Especially in times of corona and staff shortages, remote service is increasingly used.
Remote Service enables the machine manufacturer to diagnose, maintain and also repair the machine remotely. Parameters are reset, settings changed or new software versions transferred. This generates very short response times and ensures the availability of machines and systems. Especially in times of corona and personnel bottlenecks, this technology is increasingly used. IT security plays an important role here. Malware could be introduced or important production data could be siphoned off. Machine downtimes and production losses could be the result.
The virtual exchange of experience “Remote Service” took place on December 15, 2021 and was jointly organized by ProduktionNRW and the Baden-Württemberg state association in cooperation with the Mittelstand 4.0 Competence Center Stuttgart. The aim of the event was to give companies from the mechanical and plant engineering sector a better understanding of the theoretical aspects of remote service and to present this in a practical way based on experience reports from members.
At the beginning of the event, a live mood picture was generated with the participants via mentimeter on the aforementioned focal topic. This inventory provided an initial insight into whether the topic is being used in practice. Two-thirds of the respondents stated that remote service is currently being used or is at least in the concrete planning stage for implementation. A further question was aimed at the percentage of respondents who said that remote service was a solution to their problems. Here, the results were very evenly balanced and there was disagreement in percentage terms as to the extent to which the queried term actually functions as a problem solution. The third and final introductory question asked whether it was a problem to establish a remote service solution at the customer’s site, and almost 70 percent of respondents answered in the affirmative.
Thomas Riegler, VDMA consultant at VDMA Software and Digitalization, presented the new VDMA paper “Secure Remote Maintenance” in addition to the VDMA offerings in the area of remote service.
Moritz Seger, project manager in Digital Transformation Management at Zahoransky AG, reported on the remote service project ZOLVE. At the beginning, he spoke about the general requirements for establishing a remote solution and compared the customer requirements with his own requirements. To shed more light on the whole topic, he went into detail about the service platform, which is divided into the areas of “portal”, “app” and “service case” – a mobile camera case.
Thomas Riegler, VDMA consultant at VDMA Software and Digitalization, presented the new VDMA paper “Secure Remote Maintenance” in addition to the VDMA offerings in the area of remote service.
Moritz Seger, project manager in Digital Transformation Management at Zahoransky AG, reported on the remote service project ZOLVE. At the beginning, he spoke about the general requirements for establishing a remote solution and compared the customer requirements with his own requirements. To shed more light on the whole topic, he went into detail about the service platform, which is divided into the areas of “portal”, “app” and “service case” – a mobile camera case.
In the final report on the experience, the individual challenges during this project were revealed. For example, a great deal of internal training was required to create acceptance within the workforce, to explain the new requirements, and to dispel fears and uncertainties. On the one hand, the time savings due to the elimination of travel and faster problem solving, including the documentation of all service activities, proved to be opportunities. As a tip, it was pointed out that the companies should not wait for the one 100% solution, but should basically move from planning to implementation in order to make a start at all.
David Ciccioli, digital product manager at Flender GmbH, spoke on the topic of “Flender Remote Expert – the digital, complementary counterpart to conventional field service”. This involves remote support for customers without having to be on site. For this purpose, the service employees use a communication tool that has been optimized especially for this use case and has a much wider range of functions than the conventionally known tools such as MS Teams. With this tool, the experts have sufficient tools at hand to guide customers at the plant through repairs, commissioning, inspections and other activities via video and audio telephony. Ciccioli addressed both the supplier side, i.e. how the expert at Flender works with the tool, and the customer side, i.e. what view the customer has on site during such an operation with his mobile device. Typical questions were clarified, such as “Why was this tool introduced? What is the objective?” or “What are the customer benefits?”
Organizer
OrganizerThe event was jointly organized by ProduktionNRW with the Baden-Württemberg state association in cooperation with the Mittelstand 4.0 competence center in Stuttgart. ProduktionNRW is the competence network of mechanical engineering and production technology in North Rhine-Westphalia and is implemented by VDMA NRW. ProduktionNRW sees itself as a platform for networking, informing and marketing companies, institutions and networks among themselves and along the value chain. Significant parts of the services provided by ProduktionNRW are funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).