Applications of TANDBERG Video Conferencing in the Manufacturing and Energy Industries Part II
TANDBERG video conferencing equipment.
And last is this maintenance and service if you are servicing something. And this is one of the least thought about applications for video conferencing, but actually has one of the biggest ROIs. This idea of scaling expertise; so you have experts somewhere that can see a problem, video conferencing can bring that problem to that experts instead of flying them around the world. Some organizations are running pilots right now using video approval for part replacements. In the service and maintenance area business, there is a tremendous amount of waste to replacing parts that don’t need to be replaced. So the principal manufacturer wants to prove these. Video makes it very easy to do that.
Design for serviceability reviews are big improvement. So design engineers can actually sit at their desk but they can actually see their product in that application somewhere else in the world and see if the design and serviceability of that piece of equipment really helps these technicians that are on site. And then the other idea, we will take a look at with Lexmark society of telework initiatives that improves service level agreement performances. So, if there is a large capital equipment that goes down, video can be used to actually get that equipment up and running much more quickly and then meet their service level agreement performances.
So in the case of Boeing, I worked with Boeing for a couple years now both in the 737 project and now in the 787 project. The 787 project, this aircraft is actually built in 13 different countries and integrated in Seattle. At any one time they have at least nine countries on video participating in the build process in Seattle. (Inaudible) can’t be a key supplier to Boeing without being on that video network. The reason is they want to resolve problems instantly when they come up and they want the supplier to already have a context for where the problem has developed and what the issues are that’s creating.
Lexmark is another example. In this (inaudible) occasion you can see a quote from the Director of Manufacturing and Engineering where they can resolve problems now in about an hour that used to take them close to two weeks to solve. In the case in Lexmark, they have a new manufacturing line in China, engineers in Kentucky and there is a constant support needed for a production line in China.
When I first started working with Lexmark, they had no telework initiative because obviously this time zone changes between China and Kentucky that the engineers are actually sitting at home watching the ball game, PC is right next to them, they know they are on call for the next three hours. If there is a problem in China, the video call comes right to the PC and they can see it, the issues that’s going on in China, resolve those and then it moves on to the next engineer that’s on call. So Lexmark now has a telework initiative for engineers to work from home.
So you can see the video is really changing how these organizations run their business now.
So in a summary, if this represents a typical manufacturer in the center with the suppliers and support departments around the periphery, it’s very common for companies to get involved in video with typical room systems as you all know, and then move to some desktop systems for some executive staff or finance groups. But then once an infrastructure is in, it becomes very easy for them to extend that video network into the manufacturing floor.
Interns are very commonly used on the factory floor. We actually sell more Interns on factory floors than we do in hospitals now. The Tactical is used in outside environments, ruggedized environments. For instance some companies, process companies are using that for pipeline maintenance. Then it extends to FieldView, it’s a highly portable device, it’s very often used in service and maintenance, also in supply chain management and then video might extend to more individuals in the corporation. And when that happens, the number of ad hoc calls go up significantly and then the power of video actually becomes much more significant with ROIs increasing as the number of units deployed increase.
So this is a ad that I thought I would end with that talks about troubleshooting and supply chain, which process would you like; Process 1, which of course, flying out to the problem site and resolving the issue and then flying back or Process 2. So you can see there is a tremendous amount of waste eliminated in Process 2. The common products that are used in these applications again are the Intern and FieldView together.
The emphasis here is that this is collaboration often over objects, it’s not so much person to person although obviously there’s two individuals at the end of the call. But the real object of focus is what are the technical issue is that they are resolving. So they are going to want to look at that issue and see it in context to what has created that problem.
So I wanted to give you that quick overview. If you have any questions, please give me a call. Again, my background, I have managed manufacturing plants for 25 years. I know what these pain points are that your customers might be dealing with. So I wanted to give you that quick overview. Thank you very much.
