Case Study: Industrial Machinery

The aftersales business has already established itself as a growing segment in machine engineering. In the service field, the leading manufacturers are already generating up to 50 per-cent of their turnover with product accompanying services. More and more importance is being placed on services which ensure the optimized use of the product, from the point of view of the machine operator. Barkawi Management Consultants have optimized and further developed the service portfolio for a leading manufacturer of automation solutions for the electronics industry. The focus here was on the engineering of services that maximize the availability of the machines and, at the same time, also minimize the resources required for maintenance. The solution lay in the expansion of the remote service portfolio. Remote services enable the manufacturer to monitor the machines remotely. This remote monitoring system enables the early recognition of product errors and thus minimizes the machine downtimes. At the same time, technicians are able to access the machines online in order to diagnose errors and to install software updates.

In the event that a machine fault cannot be eliminated by the technical support service, experts are able to run a cause and error diagnosis and arrange for the on-site elimination of the problem. In the first stage, the experts give the machine users instructions on how to solve the problem. This method of helping the user to help themselves now successfully solves approximately 50 percent of the problems, thus avoiding the need for expensive on-site technician visits. Should further steps be required, the technical support service is able pass on the results of the diagnosis to the technicians before sending them to the customer. This effectively accelerates the problem solving process on-site and avoids further steps. The expansion of the remote service portfolio has allowed the manufacturer to increase the attractiveness of their entire range of products. The rapid problem solving brings about shorter machine standstill times and leads to greater productivity for the machine operator. In an ideal situation, potential errors can be recognized before they happen, thus effectively preventing the machines from ever coming to a standstill.