Whether for motifs on bottles and glasses, automotive interiors, or wash cycle symbols on washing machines—Marabu has the perfect ink for all kinds of materials. The company offers its customers the full works: from advice on the right inks to on-site assistance should an industrial printing machine malfunction. In order to ensure these services remain as resource-efficient as possible in the future, Marabu harnesses mixed reality technology. Combining HoloLens 2 with Dynamics 365 allows the company to cut CO2 as well as travel time and expenses.
The challenge: Notably reducing travel time and frequency
There are few places as colorful as the town of Tamm in Baden-Württemberg. For over a hundred years, it has been the home of Marabu, a globally leading manufacturer of screen, digital, and pad printing inks. In that time, the family-owned business has built up a huge amount of expertise—not only in inks, but also in printing machines themselves. Besides supplying its customers—often major industrial companies from all over the world—with printing inks, Marabu also offers them an impressive maintenance service for third-party printing machines. “We’ve been CO2 neutral since July 2021,” explains Stefan Würtemberger, Vice President Information Technology at Marabu GmbH & Co. KG. “In addition to maintaining this status, we also want to continue improving our CO2 efficiency.”
With this in mind, Marabu set out in search of new ways to achieve sustainable savings—and found just what it was looking for. All around the world, repairs, maintenance, and product development had always involved a fair amount of time and expense, and an awful lot of travel. “In the past, when a customer’s machine broke down, we would pick up the phone and arrange a service visit. The experts would then drive or fly over to the customer. This resulted in a lot of time spent traveling and a machine that was sitting idle until the experts arrived.” Similar processes were noted in the area of product development: Marabu manufactured its inks and sent them to the printing company, which would run a test print and then send it back for review. Marabu thus needed to find the most effective way of reducing travel and minimizing shipments back and forth. It didn’t take long to come up with the answer: HoloLens 2.
The solution: Flexible, mobile services and training with HoloLens 2 from anywhere in the world
“Today, 60 percent of our processes already run in the cloud on Microsoft Azure and almost all of the products we use are from Microsoft. So the decision to implement HoloLens 2 to reduce our business travel was an obvious move,” Würtemberger says. “In addition, HoloLens 2 is the best mixed reality product currently on the market that meets our requirements.”
What began with a proof of concept has since developed into the use of twelve HoloLens 2 devices together with Dynamics 365 Remote Assist and Dynamics 365 Field Service in Germany, China, the US, Brazil, France, and Scandinavia. With the help of Dynamics 365 Guides, Marabu has held internal training sessions with technicians who are based in other countries, enabling global collaboration on 3D models. “From that point on, everything just took off,” Würtemberger says with a smile. “Our colleagues took HoloLens and got to work.” As soon as customers receive and put on a HoloLens device, Marabu’s technicians can help them quickly and easily via Remote Assist. The holographic computer is easy to use, meaning even on-site issues can be resolved quickly. By reclaiming their travel time, Marabu’s experts are able to look after a much higher number of customers over the course of a day instead of being on the road. “All our technicians need today is an internet connection,” Würtemberger says.
“Integrating Dynamics 365 Field Service into HoloLens 2 expands our customer service options,” Würtemberger says. Technicians can find information on all of a customer’s assets right away through an interface to the CRM system, including operating instructions for the respective printer, details of the corresponding components and replacement parts, and videos and images created during training sessions or repair work. This information is already being used to put together appropriate offers and link HoloLens 2 appointments. The technicians’ calendars are automatically updated, showing when they have an appointment with which customer and what HoloLens to use. Service reports are also prepared during the call and therefore take less time to reach the customer. As things stand, this is still done manually, but preparations are underway to automate the process using Power Automate.
A lot has also happened in the area of product development since the introduction of HoloLens 2. Rather than sending test prints back and forth, Marabu now simply checks them through HoloLens. “So we can tell immediately whether a color corresponds to the reference color spectrum instead of having to wait for the test print to come back,” Würtemberger says. This is made possible thanks to integrated colorimeters in the glasses that have a maximum color deviation of three percent. Printing errors and air pockets can also be identified straight away in the high-resolution images. Going forward, it should also be possible to evaluate these images using artificial intelligence (AI). Calculating color formulas with AI and verifying them using HoloLens 2 is also in the pipeline.
In the future, HoloLens 2 is also to be made available to customers as part of a package that includes Remote Assist, Guides, Field Service, and a certain number of technician hours. “This gives customers guaranteed resources and service times,” Würtemberger says. “It also opens up a continuous dialogue, improving the way we advise customers and plan capacity. By the end of 2022, we want to see as many customers as possible working with this package.” Not only would this reduce the time it takes for Marabu’s customers to receive technical assistance, it would also bring the company one step closer to its goal of achieving sustainability through digitalization.
“HoloLens 2 has enabled us to combine various technology components and really shape the future of our company.”
Stefan Würtemberger, Vice President Information Technology, Marabu GmbH & Co. KG
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