Marchesini enhance their customer service with Moverio smart glasses

Discover how Moverio smart glasses from Epson are helping Marchesini, a world leader in pharmaceutical and cosmetic machinery manufacturing, to improve their service operations using an Epson certified remote assistance solution from Icona based on the Moverio smart glasses platform.

Epson Moverio smart glasses bring added value to service and after-care in the pharmaceutical and cosmetic industry.

The Marchesini Group is a family business based in Pianoro, near Bologna in Italy, and was founded in 1974. It designs and builds complete production lines and standalone machines for packaging pharmaceuticals and cosmetics and creates machines for the whole packaging process. The machines handle products such as vials, syringes, carpules, bottles, creams, powders and blisters, and also use robots which are developed and produced internally.

Generating €400 million in revenue per year, the company is one of the most important global players in the automatic machines market for the pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries.

Design, research & development, sales, after-sales, marketing, accounting, training and quality control are all centralised and coordinated in the Pianoro headquarters.

Within this plant the production lines and machines are customised with specialist parts, feeding units, software and options specifically requested by the customer. A team of project managers assisted by mechanics, electricians and electronic engineers and supervised by Marco Marchesini, the Production Director, analyse the details of the work order, assessing technical aspects and working closely alongside the customer.

In order to guarantee the best possible service to the customer, Marchesini’s technicians are in constant contact with a supervisor at the headquarters. Once the machines are in the hands of the customer, this close dialogue continues, and it is here that the Epson Moverio smart glasses are playing an important role.

‘We are your eyes’

“One of the issues we had before the introduction of the smart glasses was the exchange of information. Very often by sending emails, photographs, videos or even via phone calls, we could not understand what the issue was and we couldn’t indicate to the technician what the correct instructions were”, explains Mirko Ballo, Marchesini’s Customer Care Director.

To overcome this, Marchesini provided smart glasses to European pharmaceutical companies as pilot customers and tested them over a one year period for their remote assistance capability. The optimum solution was found in the pairing of Epson Moverio glasses with ACTY, a dedicated remote assistance software solution developed by Milan based specialists, Icona.

Giorgio Nepa, CEO of Icona says that they chose the Epson glasses due to the reliability of the product, and because they allow them to ‘offer clients remote assistance services through the hands-free option’.

The solution enables an expert at Marchesini HQ to help a field technician in another location to resolve issues via real-time video streaming. The AR capability of the glasses and interactive features of the ACTY software provide a powerful collaborative solution to help Marchesini’s customers reduce the downtime of their machines. In this way, Marchesini say they can, ‘become the eyes of our customers’, or as they put it more literally to them, “We are your eyes”.

Specifically, this can mean:

Reduction of service costs and a productivity boost in the field

Acceleration of technical training and scalability; remote mentoring of new technicians

Improving service quality and improving first-time fix rates

Increasing customer satisfaction by shortening the time to resolution

See, talk and draw

The technical staff at Marchesini describe an array of features that enable the above. An expert can send documents, videos or images to a field technician in another location which he can then see using the glasses, while he works on a machine keeping his hands free, and his field of vision intact.

This can be provided via a PC or a mobile device such as a smartphone or an iOS or Android tablet. It is also possible to draw and annotate remotely on the live image, using directions, arrows, shapes, signals and text. A further feature allows the remote recording of a video of the intervention through the camera of the device, which helps with creating training materials. The ACTY software also offers the option of simultaneous connection of several experts, with all being able to see, talk and draw.

Building staff confidence

Gabriele Lo Cascio, Marchesini’s Service Technical Supervisor says,

“From when we introduced smart glasses and remote assistance, our technicians have the possibility to travel to different places and different customers and feel very confident, because they know that every time they can have the support from our headquarters and from our experts here in Marchesini”.

Building customer service success

In 2019 Marchesini had an ‘Open Factory’ event where they presented the new technology to their customers and they report that all who tried the solution not only gave positive feedback, but asked to be contacted when future sets of smart glasses became available.

With over 85% of the Marchesini Group’s turnover generated by exports, and important markets in Europe, China, the USA and Latin America, it is clear Epson Moverio smart glasses are helping deliver, “The most reliable assistance for the most reliable machines”.

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