Keeping expensive manufacturing equipment up and running is mission critical for any manufacturing company. That goes for the B2B companies/OEMs that sell them equipment, and the organizations and teams that provide service to maintain the equipment. Equipment downtime means money lost for everyone, even triggering potential penalty clauses in SLAs (service level agreements) between various parties. 

But it’s prohibitively expensive for manufacturing companies, OEMs, or support/service organizations to keep experts near manufacturing equipment 24/7 in case something breaks down on site or send a truck roll (or two or three) to troubleshoot issues. Just as the uptime of manufacturing equipment must be optimized, so must customer service and support for said equipment. So how can you optimize support for manufacturing equipment?

Truck Rolls as the Last, Highly-Expensive Option

Sending a truck driven by an expert service tech and filled with machine parts for every support request isn’t just expensive at about $1,000 per truck roll, but it may also be impossible due to the lack of support techs and the high number of support requests. What to do? 

When faced with scarce resources and high demand, hospitals typically engage in a resource optimization process called “triage,” whereby they screen patients quickly to assess their reported problems and then allocate limited resources to the most pressing problems. Service organizations need a similar approach to meet demand, so that every support request doesn’t become an expensive truck roll that may not even be necessary.

Optimizing Support: Live Lens to the Rescue

Visual remote guidance tools can be used to prioritize support requests, and help optimize the use of scarce support resources (such as truck rolls). Live visual engagement for manufacturing enabled by Rescue Live Lens empowers your service experts to provide visual remote guidance, literally putting their eyes on the equipment as soon as the support call arrives. A remote support expert can quickly collaborate with the customer onsite to: (1) efficiently diagnose the problem, then (2) walk the on-site person through a fix, or (3) prioritize next steps toward resolution, which could include a truck roll. If and when that truck roll does occur, your support tech has a grasp on the issue and can bring the right tools and parts to make the onsite fix faster.

There’s a huge qualitative difference between having a remote tech on the phone asking questions to the on-site maintenance person versus having instant visual remote guidance via Rescue Live Lens (no downloads necessary) allowing the remote tech to actually see the equipment and thus uncover what’s happening with their own eyes. 

The impact of having live visual engagement for manufacturing is clear: diagnosis of service issues happens faster, repair efforts can happen within minutes via a collaborative process guided by the visual tool, and key support metrics such as first-time resolutions are enhanced. The number of total truck rolls drop, and the fewer truck rolls that do occur are optimized due to better diagnoses of issues, facilitated by visual remote guidance.

An Example: Start Your Engines

Zero Motorcycles, a manufacturer of fully-electric motorcycles, was able to save tens of thousands of dollars in annual support/service costs (and lost productivity) by using Rescue's remote camera sharing technology. This video shows how the visual engagement tool enabled them to increase first-time resolutions and send fewer expert technicians/truck rolls to make onsite repairs throughout the world. A service tech working remotely can resolve issues in Ecuador, Ohio, and Japan all on the same day. Zero Motorcycles didn’t just reduce support costs but also improved overall customer experience.

Bottom line: Remote camera sharing with Rescue Live Lens allows your remote support techs to: 

1. Go onsite instantly with the customer and equipment to offer visual remote guidance to diagnose and fix issues (no downloading of an app is needed).
2. Assuming a truck roll is required, use camera-sharing ahead of time to be sure you're sending the right technician onsite with the right diagnosis and replacement parts to support a faster resolution time. 
3. If the tech you’ve sent onsite is unable to resolve the problem, they can use Rescue Live Lens to receive visual remote guidance from an expert tech remotely to resolve the issue without having to send another truck and technician.

Get eyes on the issue instantly with live visual engagement for manufacturing to support faster resolution and reduced downtime. To learn more, request a demo of Rescue Live Lens.