microsoft partner Option 4.0. “Our contact at Option 4.0 was quickly able to allay our initial fears and showed us that, with Microsoft, a global AI-based solution could indeed be implemented cost-efficiently,” Johansson says.

The chat app developed by Option 4.0 is based on Microsoft Azure technologies and gives maintenance teams immediate access to technical information and maintenance manuals. It uses Microsoft Azure OpenAI and Microsoft Azure AI Search to process queries efficiently and supply the relevant documents. Additionally, Microsoft Azure CosmosDB keeps a record of chats and user feedback, while Microsoft Azure AI Search ensures that technical documentation is indexed efficiently to guarantee accurate search results.

The team at Option 4.0 developed the backend in Python, used ReactJS to design a user-friendly frontend and seamlessly integrated the app in the client’s existing systems. “Collaboration with Option 4.0 could not be smoother,” Johansson points out. “Our contact there is far more than a technical service provider. He acts as if he were part of our internal IT team. He completed the project successfully, flexibly and at high speed, giving us an impressive demonstration of the capabilities of AI.”

Multilingual data access makes life so much easier

The chatbot has now been deployed at virtually every location worldwide. It allows information to be used in a variety of languages, including Spanish and Chinese. That makes everyday maintenance work so much easier, especially at international locations and smaller offices. Staff can enter questions – about the tire pressure or service intervals for a given vehicle, for example – in their own language. The information they need is displayed immediately: not just a precise answer, but also a clear reference to the relevant page of the original English document, complete with a detailed drawing.

“Every member of staff who has ever spent half an hour hunting for a particular document appreciates how valuable it is to be able to simply pose a question and get the right information immediately,” Johansson smiles. In the past, service centers were often the first port of call for information, which used up even more precious time. “Thanks to the chatbot, both the laborious searching and the need to subsequently liaise by phone have been done away with. Faster access to information enables us to save huge amounts of time – something our clients are very happy about.”

Service technicians use the chatbot up to 34 times a day; the average figure is seven times per employee per day. Especially in remote regions such as the Australian outback, where machine maintenance is a rare occurrence, the chatbot is tremendously helpful for the maintenance team.

Efficiency every day thanks to direct access to information

The project was circulated internally by means of informal testing and the collection of user feedback: the first step was to make the chatbot available to a selected group of staff and then gather their comments and suggestions. Users were quickly convinced of the value of this smart AI partner. They were particularly pleased that it was so easy to use, and that they now had direct access to information instead of painstaking searches or lengthy phone calls. The chatbot now leaves staff free to devote more of their time to core assignments instead of wasting precious time rummaging around for information.

Service center staff likewise benefit, as problems are remedied more quickly, and processes are optimized. “Feedback from various countries confirms that the support of Microsoft and our Microsoft partner Option 4.0 have helped us implement an intuitive AI tool that genuinely helps our people do their work better, accelerates processes and automates data preparation,” Johansson notes. “This again underscores our role as a pioneer in innovation and cutting-edge technology.”

Future vision: Integration in client portals and new AI functions

For Bucher Municipal, it is already clear that the chatbot is a resounding success. Downtime for older vehicle models in particular has been sharply reduced, which in turn tangibly lowers operating costs. The intuitive user interface elicits positive feedback from the maintenance teams, while faster response times lead to optimal vehicle utilization and smooth-running operations.

Internal processes are not the only area where the chatbot yields benefits, however. Dealers and repair shops around the globe have also been reaping the rewards. The chatbot is especially useful for staff and partners who completed their training a long time ago. “We’re thinking about also making the chatbot available to dealers, sales partners and service partners, which would give them, too, faster and more efficient access to the information they need,” Johansson explains.

Plans have already been drawn up for the next step. Bucher Municipal intends to further develop the AI solution and, for example, integrate it in BucherConnect, the company’s client service portal. “We see massive potential to use the chatbot not only internally, but also for our clients. Realized efficiency gains encouraged us to make this decision,” Johansson stresses. In the long run, the aim is for AI functionality to automate processes and improve collaboration. “The future lies in the intelligent combination of different AI tools to optimize how they accommodate our needs.”