Matthews Intelligent Identification has realised early-adopter benefits in its digital transformation programme this year as it accelerates the advanced stages of its multi-year strategy even as the pandemic took hold across Australia.
The company this week revealed a suite of digital upgrades to its customer-centric Care 24x7 programmes designed to enhance both technical onsite and remote service capabilities for its extensive customer base nationally.
Since the business began its digital transformation programme in 2018 it has reported a 40 per cent increase in contact from customers via mobile devices through their various digital platforms. Matthews predicts that this trend of “support where I need it, how I need it” to continue to accelerate post-pandemic and is targeting its technology investment to support its customers future real time, often mobile and online needs.
Enhanced first-time fix rates and speed are two major benefits that Matthews’ Care 24x7 service offers local manufacturers.
Andy Hecke, Matthews Intelligent Identification’s technical operations manager, also sees one more very large benefit across the three elements comprising Care 24x7.
“Over the journey, the ability for Matthews’ staff to apply the technical knowledge we collectively have in helping customers optimise their production lines is perhaps the largest impact of all these capabilities in our Care 24x7 remote packages,” Hecke said.
“This is what makes Aussie businesses more effective in the national and global changing landscape and underpins the focus we have of keeping our customer lines running effectively and efficiently 24/7.”
Hecke outlined three initiatives to Care 24x7 programmes that have accelerated Matthews ability to deliver a superior level of remote service and support 24x7 in the industry: its iDSnet cloud platform, Printernet and Albert the Intelligent Assistant, the brands new live chat platform.
“Our new live chat platform is all about providing choices and new capabilities for our customers to interact with Matthews for both customer service and tech support. In most cases, the reduced waiting time for information also enables quicker decision-making during time-sensitive situations, because as every manufacturing business knows: time is money and unplanned line stoppage is pressure,” Hecke said.
“The live chat platform also has a chatbot that we’ve named Albert – a neat reference to Albert Einstein and Matthews’ tagline of ‘intelligent identification’. The live chat instantly connects customers with our local team and the intelligent assistant Albert means they can ask questions and after final testing is completed in the near future even book technical services 24x7. Together, these give our customers further ways to contact Matthews for help, depending on what suits them at the time.”
While Matthew’s iDSnet package code management platform will be a familiar brand, its new cloud upgraded offering will be news to many.
Under the tagline “Industry & Cloud, Connected”, this new iteration of the popular application is not only moving its customers online, but also significantly deepening the level of functionality on offer.
According to Matthews’ CEO Mark Dingley, the platform’s strategic importance to the business has only increased in recent times.
“In a world where online is the new normal, IoT and data embedded functionality will become core components of our coding and labelling software. As an example, working with Woolworths & GS1 Australia last year, we launched our online SSCC label generator tool which has since been used to produce thousands of labels for many companies new to SSCC pallet labels nationally, free of charge,” Dingley said.
“It is a testament to our Aussie-made software platform that we were able to pivot into this online space quickly and support Australian business’s as they continue to trade and be compliant with pallet labels through the supply chain. Just visit our website to start using the free tool.
“This is just the start of some exciting new iDSnet tools and developments that have been in the works that will underpin the iDSnet roadmap we have planned for our cloud software moving forwards. These aim to not only reduce coding and labelling errors on production lines but dramatically improve traceability and proof of provenance of our customers products through the supply chain, whether they are bound for domestic or overseas markets.”
Back on the technical side, Hecke said the third element in Matthews’ Care 24x7 offering is Printernet. A Cloud-enabled technology that allows remote interaction & diagnostic monitoring with a range of coding devices.
“With Printernet, we can remotely access a device to check and monitor its condition and vital signs when powered and connected. Back in the office, or these days from home, Matthews’ technical support team can then remotely interact with a customer’s machine to optimise printer performance related to set up, assisting operators remotely with troubleshooting as well as viewing historical logged data for further analytics and support functions,” Hecke said.
“Our customers who invest in this capability will enjoy a heightened performance of their Care 24x7 experience. The important point also being it is 100 per cent locally supported 24x7 by Matthews. We are not reliant on 3rd parties or overseas suppliers or support networks to provide the necessary remote support which we believe typically leads to delays in responsiveness to manufacturers. Providing local and inhouse support 24x7 to our customers is something Matthews will not compromise on.
“The capability of having performance trend-data to analysis also allows us to be able to review equipment to best optimise it, resulting in reduced downtime, better performance economy, extended components and overall operating life of the asset for our customers.”
Hecke said as well as staff being able to apply their collective technical knowledge to bolster customers’ businesses, another major benefit of Matthews’ Australian-based Care 24x7 offering was on the Matthews’ staff themselves.
“Operationally, being able to reduce the time needed to resolve each job not only impacts the technicians, but the entire team. Less site visits frees up scheduling traffic and allows better average on-site, response-lead time. The effect on staff is that they are happier – reducing or even eliminating backlogs and their associated impacts, means staff can move through and assist more customers in the same time frames,” Hecke said.
“All in all, the way we’ve structured our Care 24x7 program to maximise the benefits of both digital and face to face, to provide a higher level of support to our customers through quicker response rates and times and decreases unplanned downtime for production, while for staff, it means they can do their jobs more effectively, help more customers and best utilise their knowledge, which is both professionally and personally satisfying.”
