COVID-19 has given a boost to the digitalisation of production processes. Christoph Lhota, vice president, ENGEL medical explains how digital service products in particular, such as remote maintenance and online support, are shifting into the focus because they have become key to ensuring productivity and delivery capability, even in the event of future crises.
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Imagine the scene: The image is a little jerky and out of focus. The injection moulded part, a lab-on-a-chip article, has to be held up to the camera, rotated and turned several times so that everyone taking part in the Skype chat, can see clearly the part quality. The participants are spread across three locations: Schwertberg (Austria), the headquarters of injection moulding machine manufacturer ENGEL; at Houten (the Netherlands), the headquarters of ENGEL's Benelux subsidiary; and Tilburg (the Netherlands), where Helvoet Rubber & Plastic Technologies produces high-precision injection moulded parts for medical technology and diagnostics. Together, the experts discuss the freshly moulded parts and the tweaks that the injection moulding machine offers for further optimisation.
"Jeroen, can you zoom in on this point again please?" Jeroen Molenschot is not a cameraman, but development manager at Helvoet, a company for which this – that is, managing process optimisation virtually - is new territory and explains why the camera image is not yet ideal.
Online support
The travel restrictions and contact limitations due to COVID-19 coincided with Helvoet being in the critical phase (where injection moulding tests on the machine and close collaboration with ENGEL were necessary to further proceed) of what was already a time-critical optimisation project. Fortunately, their ENGEL e-mac injection moulding machine, on which they produce diagnostic products, was equipped with e-connect.24 — ENGEL’s solution for remote maintenance and online support. The screen pages of the CC300 control units on the injection moulding machines can be transferred across the internet to computers several thousand kilometres away. As the data are accessed in real time, the current state of the machine can be displayed whenever needed. As a result, the machine operators on the ground and external support staff can see the same settings and production data, and can consult and guide each other. The manufacturing cell can even be controlled remotely when necessary. In this way, Helvoet and ENGEL, were able to implement the optimisation project on schedule and safely meet the go-live date for series production.
For Jeroen Molenschot and his team, this project sets a precedent for future collaboration with his machine supplier. "Without the current pandemic, we would not have agreed to this virtual process. I would have felt it was important for someone from ENGEL’s headquarters to visit us in person in Tilburg," says Molenschot. "As developers, we have to learn to take advantage of these new technologies, which are already available to us. Even if it just means working more effectively and as a result more cost-effectively." The time aspect for solution-oriented implementation and the resulting flexibility in finding a date for a joint online meeting, coupled with reduced travel expenses, caused Helvoet to rethink its stance on this new technology.
Process optimisation
The combined knowledge of the processor, who has a sound understanding of their product, and ENGEL experts, who know every detail of their injection moulding machines, makes it possible to identify and leverage the minutest optimisation potentials. Frequently, it is the view from the outside that opens up new opportunities.
ENGEL performance.boost — the company’s process optimisation service — starts with an in-depth analysis of the current production process by ENGEL specialists. They acquire the process settings and the pertinent efficiency and quality performance indicators to identify the existing optimisation potential. While doing so, they take into account the improvements offered, for example, by the use of smart assistance systems such as iQ weight control or iQ flow control, condition monitoring solutions or other products from ENGEL's inject 4.0 portfolio.
Based on these results, the customer decides which optimisation steps they would like to implement with the support of ENGEL application technology. Users benefit from ENGEL's high level of expertise in systems solutions. The automation solution, the peripheral units and the upstream and downstream processes integrated into the production process can be evaluated in the scope of process analysis and taken into account in the optimisation recommendations.
Data security
A year after the first lockdown, virtual service calls, and even virtual machine acceptance, have become part of everyday life. Using remote service and online support, ENGEL, for example, has been able to provide its customers with continuous support without loss of quality and speed during the pandemic, both for ongoing projects (for example, for process optimisation) and in acute service cases. The huge importance of smart service for production availability, and, therefore, the processor's ability to deliver, has become self-evident; even companies that have not previously worked with these systems are now addressing how they can safeguard their productivity in the event of future crises.
The uptake of digital service solutions is on the up, as the benefits are obvious. Does this trend reflect a strengthened trust in digital solutions? Not necessarily. And that is a good thing. With all virtual solutions, data security must continue to be critically scrutinised. Providers of digital tools do not want anyone to access their systems without controls. Data security is, therefore, top of the agenda when developing service tools. At ENGEL, for example, service technicians can only start remote maintenance once the customer has authorised access for just this one machine. All data connections are encrypted, and once the customer signs off the service request, the remote maintenance link is disconnected.
Establishing trust in the new solutions is important: irrespective of crises, the increasing complexity of the production units and the growing shortage of skilled workers will drive their use.
After-sales is no longer just about getting a machine or production unit back up and running quickly, it’s also about giving processors the assurance that their production will run smoothly throughout.