Background

Benzinger equipment is synonymous with customized, high-precision turning and milling machines “Made in Germany”. While the roots of the traditional company lie in the jewelry and watchmaking industry – more than 100 years ago, company founder Carl Benzinger began building small machines and equipment for the jewelry companies located around the “gold city” of Pforzheim — the systems are now mainly being used in the industrial sector.

The company’s high-precision machines are used to create small parts in fields such as medical technology, automotive supply, electrical, and fluid equipment. In addition to the production of customer-specific machine tools, customer service has become a competitive factor as the expectations for fast support are high. Remote maintenance via TeamViewer has enabled secure remote maintenance with a click. 

Challenges

In modern production, the demands are much higher than “just” the manufacturing of qualitatively flawless products. Rather, in the age of Industry 4.0, manufacturing companies are under increased, globalized competitive pressure.

• Legacy machines are not permanently connected to the Internet due to out-of-date legacy systems
• Remote maintenance of these machines is only possible in a cumbersome and time-consuming way
• In the event of a service call, global customers expect immediate support

Solution

Today, Benzinger relies on the newly-developed gateway IBH Link IoT with pre-installed TeamViewer software to remotely maintain legacy machines. It is a compact gateway hooked up directly to a machine. In the context of retrofitting, this offers the possibility of accessing almost all Benzinger plants at any time and from anywhere. Complex modem solutions or the use of a PC on site are a thing of the past.

The gateway does not require a permanent connection to the Internet; instead, the connection is only activated for the duration of the remote maintenance session. Secure remote access is ensured by two mechanisms.

First, the high security standards of the TeamViewer software, with fully encrypted data channels using an RSA Public/Private Key Exchange and 256-bit AES encryption. Every remote maintenance access is also logged in an audit-ready manner.

Second, there is control on the hardware side: to activate a remote maintenance session, a key switch is turned on. It is only then that the remote session can be started. This means that the connection for a remote maintenance session is only established from the inside out; no ports are permanently open. Online access is only possible when the system operator‘s employees actively initiate the remote maintenance session from the inside.