The Users’ Day of Innosoft GmbH from Dortmund has a solid place in the agendas of service managers from the field of mechanical and plant engineering and related industries. The reason for this is that innovative service solutions are presented here from a practical point of view. Delegates from companies describe how they design their service in practice and what tools they use to do so. One trend can be identified: It is moving away from locally installed software and towards web-based solutions that are always available. Innosoft has developed its portfolio in this direction in recent years.
Pascal Striebig has been working with Innosoft since 2001, the Dortmund company’s applications are rolled out worldwide at Romaco Pharmatechnik GmbH. The Customer Management from Innosoft is used, and the Ticket System determines the process flow. The Resource Planning module is also used. A total of 60 employees at Romaco work with software from Innosoft, including the Document Manager, the Mobile Field Service module and the Phone Centre add-on. “Our challenge was that due to the international structure we had to face high costs for service calls. Our data comes from many different sources. We had to solve this challenge,” explained Pascal Striebig. What he appreciates about the Innosoft modules is that they can be adapted individually.
Among other things, this also helps with a new project: in order to support customers in solving problems, Romaco has been using Head Mounted Display applications, i.e. special data glasses for around five years. “Since the market couldn’t offer suitable hardware, we developed our own glasses.” They weigh 80 grams and enable an audio and video connection with the in-house service staff. The customer machines are networked and set up their own WLAN. The data glasses connect to the server via this. “Innosoft comes into play when a machine triggers an alarm or an alarm button is pressed. Then an Innosoft ticket appears with all the data needed: What is the machine’s status, when was the last maintenance and much more.” His vision is: “We want to provide our hotline staff with all the information they need so that they can help perfectly. This is what we mean by smart hotliners. And that’s what we do with Innosoft.”
Customer portal for inspection reports
Boris Amann from Pfeifer Seil- & Hebetechnik GmbH presented a customer portal for inspection reports as part of the Service Management System. “Our service consists of work equipment testing, installation of rope systems such as fall protection systems, repairs to products, maintenance, the rental business and the spare parts service. The Innosoft solution is used to schedule 85 technicians and 55 vehicles in Europe”. The goal: The service technicians should be utilized at maximum availability. “It’s all about sensible route planning and keeping setup costs low.” In addition, the Pfeifer service centers should keep the cycle time low.
The trick to scheduling the service technicians is that although the work equipment tests are required by law, there is no longer a fixed cycle. The technicians can therefore be deployed more flexibly. This is how the inspection service works: The master data comes from Innosoft, the inspection date maintenance is stored in the customer master database. The monthly planning of due inspections is based on this. From the offer to the order, all steps are carried out via the Innosoft module Sales Management and resubmission. The data is sent from the central database to the Mobile Field Service. “With this optimized planning, we achieve an optimal capacity utilization as well as a reduction of setup costs,” said Boris Amann.
Via the Mobile Field Service module, technicians receive a data package and record all relevant data for the inspection in paperless form: machines with unique numbers, inspection date, spare parts, hours worked and photos. The machine history can be viewed by every service technician at every testing station. Certificates and test reports are available as PDF, excel sheet or on paper in list form – depending on the customer’s requirements. “New is that customers also have a connection to the server. This means that work equipment management can be carried out digitally, with products being managed and newly recorded.”
Digital Forms worldwide
ESAB Welding & Cutting GmbH has been using Innosoft since 2003. “We started with the Resource Planning, later we added Report Generator and GeoMap. Since 2015, we have been working with Innosoft throughout Europe and the USA – and increasingly on the web,” said Christoph Krebs of ESAB. “We switched to Innosoft because we were looking for a solution to the problem that every technician worked with countless forms and had to fill out various forms by hand; the customer service accounting, for example, or the time recording and travel report.” As a result, all back-office data had to be checked and entered manually. “Today everything is recorded in Innosoft, quotations can be generated directly from the application. We work with a process that is the same in all countries. The web module accelerates the processes: KPI reports, for example, are created with three clicks.”
Planning all sites worldwide
The aim of Christian Huster of Coperion GmbH was to be able to plan, coordinate and visualize all the company’s sites worldwide with the Innosoft modules Resource Planning and Mobile Field Service. Since then, there have been globally standardized time sheets across the group. “The central Innosoft installation enables us to plan consistently and to determine the day and night expenses. The release workflow is paperless and automated, manual transmission is no longer necessary thanks to the interfaces”.
A further advantage: Expenses are automatically calculated depending on the country; mandatory fields facilitate the entry. The payroll can be quickly checked and approved. Paper records are scanned or photographed, originals are then no longer required. Another exciting feature: Incidents on the construction site can be entered so that a risk assessment can be formulated using the evaluation. “At present, 13 locations are working with the Resource Planning, all 200 technicians are displayed and can be viewed. With SAP, Mapics and GSS, three interfaces are operated, which simplifies communication and workflow,” said Christian Huster.
Digital workflow
The digital workflow is also one of the main positive effects of using Innosoft in service management at Schuler Pressen GmbH. “Customers receive their information in digital form, and internally we have more transparency when changing orders and logging changes,” explained Roman Denys of Schuler Pressen. “We wanted to make our processes paperless, and thanks to Innosoft we have achieved this”. Since 2005, the company has been working with the module Resource Planning, now in the web version. “The switch to the Web has advantages in an international context as well,” he said. Also in use at Schuler: GeoMap Web and Statistik Web, “a very important tool, for example for capacity planning.
In addition to the practical presentations, the organizers had allowed time to present new developments in the Innosoft module landscape. Lukas Offerhaus announced that Innosoft solutions will continue to develop in the direction of web and mobile. The topic of artificial intelligence will also play an increasingly important role here – Innosoft presented a cooperation with Service Mate GmbH. The User Day ended with a contribution by Marco Husmann from FIR e. V. at the RWTH Aachen University, who explained the application possibilities of DIN SPEC 77007 “Lean Services” in more detail. He pointed out that the DIN SPEC contains a description of the Lean Services principles as well as a comprehensive collection of methods and is available free of charge from Beuth Verlag.