Machine service and maintenance have been a standard in the machine manufacturing industry for years. If you manufacture a substantial amount of machines that are shipped all over the world, you’ll need a remote access solution to keep track of them and to provide high-quality service. It is not unique, however, which is why Water IQ went looking for a partner with whom they could dive into the world of cloud and automation.Water IQ had far-reaching ambitions early on, aiming to stay ahead of the competition. “We strive to provide solutions that can increase a customer’s company value using water, for example by improving the product quality or production efficiency,” Freddy explains.To realize these ambitions, they needed a platform where they could access machine data. “That simply requires a data logging and analysis system.”

After getting started in 2015, Smart Robotics immediately started thinking about remote access. “It is very important to us that we can remotely access all our systems, to see how they’re behaving,” Heico says. Consequently, Smart Robotics aims to get in touch as soon as something goes wrong, way before the customer can reach out to them.At first Smart Robotics considered whether they should develop their own solution, or if it was better to outsource the development and look for an external partner. Their conclusion? Confidence in the ability to set up a highly secure connection turned out to be of utmost importance for Smart Robotics. “Securely collecting the data and getting remote access to our systems,” Heico explains. “In a way that the customer is confident that there won’t be a security breach as a result of an open network.”

TSS initially started looking for a remote access solution. TSS wanted to gain more insight into their systems, which are often situated at remote and hard to reach locations. “We want to learn how exactly our systems behave, to find out if and how we can improve them in the future,” Sébastien explains. The gathering of machine data plays an enormous role in TSS’s drive to continuously improve and optimise their products.TSS came across IXON during the Industrial Ethernet Event. The focus quickly shifted from remote access to data logging. Sébastien explains: “With Cloud Logging we can gather data. We don’t share all data with the customer as some information is only important for us.” TSS gathers machine data which allows them to monitor and analyse their systems. However, it did not help TSS quickly respond to failures and ad-hoc problems.

BMO Automation already used Teamviewer, a remote desktop access solution that allows you to control computer screens remotely. Rick explains why it was time to take remote access a step further: “We noticed that we wanted more insight into our system. To not just look at what’s happening on the screen, but also in the robot, in the security systems and in any safety control systems.” This would give BMO the opportunity to not just solve problems for their customers, but to help them with many other questions.The search for a remote access solution started when BMO asked themselves how they could speed up their ability to help customers with questions, issues and innovations. “That eventually led to the realization that VPN remote support would be the best solution,” says Rick.