The corona pandemic presents the metal working industry with a new work reality that companies need to adapt to. Remmert, expert in comprehensive material flow concepts and smart automation and intralogistics solutions has already been using remote services for twenty years to guarantee customers remote services. This allows a targeted approach to challenges in production and the warehouse whilst practising social distancing rules to comply with regulations to contain the pandemic.
In the future, the impacts of the corona pandemic will among other things be seen in how existing processes change under their effect. The current stage of the corona pandemic shows that social distancing in a factory is often difficult to implement, as all parties involved work closely. Meanwhile, the necessary distance can typically be observed at the machines, as machine operators do not interact directly. This changes when an outside service technician is required to work on a machine – which is where we use remote services, which have been offered by Remmert for over 20 years.
Complete support for most service cases
The concept is based on around the clock support for customers worldwide. If necessary, they will be connected directly to one of the four Remmert technicians dedicated to remote services. These can connect to the system at any time for remote access to the machines. Through various service request studies, Remmert has learned that 90 percent of all service cases reported can be resolved via remote services. In about 10 percent of cases, however, direct interaction on site is still recommended
Vast expertise in occupational safety
Even in light of the stricter requirements due to corona, in principle, safety-related measures should not interfere with work. If safety measures aren’t adapted to the workplace, employees may dismiss them. In the worst case, safety devices will even be manipulated to render them ineffective, making the risk of work accidents extremely high.
For common application scenarios Remmert has already developed standard safety concepts, such as access control and safety distances, and coordinated these with the employer's liability insurance association. Modular risk analyses were created for the respective components which can be applied to a specific project for overall risk analysis. The material handling expert further developed safety training which is applied when training the plant staff and which customers receive to train their staff.
“We are effectively using the corona period to further improve our services and products”, so Robert Klameth, After-Sales and Hotline-Service team lead at Remmert. “We can generally assume the automation level, thus the significance of remote services, will further increase worldwide. At the same time, personal contact with experts and training staff as well as consistent software optimisation are important. This is where we are already setting out the strategic and operational basis with our remote services.”
