Pandemic triggers remote diagnostics tipping point
The adoption of ‘all-things remote’ has been amplified during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially the widespread use of remote assistance technologies.
Agility has been the name of the game during these unprecedented times. In the last 12 months, Sumitomo (SHI) Demag’s UK technical team – many also working remotely – resolved close to 400 individual issues and assisted 35 different moulding customers to maintain business continuity via our encrypted cellular 4G activeConnect tool.
Ahead of the pandemic pivot
As UK and Ireland moulders did their best to press through the COVID-19 crisis, Sumitomo (SHI) Demag customers benefited from our decision to implement and retrofit activeConnect on nearly half of all machines in the UK and Ireland which are capable of supporting this technology. Throughout this unpredictable trading environment, remote diagnostics has been a golden ticket to maintain operational efficiency and save money, while adhering to health and safety requirements and ensuring machine assets are safeguarded.
Cybersecure, activeConnect helps to ensure the customer is in full control of their machine assets. Rather than being an ‘always on technology’, connection to the service management system is only established when the customer grants access.
90% first time fix
For example, identifying a loose sensor remotely to resolve an automatic tiebar pulling issue saved a full day in lost production time. Equating to a saving of at least ￡650 in service costs alone compared to a site visit in addition to lost production costs. Instead, as the customer operated the machine we remotely observed and spotted a sensor on the moving tie bar platen wasn’t reading. It had simply come loose. With a quick adjustment they removed the tiebar, changed the tool and were back in production within hours.
Another critical feature of remote diagnostics is expediating the identification and ordering of defective parts. By identifying the defective part using activeConnect, our support team can order the part, arrange delivery, and schedule an engineer to attend site when the part is scheduled to arrive. The result; significantly less downtime for customers and consequently an increase on OEE. This has increased our first time fix rates to more than 90 percent.
Director at Sumitomo (SHI) Demag UK Ltd.
3 年Sumitomo (SHI) Demag