The recent health emergency was about to block the most important contract in Solema’s history. But the will to continue despite the current situation has given the energy to find a solution that has become the flagship of our services.
During the recent health emergency, Italian companies reacted in three different ways: those who stood still waiting for this situation to end, those who tried to change it without succeeding and those who tried it, obtaining sometimes unexpected results.
Solema belongs to the third type of company. And below we tell you why.
THE MOST IMPORTANT ORDER ON THE EVE OF THE LOCKDOWN
December 2019 - Solema signed the most important contract of its history: a contract with Shandong Hongije, one of the most relevant companies in China for the production of books.
February 2020 – The machines left from Italy and arrived in China, ready to be installed. In ordinary times we would have sent two of our skilled technicians on site to follow the installation and training. The Covid19 and its lockdown, however, stopped everything.
What to do? The risk of compromising the whole project seemed inevitable. It was necessary to invent shortly a way to continue the work, bypassing all the obstacles arisen and avoid a serious waste of time and money for us and for the customer.
SOLUTIONS IN CONFERENCE CALL
We immediately confronted internally and then – remotely connected with our agent in China Finn Nielsen and our partner on site Müller Martini – we began to think about what to do.
After several exchanges of ideas and careful considerations in conference call, we took the extreme decision to try anyway with a remote installation, a risky operation and that only few months ago would have been unthinkable.
Shortly we managed to prepare a remote installation never tested before with the use of a dedicated software.
«For the first time since I worked in Solema, I had to cope with the difficult task of teaching someone who had never done such a work and was on the other side of the world to install a line of graphicart machines, explaining all the steps one by one » says Fabio Parsani, mechatronic technician of Solema, personally involved in this project.
SOLEMA SERVICE PACK IS SUCCESSFULLY DEVELOPED
The solution of the problem comes in mid-March. This has a name: Solema Service Pack.
A package of services that in this specific case served to achieve the goal of a remote installation, but when integrated with other services acts as a support to Customer Care and it is the only dedicated service on the market that allows to eliminate the expensive emergency repairs of graphicart and paperboard machines.
› we have already talked about the Solema Service Pack in a recent newsletter that you can find at this ➜ link
THE PORTABLE BRIEFCASE AND THE GLASSES ‘OF THE FUTURE’
Composing the Solema Service Pack, there are both a "universal portable briefcase" and a pair of curious "futuristic glasses", combined with our load of passion and willpower.
The first, called Remote Service Tool, is equipped with a webcam with microSD, through which Solema technicians have monitored all the stages of the installation by talking live with colleagues in China.
The second ones are special interactive glasses that make the machines’ monitoring from remote even more powerful: worn by both technicians, they become a precious shared screen: a kind of augmented reality.
«These special glasses, similar to Google Glass, have provided considerable support for remote installation and they will become for sure an increasingly frequent tool for the future, as it allows the person who wears them to work with both hands on the machine. Moreover, thanks to the software installed, you could get simultaneous and reciprocal translation of spoken and written in the main languages» explains Marco Nembrini part of Solema SW development office, who coordinated the technological aspects of the project.
› At this ➜ link you will find a short demo movie about the main features of these interactive glasses of the Solema Service Pack
50 INTENSIVELY LIVED DAYS…
The overall duration of the equipment installation was around 50 days, including Saturdays, from the arrival of the material in China. It was necessary not to leave stone unturned and to make up for the time lost due to the health emergency.
«We managed to create a working mode that could be easy to handle also for the customer. The machines supplied are part of our Packaging Line that consists of ➜ SMART BOX and ➜ PLUTON, a unique solution for the automatic finishing of products that only Solema is able to offer on the market» explains Luca Borella Solema Sales Director.
Since 27th April, the official reopening day after the lockdown, distance training has started, in uncertain conditions and with a reduced preparation, in which everyone involved has had to juggle problems and solutions.
«Our technicians had the opportunity to check how some details of our machines could be improved to avoid the intervention on site of experienced technicians and also allow a local technician, not yet fully trained, to achieve optimal machine adjustments with less effort» adds Luca Parsani CEO of Solema.
During the project, Fabio and Marco, the two technicians who constantly followed the remote installation, had also the idea to make demonstrative videos on machines we were currently testing, simulating the installation and size-change, that has been used as tutorials for the technicians in China so that they could replicate every single movement and gesture on the machines on site.
A BLESSING IN DISGUISE
At the moment, the remotely installed line is working perfectly. The customer is satisfied and we are proud to have made him happy in such a difficult time.
Shandong Hongije confirmed the second batch that is currently traveling from Pedrengo with direction Zibo in China. Our technicians are already preparing for the second part of the installation which, even if it appears more complex because of the number of the machines involved, will benefit from the automatisms assimilated during the first phase.
«The role of the technician on the other side is very important for a successful remote installation. In the first phase, the success has been achieved thanks to the expertise of the local technician. We are sure that also Phase Two of the installation will end with no surprises. We will do our best. As always» says Fabio Parsani.
The experience we have documented is an example of how with will and commitment we have managed to transform an emergency into a business opportunity.
An experiment we will for sure repeat in the future, because it showed us the opportunity not only to have considerable flexibility but also to save resources, time and money, both from our side and for our customer’s.
«Our concern will be to continue to pursue this strategy, even when traveling between countries again will be easily possible, improving more and more tools and energies to be able to offer this service remotely with the help of local technicians educated and trained at a distance. This will allow our specialized technicians when at customer premises to devote more time to the Fine Tuning phase and to the optimization of the machines for the specific production of the customer.» concludes Luca Parsani.
COMPLIMENTS
All of us at Solema would like to thank those who made this delicate operation possible.
A special thanks goes to Mr. Liu Jie, owner of Shandong Hongije, the first Chinese customer that firmly believed in the value of our automated solutions to bring his business to a higher level; to Mr. Finn Nielsen, our Sales Representative in China that has coordinated the project; to Mr. Stephen Liu for his immense commitment to the realization of this concept. Thanks also to Muller Martini, our long-standing partner, who supported us from the beginning and to his technicians, in particular Mr. Li and Mr. Zhang, who contributed to the perfect success of the installation.
Finally, a big thank you to the whole Solema staff that managed to make possible the final success of the operation
For more information about Solema Remote Installation Service, please write to info@solema.it or call +39 035 654111.