German mechanical and plant engineering has always stood for technological excellence and good service offerings. Manufacturers recognized early on that good services form a stable and profitable business pillar and ensure strong customer loyalty. Nothing has changed to this day. However, another aspect has been added:
On this basis, they can further develop their offerings in line with the market and tailored to their needs. The results of current studies are therefore hardly surprising: according to them, up to 65 percent of profits come from the service sector.
The physical product as part of an overall solution
However, the figures also show that business with classic services such as maintenance or spare parts delivery is declining, while demand for new services, e.g. B. remote diagnosis or analysis tools is increasing. These are the result of the newly gained knowledge. The maxim “nothing works without services” has even greater weight today. Because the physical products are only part of a larger whole - of overall solutions that are based on combined offers from different companies or on networked business ecosystems. This gives everyone involved new insights into the (data) connections of their products in use. The interaction creates service offerings that aim to improve the entire ecosystem and thus also become a competitive factor for the user companies themselves.
Image of the entire life cycle
As the data backbone of many companies, ERP systems in particular have to do more in this context. It is their job to map all the processes with which the manufacturing companies provide their services. This includes, above all, the creation of all the necessary structures to be able to collaborate easily and securely with customers, suppliers and partners. This means that an ERP system no longer only has to map the production process of a product – the as-built state – but also the state in the field – the as-operated and maintained state. Or in other words:
Service structures in delimitation to manufacturing structures
How can companies recognize that an ERP system is able to do this? There are extensive documentation options at the top of the checklist. Because only with them can the construction state of a machine, system or a assembly be reliably recorded as an essential part of an overriding system.
In modern ERP systems such as psipenta there is therefore a clear distinction between manufacturing and service structures- another important indicator. Manufacturing structures are geared towards the production of the product. Service structures generally reflect use aspects and also the maintenance aspects of a machine or system (system structure). In this way, a sustainable ERP system can therefore also generate multi-layered service structures and continuously update through maintenance measures. The same applies to conversions or the exchange of aggregates.
Linking order information with machine data
The connection between order information and machine data and thus integrated ERP-MES solutions such as PSIpenta, which can also be expanded with AI-based modules from PSI's own Qualicision technology, offers great potential. By continuously providing companies with the operational data they need and processing it at high speed and either locally or remotely, it forms the foundation for innovative service concepts such as: B. Predictive maintenance. This gives companies an assessment of whether products are being produced to the guaranteed quality or whether machine failures could lead to delivery delays. After all, both aspects – product quality and the reliability of deliveries – are precisely the metrics that customers use to evaluate a business relationship.
Technologically and functionally geared towards service
More than ever, services are considered a decisive competitive criterion in mechanical and plant engineering. In the future, manufacturers will have to consider their machine, system or even an assembly throughout its entire life cycle. A modern ERP MES solution like PSIpenta offers the appropriate foundations for this – technologically and functionally.