Industry 4.0 in practice

Increasing price pressure from new, international competitors, supply chain problems, shorter production times, complex components and systems as well as rising customer expectations are putting increasing pressure on business in the manufacturing industry. Germany's flagship industry is hoping for fresh impetus for growth through digitalization in conjunction with service and support offerings. Experience in the Industry 4.0 environment has shown that a dynamically growing service and support portfolio gives companies a competitive edge.

New opportunities for customers and manufacturers

New modern solutions make it possible to expand the service portfolio around machines, for example in the area of support, through the use of remote maintenance technologies. This enables machine manufacturers to offer their field service technicians and also the customer's technicians immediate expert support and guidance in real time in order to minimize machine downtimes and at the same time create new service-based business models.

Unscheduled machine downtime can lead to high overheads and often even contractual penalties for late completion of projects. OEMs' response times to service requests are often very slow due to the shortage of skilled labor and their operations on a global scale. But thanks to digital technologies such as remote support, the OEM support team can assess and directly resolve software issues by accessing the machine remotely, regardless of location. For hardware issues, remote support via augmented reality (AR) can help, as is the case with one of the leading manufacturers of hydraulic connections from Germany.

Voss Fluid, a subsidiary of the Voss Group from Wipperfürth in North Rhine-Westphalia, is embracing digital transformation with Teamviewer. In order to remain competitive in Germany, the company relies on a high degree of automation and precise control and measuring mechanisms in its machinery. For example, it produces connection components and hose fittings for the agricultural sector and the automotive industry. Johannes Hüttl, Process Engineer, explains how Voss Fluid ensures the high availability of its machines and IT systems: "In production, we use special machines that can completely machine a forged part within a few seconds." In addition, there are control computers and an SPC measuring station for each system, as well as robots for loading and unloading workpieces. "If even one of these components causes problems, the entire process grinds to a halt or comes to a standstill. And that can be expensive."

In the event of problems with the highly automated systems or the connected IT, Teamviewer enables Voss Fluid Support employees to connect to machines and PCs on the factory floor remotely, for example from their own office or home office, via a secure connection. According to Hüttl, this allows errors to be diagnosed down to the lowest hardware level and ideally rectified directly, as long distances and discussion chains for error analysis are no longer necessary. The process engineer can see all connected computers in a customizable folder structure and connect to them without having to know the specific name of the client. This means that critical systems and equipment remain available at all times and the planning reliability of the North Rhine-Westphalian manufacturing company is guaranteed at all times. Voss Fluid logs all connections for better traceability and compliance with the high operational security requirements. "We are productive again more quickly and downtimes have been significantly reduced," says Hüttl.

"The possibilities are essential for survival"

At Voss Fluid, all 35 production machines and their control computers as well as around 100 Windows clients are now equipped with the remote support platform. Just how right and important this decision was was recently demonstrated in full. When Italy had to close its borders at the beginning of 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic and it was no longer possible to enter the country, those responsible realized what advantages this would bring, even in times of crisis: "The possibilities of remote support became almost vital for us as a company due to the coronavirus crisis," says Hüttl. In the event of problems with the technology at the site near Bergamo, the experts can now support their colleagues immediately via augmented reality and guide them through the repair process.Teamviewer's augmented reality application can be started via the same dashboard that is used to manage all other IT processes. It can be used either with data glasses or as an app on a smartphone or tablet. The experts remotely see the same image as the technician on site through the camera of the selected end device and are able to provide contextual support in real time by highlighting and annotating objects in a live video stream. This means that Voss Fluid's specialists have to travel less, which reduces travel costs - as on-site assignments only need to be planned for service cases that cannot be resolved remotely. Hüttl: "We got on board very quickly due to coronavirus and would not have been able to produce at all without the solution in Italy due to the lockdown." Even the introduction of new machines or set-up optimizations were affected overnight.

Bhaskar Mitra, Director - Product Marketing OT, TeamViewer