Challenges

Every minute of machine downtime can mean an interruption in production and ultimately financial loss for teamtechnik’s clients. Furthermore, significant time and money was spent visiting customers on-site. Therefore, teamtechnik's customer support is constantly on the lookout for ways to keep downtime to a minimum during the maintenance or repair of machines at its globally distributed customers, while reducing travel hours and cost at the same time. In doing so, customer support is consistently looking at how it can digitalize its processes.

Solution

For more than 10 years, teamtechnik has relied on quick diagnosis and troubleshooting via TeamViewer for customer support. TeamViewer’s remote connectivity solution is used when service technicians on site cannot solve a problem with the system themselves. Using TeamViewer, they can get direct help from one or more experts, who connect to the technician’s laptop and work together to troubleshoot the system.

On the other hand, in the case of support, the teamtechnik experts can connect directly to the customer’s computers – even if there is no technician on site – and provide remote support for questions and problems. The integrated security function Conditional Access ensures that only authorised teamtechnik experts have access to the business-critical systems. The complex machines can therefore be put back into operation safely and quickly – a significant time and cost saving for both the customer and teamtechnik.

In order to further promote digitalization and productivity in customer support, teamtechnik has recently started using remote support via TeamViewer’s augmented reality platform Frontline and the associated remote assistance solution Frontline Assist. “If the technician on site at the machine detects a hardware fault, for example, he calls in an expert via Frontline Assist. Via a camera on smart glasses, the expert sees exactly what the technician sees – for example how the system behaves, which fault messages are shown and which LEDs are lit up. Using Frontline Assist, a diagnosis can be made much faster than before and the fault rectified,” says Rüdiger Kilian, Head of Technical Support. The functions integrated in Frontline Assist, such as the display of circuit diagrams or virtual markings directly in the technician’s field of vision, help to make the handling of the complex systems understandable to all involved. All important information about the session is made available via the reporting function, enabling seamless documentation of maintenance and repair.

TeamViewer is also used for testing a new system before assembling it at the customer's site. “Our commissioning engineers use TeamViewer to connect from the office to a new system on our factory floor in order to carry out analyses and install updates during the final set up,” describes Ralf Klein, Vice President Information Management at teamtechnik.

In addition, the internal IT service team uses TeamViewer daily for classic remote maintenance of their employees’ laptops and mobile phones. “What speaks for Tensor here is that we have a uniform management interface. This makes our work easier, as do functions such as integration into the Active Directory or Single-Sign On,” says Ralf Klein. The granular rights and access management feature Conditional Access ensures that connections can only be established by authorised persons.

Results

With TeamViewer Tensor and TeamViewer Frontline, teamtechnik can digitalize various internal and external processes and therefore make them more efficient. In customer support and after-sales service, maintenance and repair work can be carried out faster and with a high level of safety and reliability. Expensive downtime at the customer's premises are therefore reduced to a minimum.

In addition, the highly qualified experts in customer support, who are distributed across various locations worldwide, can use their resources in the best possible way. This is because TeamViewer can save many on-site visits and the associated travel time and costs. The use of TeamViewer's augmented reality platform Frontline will make aftersales service even more efficient in the future. "In addition, we are also showing our customers with this: We are always on the cutting edge, oriented towards future trends," says Rüdiger Kilian.

Internally, TeamViewer enables both IT support and other teams at teamtechnik to complete tasks efficiently from a distance. IT support relies on TeamViewer Tensor for classic remote maintenance in order to standardize device management and benefit from the extended security functions. The teamtechnik commissioning engineers can carry out function tests and inspections of new systems remotely.