In Part II of our look at TRUMPF Remote Operation Support, we start off discussing the data needs of having one’s U.S.-based TruLaser Center 7030 remotely supported from Germany. We work our way through customer dashboards and alerts, making the system desirable from a customer savings standpoint, what this part of the fabricating world might look like in five years, and more. We thank our TRUMPF interviewees Christine Benz and Maximilian Rolle (above), as well as Catherine Flynn of TRUMPF for putting this meeting together. If you missed Part I, you can read it here: https://fifthwavemfg.com/interview-trumpf-remote-operations-support-part-i/.
Fifth Wave Manufacturing (FWM): I have some inkling of what TRUMPF must have in terms of things like the data capacity. I’d love to go through your data center sometime—I’m sure it’s amazing.
Maximilian Rolle: We already a lot of sensors in our TruLaser Center, so that’s not new. We added the cameras and we added a lot of software which is running on the machine, or we have an edge device in our customer’s factory called Smart Factory Host. This device is responsible for the communication between the TRUMPF cloud and the customer. We are only transmitting the data. There is no unusual or extra data transmitted to TRUMPF.
Christine Benz: The customers who sign up for this remote operations support program get access to a dashboard that gives them useful information. For example, last night we saved X number of production hours through Remote Operation Support. We want to make sure it gives ongoing transparency and clarity for our customers. They can see their return on investment.
FWM: If I bought this service, I would love that kind of information. On another topic, I would imagine that Korbinian Weiss and his team members are somehow involved in the AI component of remote support.
Rolle: Do you know Korbinian?
FWM: Yes, I interviewed him as well (see our interview with Korbinian Weiss: https://fifthwavemfg.com/korbinian-weiss-team-rd-mgr-machine-vision-ai-trumpf/).
Rolle: That’s interesting! Yes, some of his team members are also part of all the camera and vision AI efforts. We have a big team at Trump developing solutions and they <the AI employees> are also developing it.
FWM: The opportunity for TRUMPF right now is astounding. I’m sure you don’t have too many problems recruiting intelligent and manufacturing-oriented college graduates.
Benz: Workforce is also a challenge for us. Even though I think TRUMPF is an extremely attractive employer, it is a challenge.
FWM: I think that manufacturing still has the stigma of molten metal all over the place. People don’t realize that you can walk into some of the fabricating shops now and it looks like an entirely different world than it did even 20 years ago.
Benz: Exactly, I agree.
FWM: The next question is, I could foresee a time where updates and optimizations are flat-fee services, almost like a lease for a car, where you take it in for maintenance and it’s all bundled into your lease. Does TRUMPF see this as an opportunity? Let me rephrase it: it seems like what you’re offering is indeed a monthly billing that goes to the customer, as opposed to a one-time purchase fee.
Benz: Yes.
FWM: The customer can look at the data you share <about the remote activity>, and say, “Well, this is saving me X number of dollars. It is also preventing outages and unplanned downtime.”
Benz: Exactly. With all service agreements or condition monitoring, we give our customers the options whether they want to pay a one-time annual fee, monthly, quarterly, whatever they want to do, and we set up the payment plan according to their needs and and what fits best for them.
FWM: It was genius to use the center located in Germany because there you have the third shift of the US right in your workday. It works out perfectly.
Rolle: It’s the same at TRUMPF; we have the same challenge as our customers. No one wants to work the night shift. Luckily, we can use our global network to provide services on the third shift from another continent. Most of our customers are quite small and don’t have this kind of global network. It’s really nice for them to have this possibility.
FWM: I think two things are true also. One is that the group that you’re rolling out this service to, a subset of TRUMPF clients, has made a large investment in the 7030. Second, because of the first point, it is likely that this shop will be a “blue shop.” <It will have mostly TRUMPF fabricating equipment.> They have bending products and punching products from TRUMPF. It must make a transition to this service much easier, because you already have established a good relationship.
Benz: Yes, absolutely.
FWM: So let’s move the time machine to 2029. What are we seeing in this year with remote operations? I think the level of embedding with the customer is even deeper and maybe wider.
Benz: I would say if we now looked five years ahead, we will have the service available for a wider range of machine tools, not only for the TruLaser 7030, but for a wide range of fully automated TRUMPF machines. That is one direction in which remote operation support development is going. The other one is the “follow the sun” principle: wherever the engineers are awake and are there during their regular working hours, they support the machines that are in a time zone that is operating lights out.
Right now it’s very much focused on the US and Germany, but going forward that will change. Support engineers might be sitting somewhere in Asia and we will definitely utilize our full support network—the global TRUMPF network—to support all customers globally. <To be clear, this service is currently only available in the United States and for the TruLaser Center 7030.>
Rolle: Christine is totally right. There could be some different versions of the remote operation support, which is currently focused on productivity and support of the customers’ operators. And we also thought about how to better support the ramp-up if the system is new. The value proposition for our customer will be slightly different. There will be more versions of this kind of service.
Benz: And at the heart is always what our customers are asking for.
Rolle: Yes.
Benz: Max mentioned this onboarding or ramp-up support for customers with a new machine type. This is something we see, our customers need that additional support during the ramp-up phase and if we can provide that remotely through our experts wherever they sit, then this is what we will provide to them.
FWM: Let’s talk about design engineering for a moment. As we move forward, this service may even change the design of your product, because it will be streamlined to report back into a remote support center. It’s not everyday business now, but it might be, soon. That could cause some design changes in your equipment. I know that’s speculative, but that’s part of what I do for a living.
Benz: Well, I think the way the data-driven services already influence the machine design is this: we are asking ourselves which machine signals we need to give the customer a complete picture of predictive services. That of course feeds back to the design team and they design the various sensors we need to grab these signals and to utilize them, send them back and analyze them.
So this is an area where predictive services, data analytics, and AI already influence how machines are designed. The TruLaser 7030 can be ordered now with complete camera set, so it’s ready for remote operation support. This is also an area where data-driven services dictate the design of the machine.
FWM: I have run out of my questions and I thank you very much for the answers.
Is there anything else you would like to add to what we talked about?
Benz: We are still in the early days of discovering everything data-driven services can do for us, and and how data-driven services can make manufacturing more profitable in North America. I think there is a wide range of possibilities still ahead of us. The key is to act fast and dream big. Think about what could be done, what is possible, and then make sure you stay ahead of the of the crowd.
FWM: Fortune favors the bold.
Benz: Yes, exactly.
Rolle: You can be excited! There will be a lot of new possibilities with this new service and the whole system in our machines, and we have a lot of ideas what we will do next.
FWM: It will be fun to see it all unfold.
Rolle: And you will.
FWM: Thank you all so much for your time, I appreciate the conversation and the access.
More information: https://www.trumpf.com/en_US/products/services/services-machines-systems-and-lasers/smart-services/remote-operation-support/