5 Simple Steps to be Seen as a Smart OEM
Positioning yourself as a Smart OEM is key, that is an undeniable fact, but... How to achieve it?
One of the concerns that most often worries a machinery manufacturer is de-positioning. In an increasingly globalized sector, where a large volume of sales comes from abroad, it is important to show that the line or machine not only complies with the client’s production process, but also serves and fits within their digital transformation project, otherwise it could be an obstacle to its sale. Faced with these challenges, we advise you 5 simple steps to position yourself as a Smart OEM.
1.- Differentiate yourself technologically.
The technological market has advanced enough to opt for very high-performance solutions with very affordable prices. Without a doubt, this is only possible with tools from manufacturers that are flexible, with high connection and interoperability capabilities, visually attractive, with advanced programming and calculation capabilities, easy to develop and, as mentioned, competitively priced.
2.- Adapt to the client.
Hyperconnected factories are the current and future reality. Use tools that allow you to easily integrate your product – whether machine or line – with the client’s different supervision and control systems. This inevitably implies the use of standard industrial communication protocols such as OPC, without ruling out the use of MQTT and REST as well.
The use of a tool that is capable of converting the information from your controllers to said protocol will allow the interoperability of your product regardless of what the client uses as a control platform.
3.- Offer a quick solution to an incident
If there is any type of problem in your product, fixing it quickly is a priority for both the OEM and the client. Therefore, two policies will greatly reduce those times:
- The first is to have remote access to the machine. The number of incidents that can be resolved remotely is very high – studies say that it is close to 30% -. Therefore, guaranteeing secure access that does not put the client at cyber-risk is considered essential.
- As a second option, the use of standard technologies takes on great value at this point. If globally used tools are chosen, it will often be possible to request the services of someone close to the client, without the need to move your own technician.
4.- Anticipate problems and make informed decisions.
Following on from the previous point, having access to the machine’s data has a double advantage. With this, you have the possibility of studying its data. Not only production data, but also performance data. That way you can analyze which components fail the most and under what conditions, for example. All that information and conclusions will be reflected in the following models.
On the other hand, you can also analyze the machine from a business point of view, to give an example, if you know that the machine is operating at 95% of its capacity, perhaps it is time to offer another one since it may be the bottleneck in its production process.
5.- Offer a differential service.
The increase in product functionalities implies having to involve more suppliers, which implies the need to monitor more companies for compliance with deadlines, request changes and replacements, etc. Having good partners is essential to meet the delivery deadlines committed to the client.
On the other hand, technological after-sales services necessarily imply that the team destined to provide that service within the OEM is capable of doing so impeccably. For this, it is necessary that the chosen partner not only meets deadlines with the elements, but also has a training team capable of:
- Make the after-sales team autonomous in resolving incidents, but with a support team available if necessary.
- Make the development and control team capable of carrying out projects quickly and efficiently.
Having reached the end, do you still have doubts about how to implement these steps in a simple way? Would you like to know how we approach them from Logitek? If you would like more information about us or our solutions focused on the OEM sector, do not hesitate to contact us
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