Mechatronics: teleservice and the development of machinery

The necessity for new service strategies in machine and site applications is evident. Present service strategies have to develop from product-oriented structures to more system-oriented practices. Only a system formed of product and product adapted after-sales-service will significantly increase future competitiveness especially for SMEs acting on the global market. For this reason advanced service techniques and structures will become a substantially higher sales factor amongst the other enterprise divisions. In order to be able to fit this new role, present service areas have to be advanced technologically and revalued structurally. New service strategies imply improvements on several levels. The machine level, the communication level and the service provider level are three of today´s most discussed points in launching new techniques and organizational structures. Regarding the customer´s view the most interesting aspect however will be the machine level. Substantial questions arising from the customer´s point of view result from the effects of new service strategies on machines concerning either technical details, costs, handling, operation, qualification of the human operators etc. In order to answer these questions, the substantial factors of influence from the integration of service aspects into the design and operation of machinery are pointed out and evaluated by the example of remote service. Finally it is shown that consistent integration of service-improving components and feedback of service-data into design and production will achieve a constant and efficient quality assurance cycle