The types of companies that employ modern manufacturing equipment run the gamut. There are mom-and-pop shops that made the leap to invest in a new fiber laser cutter to stay competitive. There are mid-sized fabricators that have a handful of lasers, press brakes and maybe even robotic welding systems to keep pace with the stream of incoming orders. There are also large-scale manufacturers that run lights out from multiple locations with advanced automation, pumping out millions of parts each year.
While these facilities might look drastically different, one thing they all have in common is the need for post-sale support for their capital equipment investments. The challenge, however, is that because they each have nuanced needs, they all require different levels of service and support. Pre-packaged support won’t suffice; they need an equipment provider that can accommodate their needs as an individual company.
In business for more than 100 years, TRUMPF gets it. The team there understands that some customers aim for full self-sufficiency, others need a persistent helping hand while the rest fall somewhere in between. Understanding these varying needs, TRUMPF developed a wide variety of training, service and support offerings that can be customized to meet the needs of any company to keep productivity at its highest – which, of course, is the goal of every TRUMPF customer.
Mid-level support
To get an idea of the type of support TRUMPF offers its customers, it might make sense to start with a somewhat typical manufacturer: a small or medium-sized custom fab shop with a mix of automated and manual processes. They have customers that rely on them and can’t accept unplanned downtime. So, they need a cost-effective solution to avoid machine issues altogether or resolve them quickly if they arise.
On average, these customers take advantage of TRUMPF’s Smart Services, the company’s catalog of data-based services. From virtual training and remote service to a service app for quick reporting and access to technical guides, Smart Services empowers customers to keep machine on-time high. Through the app, customers have a lot of options if a situation does arise. They can get step-by-step guidance for how to prevent or recover from machine problems or they can place a service request in seconds.
Also available within Smart Services is TRUMPF’s Condition Monitoring, a proactive machine monitoring service, which goes a long way toward achieving zero downtime.
“The success of our Condition Monitoring services in combination with our service app indicates that a majority of our customers require the support of our data-driven services and in-house experts to support their machine operators and maintenance personnel,” says Christine Benz, director of TruServices at TRUMPF Inc. “These companies see the positive effect of increased machine uptime and optimized machine performance when our data-driven tools, our in-house experts and our customers’ employees work together to build a powerful team.
“In a nutshell, TRUMPF’s Smart Services utilize machine data to increase machine uptime, reduce cost, optimize machine performance and ensure manufacturing continuity,” she adds. “Therefore, data-driven services are no longer a luxury – they are a necessity.”
These customers don’t just stop at Smart Services, though. They put a high value on training their employees and take advantage of TRUMPF’s training center and e-learning offerings. The combination of training, data-driven services and remote support adds up to unmatched efficiency gains.
“Our service app and technical guides enable our customers to work on resolving machine problems almost instantly,” Benz says. “There’s no need to wait for a service engineer to show up, which creates even longer machine downtimes. And, with data-driven diagnostics, customers can identify the machine programs that might be causing higher levels of problems. From there, they can specifically check and improve those programs, resulting in better quality, efficiency and lower cost.”
Ground-level support
Compared to the typical fab shop that relies on a blend of TRUMPF’s support services, there are plenty of customers that strive to be fully self-sufficient. To achieve full self-sufficiency, however, extensive employee training is required.
“These customers like to handle a lot of service issues themselves,” says Jessica Chavez-Gutierrez, training manager at TRUMPF. “It doesn’t matter the size of the company or how many machines they have – it’s more related to their experience and background and how much they are willing to do. These customers like to learn every little thing about their machines and software to maximize their utilization.”
To learn as much as possible, they take advantage of TRUMPF’s customizable training options that include in-person courses, e-learning and blended courses that cater to customers’ differing learning styles and needs. And many of them enroll in TRUMPF’s unlimited learning program, which gives customers year-round access to various courses for a set fee, similar to a gym membership.
