With this in mind, prior to the contract being signed off, Verco sought Biesse’s assurance that it would respond swiftly in the event of any equipment issues.
“We wanted to make sure that they could guarantee support on our site when we needed it and remotely when we needed it,” says Peter.
All Hands to the Deck
“Staff were seconded from all areas of the business to work on this project. Everyone engaged with the fact it needed to be done. They were all under full employment at that time which they were pleased about, and employees in the mill were working long hours – 6am to 6pm – and doing lots of overtime,” says Peter.
During this period, several of the Biesse machines were working flat out, including some of the oldest ones.
“Even the big old Protec had its part to play,” recalls Peter. “Some of the panels we were handling were 1800 x 2100mm, so the Protec was ideal for the precise edge saw process. We were able to do some of the shaping and some of the edging on the Rovers and then move onto the Protec for the saw cut, which was a more efficient way of working.”
Rapid Resolution
During this project, Biesse’s remote troubleshooting capabilities played a vital role in keeping downtime to a minimum.
“The benefit of an engineer identifying a problem on a machine remotely and correcting that problem remotely is speed. If issues can be sorted without a site visit that is better for everyone,” says Peter.
The latest machine purchased by Verco incorporates SOPHIA – Biesse’s IoT platform. This gives Biesse a ‘window’ into each installed machine via a continuous connection with the platform. Users can call for assistance via an app and Biesse’s engineers will diagnose and resolve issues remotely.
“SOPHIA makes a big difference in so far as being able to identify where there are problems,” notes Peter.
During the project, any issues that couldn’t be resolved remotely were dealt with efficiently on-site by Biesse’s engineers, according to Peter, who praised Biesse’s response as “positive” and engineer attendance as “on-time and effective.”
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The customer was extremely pleased with our performance, which was a tremendous boost for our workforce who had put their all into what was one of the largest single orders in the history of Verco. Biesse’s support was key in keeping production on track and on time and their engineers should be applauded.
