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Building off its e-connect customer portal, injection molding and automation supplier Engel is adding live video transmission to its online support and remote maintenance offering. Called e-connect.expert, Engel says the service was developed and tested with numerous customers at the height of the pandemic when in-person service calls weren’t possible.

The company says it found that roughly 75% of all urgent service cases can be resolved remotely via the live video service, which was shown to reduce troubleshooting times by 70%. Engel notes that the number of support cases which could be resolved online has grown considerably thanks to e-connect.expert. Ultimately, Engel says faster service increases the availability of production cells, while minimizing downtime and reducing service costs.

In its traditional online support offering, Engel’s service technician has access to the molding machine’s control. With the new web application, e-connect.expert view allows the use of video to provide visual information on the status of the machine’s components and environment.

The application has added features to move beyond a simple video call. For example, the machine operator or maintenance technician on site at the machine and the Engel service technician can draw freely on the video image to highlight difficult-to-see details.

In addition, the e-connect.expert view uses optical character recognition (OCR) to automatically identify the machine components in question and transfer them to the service ticket, reducing the risk of input errors.