Higher benefit with multimedia online assistance

hotset is ex­pand­ing its tem­per­a­ture con­trol sys­tem with in­no­v­a­tive Smart­glass applications
Ger­many-based hotset has ex­pand­ed its Z‑System for par­tial-cycli­cal tem­per­a­ture con­trol of in­jec­tion molds to in­clude on­line sup­port based on in­tel­li­gent da­ta glass­es of the Smart­glass gen­er­a­tion. With this mul­ti­me­dia ser­vice of­fer from the world of aug­ment­ed re­al­i­ty, hotset tech­ni­cians have many new op­por­tu­ni­ties with which they can op­ti­mal­ly guide their cus­tomers in plas­tics pro­cess­ing and tool­mak­ing through the com­mis­sion­ing and ap­pli­ca­tion of the Z‑System.

Whether OEM or sup­pli­er, in­jec­tion mold­er or tool­mak­er – more and more plas­tics proces­sors who aim to achieve high sur­face qual­i­ties and fil­i­gree struc­tures in the pro­duc­tion of mold­ed parts and as­sem­blies are now us­ing the Z‑System from hotset. This pre­ci­sion-con­trolled tem­per­ing process avoids vis­i­ble weld lines and un­sight­ly dull spots, mak­ing it pos­si­ble to achieve min­i­mum wall thick­ness­es in a process-safe man­ner. It fea­tures a very flex­i­ble de­sign and is con­fig­ured to cus­tomer spec­i­fi­ca­tions so that it can be in­te­grat­ed in­to the in­jec­tion mold com­pact­ly and with lit­tle ef­fort – sim­i­lar to a hot run­ner struc­ture. To fur­ther sim­pli­fy and ac­cel­er­ate prac­ti­cal ap­pli­ca­tion, hotset has now added yet an­oth­er op­er­a­tional mod­ule to the Z‑System: On­line sup­port based on mul­ti­me­dia da­ta glass­es. Thanks to this dig­i­tal ser­vice com­po­nent from the field of aug­ment­ed or mixed re­al­i­ty, com­pa­nies are now able to re­lieve the in­stal­la­tion and com­mis­sion­ing process­es of the Z‑System, as well as many oth­er tasks re­lat­ed to its op­ti­mal use, from the con­straints of sched­ul­ing bot­tle­necks, trav­el re­stric­tions, traf­fic ob­struc­tions, health re­quire­ments and oth­er im­ped­i­ments. “In re­al time and with­out ac­tu­al­ly hav­ing to be present on site, we can con­nect with our con­tact per­son on the cus­tomer side us­ing the mul­ti­func­tion­al da­ta glass­es and see what they are see­ing on their ma­chine, tool or com­po­nent. Per­fect­ly aligned with the customer’s ques­tions and en­vi­ron­ment, we can then im­me­di­ate­ly trans­mit all the im­por­tant in­for­ma­tion and da­ta rel­e­vant to the sit­u­a­tion — as a voice, text, pho­to, screen­shot or video se­quence,” ex­plains project man­ag­er René Schlöter.

On­line as­sis­tance in­creas­es availability
In many re­spects, hotset’s new on­line as­sis­tance makes a de­ci­sive con­tri­bu­tion to the op­ti­mal op­er­a­tion and 24/7 avail­abil­i­ty of the Z‑System. Be­cause main­te­nance and qual­i­ty as­sur­ance tasks can be car­ried out faster than ever be­fore and with­out the time and ex­pense of trav­el, thanks to the mul­ti­me­dia and com­mu­ni­ca­tion ca­pa­bil­i­ties of the da­ta glass­es. Con­crete ap­pli­ca­tions such as re­mote as­sis­tance via video call­ing, desk­top shar­ing or screen­shots are just as prac­ti­ca­ble as step-by-step in­struc­tions via apps or check­lists. Process and ma­chine da­ta can al­so be re­trieved and documented.
Ini­tial­ly, the project and ser­vice man­agers at hotset have their sights set on sim­pli­fy­ing, speed­ing up and se­cur­ing the com­mis­sion­ing of the Z‑System at the cus­tomers’ sites – es­pe­cial­ly those abroad — with the use of the da­ta glass­es. How­ev­er, René Schlöter can al­ready en­vi­sion more far-reach­ing ap­pli­ca­tions for the new smart­glass­es: “They are high­ly suit­able for train­ing, qual­i­ty con­trol, prod­uct eval­u­a­tion, and even more com­plex projects. This tech­nol­o­gy can al­so be used to pro­vide fast, im­me­di­ate sup­port for acute prob­lems in pro­duc­tion or ser­vices re­lat­ed to oth­er hotset so­lu­tions – such as our D‑System for the im­me­di­ate analy­sis of tech­ni­cal wa­ter cir­cuits. In the fu­ture, we ex­pect this mod­ern form of di­rect com­mu­ni­ca­tion to lead to even more in­ten­sive cus­tomer loy­al­ty and an even clos­er tech­ni­cal ex­change with the users of our Z‑Systems.”

On the path to Ser­vice 4.0
hotset is ex­pand­ing its cur­rent range of ser­vices with the cus­tomer-ori­ent­ed use of mod­ern da­ta glass­es and is ad­vanc­ing in­to the field of dig­i­tal ser­vices in line with Ser­vice 4.0. The Smart­glass vari­ant used for the Z‑System is a durable, light­weight bat­tery-pow­ered head-mount­ed tablet (An­droid 10) that was de­vel­oped for use in in­dus­tri­al en­vi­ron­ments. It can be used on its own or in com­bi­na­tion with hard hats, is drop-re­sis­tant and com­plies with the IP66 pro­tec­tion class. It pro­vides all in­for­ma­tion chan­nels re­quired for the ex­change of da­ta, im­ages, films, texts or spo­ken lan­guage and is equipped with a high-res­o­lu­tion minia­ture cam­era, a mov­able mi­cro dis­play, four mi­cro­phones and a loud­speak­er. Dur­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tion, the wear­er al­ways has both hands free to op­er­ate the ma­chine, per­form in­stal­la­tion work, process the mold or show sam­ple parts, and much more. The user is al­ways in di­rect con­tact with a hotset tech­ni­cian or con­sul­tant via the da­ta glass­es, who is ful­ly in­volved in the in­ci­dent both via vi­su­al and au­dio tech­nol­o­gy. René Schlöter knows from first-hand ex­pe­ri­ence: “Work­ing with our cus­tomers this way cre­ates a shared per­spec­tive, from which a spe­cial form of team spir­it and trust emerges. The rapid and mul­ti-me­dia com­pre­hen­sive sup­ply to the cus­tomer cer­tain­ly plays a de­ci­sive role in this.”