Mark Hessinger VP Services, Global Customer Services, 3D Systems
Best-in-class service offerings for capital equipment need to focus on maximizing the value of your investment, and ensuring productivity and uptime. Connecting assets in an Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) platform allows service organizations to constantly measure the pulse of the equipment and notice any irregularities. This enables a proactive approach to supporting customers where potential problems can be addressed before they become issues that impact production.
With the pace of change across industries these types of service offerings are becoming the norm for high-end manufacturing companies. 3D Systems is aligning its service structure, processes and tools to support manufacturing environments and deliver a high level of service. One of the tools we are leveraging to enable this is PTC ThingWorx. Using PTC ThingWorx as the backbone, we are introducing 3D Connect, a platform that will enable remote diagnostics and fleet monitoring capabilities in the 3D production environment. This is a proven toolset for IIoT that allows us to securely receive system information from 3D printers in the field.
This platform allows us to deliver 3D Connect Service, which provides a secure connection to our service teams, enabling proactive and preventative support, the ability to instantly run diagnostics, solve problems remotely, pre-order parts, and schedule on-site services as required.
The same IIoT technology is being leveraged to support our customers’ Industry 4.0 needs. Our fleet monitoring solution, known as 3D Connect Manage, will provide operational information from printers such as analytics on uptime, usage, build status, material levels, performance and more can be shared inside smart factories.
IIoT capabilities are part of our ongoing effort to put actionable information in the hands of the correct technical experts to keep our customers up and running. This creates organizational efficiencies by providing relevant and required information to make informed decisions and take action as needed
In driving any service solution we look at leveraging existing technology and building strong partnerships with companies like PTC. This helps focus our time developing the best additive manufacturing solutions and services for our customers.
Please visit us at https://www.3dsystems.com/software/3d-connect for more information on 3D Connect.