ANDRITZ: Offering next generation service through a cost-saving, mixed reality solution

“It’s been a big game changer. Going from phone calls, e-mails and laptop notes, to collaborating in the cloud in real-time, and now augmented reality – which is undoubtedly going to become more important for us in the future.”

Daniel Hirz, IT Project Manager at the international technology group ANDRITZ, is talking about the rapid digitalization his organization went through in 2019 and how remote assistance and mixed reality technologies helped this engineering and manufacturing giant stay hands-on and connect to technicians on the ground during the 2020/21 COVID-19 restrictions. 

“It all came together in a respectively very short amount of time because we already identified a need for these tools,” he says. “Our product experts travel all over the world to support our customers with their equipment, so the idea to offer almost the same level of support remotely really helped the project gain traction.”

ANDRITZ started exploring the potential of a remote assistance solution in 2019 to help reduce the need for their experts to regularly travel to customer sites. “My role was to start the remote assistance project from the IT side – working out the business demands and scenarios we would encounter such as customer acceptance tests, installations, servicing, maintenance and audits,” Hirz explains. 

“In early 2020, we decided to go with Microsoft and since then we’ve been rolling out this remote assistance service worldwide. By the time the first travel bans came in, we already had the tools and systems in place to effectively keep our operations and projects running – as well as offer customers operational and diagnostics support from anywhere in the world.” 

Collaborating with customers on a global scale

Headquartered in Graz, Austria, ANDRITZ is an international technology group that employs around 27,000 employees across 280 production and sales sites worldwide. With a broad product portfolio of equipment, systems and services, the group focuses on four main business areas – Pulp and Paper, Metals, Hydro and Separation. 

“Our customer base is very diverse,” explains Hirz. “On one end of the scale we work with customers who buy equipment from us, like a pump. Then at the other end, we engineer and manufacture larger solutions like metal automotive presses and machines for entire pulp and paper mills.”

Like any global manufacturer, the success of ANDRITZ GROUP relies on the quality of the equipment and machines it produces. Any problems in efficiency or durability can have a massive effect on a customer’s own manufacturing process and even bring production to a halt – making customer support and collaboration an important factor for ANDRITZ to uphold its impressive brand reputation.

“The IT challenge with a global operation like ANDRITZ is how to best collaborate with our customers,” he says. “Sometimes you might have equipment engineered and designed in Finland, manufactured in Slovakia and delivered to a customer in China. So, our IT team is always looking for new tools to help improve the communication between our business areas, and also for new technologies that can help our experts in the field support customers in the best way when working on site.”

With thousands of employees and customers to connect worldwide, ANDRITZ began a project at the end of 2018 to migrate users to a cloud environment through Microsoft 365. A digitalization that was quickly adopted across the organization – prompting a further look into what else remote-working technologies had to offer.

Providing hands-on support without leaving the office

Before moving to the cloud, ANDRITZ had already been looking into a number of remote assistance options to help meet key business requirements and customer satisfaction.

“In late 2019, we presented two potential software solutions to a key user group as part of a proof of concept,” recalls Hirz. “The immediate feedback for Dynamics 365 Remote Assist was very positive. And with the onboarding and adoption of Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Teams going very well, we made the decision to partner with Microsoft and began implementing this new hardware into our existing landscape.”

By the time COVID-19 hit in 2020, ANDRITZ had the systems it needed in place to reliably keep its manufacturing, installation and commissioning, and servicing processes running efficiently around the world. 

Production sites and customers could collaborate in real time through Microsoft Teams and, if a problem arose, an expert could remotely investigate the issue using Dynamics 365 Remote Assist and even provide hands-on assistance using HoloLens 2.

“Everyone was up and running with Microsoft Teams and Dynamics 365 Remote Assist very quickly, which really helped get around restrictions with the travel bans,” says Hirz. “With factory acceptance tests, for example, customers would normally travel to our sites and inspect the equipment before delivery. Suddenly that was not possible anymore. But instead, we could quickly ship a HoloLens to that manufacturing site and show the customer a 3D model of their equipment – allowing a customer in China to do their inspection in Slovakia without being present on site. 

“Switching to remote has meant all kinds of projects could still keep on track and we could fulfill our contracts, as well as offer real-time customer support whenever it was needed. And with help from Microsoft, we’ve been able to tackle any challenges very quickly without really having a standstill, and keep operations up and running.”

Pushing the capabilities of mixed reality to improve work-life balance

With more than 21,000 employees now successfully onboarded to Microsoft 365, the potential of ANDRITZ’s remote assistance solution has grown far beyond solving travel problems. “The feedback overall from both employees and customers has been very, very positive, and there’s been an openness from users to do more from day one,” explains Hirz.

“Dynamics 365 Remote Assist is now able to link any expert on Microsoft Teams directly to a HoloLens device. So, if someone is in a repair center where the customer shipped back some equipment, and the right product expert is sitting in a different country, they can both examine the same product in real time and figure out the issue together – without multiple emails or meetings across time zones.

“There will always be times when we need experts on site,” he adds. “But reducing our travel needs throughout a product’s lifecycle – from initial customer contract negotiations to ongoing equipment maintenance – is helping ANDRITZ run more sustainably and efficiently. If something unforeseen happens, we can first try and help customers without our experts physically being there, which as an added bonus and helps them create a better work-life balance.”

As part of the group’s long-term strategy to increase revenue, ANDRITZ is now promoting its remote assistance services through its digital solutions technology brand, Metris. Microsoft Teams and Dynamics 365 Remote Assist provide a communications platform to offer customers technical diagnostic support, which paired with a mixed reality offering through Metris, gives customers more ways to interact with their ANDRITZ products.

Hirz explains, “At the moment, Microsoft Teams, Dynamics 365 Remote Assist and HoloLens 2 are tools that help us collaborate and solve problems, branded as a consulting service Metris Remote Assistance.

“We’re at the point where we want customers to reach out to us with more ideas for how they’d like to use Metris Remote Assistance and HoloLens,” he says. “Then we can work out how to offer these new services to more customers on a global level.”

A more sustainable future 

As ANDRITZ now returns to a business model with fewer travel restrictions, the positive feedback for Dynamics 365 Remote Assist and HoloLens 2 is helping these tools become a more everyday part of the organization and contribute to the group's sustainability goals. 

“The backbone of our company will always be the equipment we sell, and that means there will always be personal contact with customers and experts travelling on site,” Hirz says. “But these past two years have shown everyone that technology can help us offer customers that same expertise and services regardless of time or location. 

“Adoption and use cases for Metris Remote Assistance are growing each day,” he says in summary. “In March 2020 we ordered our first HoloLens 2. Now we have 130 across the group that we use for manufacturing audits, service, installation, and so on – shipping the devices to wherever they are needed next.

“This is definitely an exciting journey where we still have plenty of things ahead of us, and I’m looking forward to see what the future brings.”