“These customers see the possibility of training when they’re exposed to our own employees and technicians,” Chavez-Gutierrez says. “They want to replicate those skills in-house to a certain extent, enabling quicker problem solving and maximizing machine potential. That means they need access to as much learning and information as possible, and that’s why our training center isn’t just a place where we only provide the basics.”
In fact, TRUMPF’s training center is an IACET-certified institution that offers continuing education credits for its courses and helps customers maintain high educational standards. The center offers a huge variety of courses that includes advanced maintenance, advanced applications, sheet metal design and a slew of other courses that go far beyond the basics.
“The customers that want to learn as much as they can are willing to spend the time it takes for training – they’re the ones taking advantage of the unlimited learning program,” Chavez-Gutierrez says. “They also take advantage of our e-learning offerings, which are bite-sized amounts of information that are quick and easy to consume. Think about all of the new equipment options that TRUMPF releases. Because they were released after the initial machine purchase, coming back to take the basic operator training again just to learn that particular part of the process doesn’t make sense.”
And all of these additional training opportunities can be handled at the customer’s own pace. They can also do it remotely. To learn about the e-learnings and courses available, customers can check out TRUMPF’s learning management system, which all customers have access to. Customers can take classes through the unlimited learning package or pair up courses as a bundle or choose to do one-offs a la carte. And, if a course doesn’t exist yet, TRUMPF will work with customers to customize the type of training they need.
In terms of the type of service package these self-sufficient customers might need: They already have so much exposure to their machines and technology that if they actually have a problem, it might be a big problem. So, for them, tools like predictive maintenance and monitoring make a lot of sense.
“Our customers are not in the business of building machines,” Chavez-Gutierrez adds. “As much as they might want to know about equipment, they also have their own business to focus on. So, when it comes to keeping up with the technology, we are happy to be the ones providing them with that information. They have their own products to innovate and their own factories to maintain.”
High-level support
On the other end of the spectrum are the customers that heavily rely on TRUMPF’s extensive portfolio of service and support offerings. These customers are often large-scale manufacturers that have a ton of automation and multiple locations to produce parts around the clock. A lot of them have achieved smart factory status for their facilities, which means they’re data-driven in the way they do business and want to be data-driven in the way they approach machine uptime.
“These customers might require higher level service contracts with 24/7 availability and rapid response around the clock,” Benz explains. “That includes advanced AI-driven predictive analytics to prevent failures, dedicated TRUMPF technicians to guarantee rapid response and remote operation support where we monitor our customers’ machines and remotely resolve minor problems that might have otherwise resulted in hours of lost production time.
Benz goes on to give the example of a manufacturer working hard to meet customer delivery times that sets up an overnight, lights-out run to ship parts the next morning. The next day, it’s discovered that a minor machine problem, a part tip-up perhaps, caused a machine hold. While it only takes a minute to resolve the issue, those hours of valuable production time are already lost and the customer will receive their parts late.
“Frustrating situations such as these can be prevented with remote operation support,” Benz explains. “Our in-house experts use AI-driven analytics to monitor the machine performance, and they are able to dial into the machine, resolve the issue, restart the machine and gain hours of valuable production time.”
And that can all happen while the customer is at home sleeping peacefully knowing their operations are in good hands. Even when the customer is actively on the job, TRUMPF service agreements offer unlimited phone support, condition monitoring, discounted parts, regular preventative maintenance visits and repair visits.
“TRUMPF goes far beyond just providing machine tools to our customers,” Benz concludes. “We are a solution provider that offers advanced technical support and predictive service, which isn’t just about machine maintenance – it’s about ensuring operational efficiency, cost savings and future-proofing our customer’s manufacturing processes. We maximize our customer’s machine uptime and productivity, lower maintenance costs, provide faster troubleshooting tools and expert support, and extend TRUMPF machines lifespan and performance optimization. None of this would be possible without our focus on top-tier technical support and the continuous development of data-driven predictive service tools.”
