This was certainly the case for Sanovo – a major producer of egg processing machinery. 

Before Covid-19, the firm’s service technicians would travel – often more than 200 days annually – to clients’ locations to repair machines on-site. But this was made nearly impossible when international travel became heavily restricted.

The challenge: overcoming travel restrictions

With the ongoing pandemic, Sanovo was forced to adapt to offering its products and services under these new conditions. Their international clients were still in full operation, maintaining a high demand for the firm’s products and services.  

The pandemic, and its subsequent travel restrictions, made it challenging for Sanovo to provide their customers with the correct support and accurate machine reparations without being physically present.

Sanovo was looking for a quick solution that would overcome this challenge, but also take into consideration the demand for service speed, training speed, and advanced technological capabilities (i.e. ideally a solution that would incorporate the firm’s machinery). 

There was also a requirement for easy integration with the Microsoft HoloLens and for it to be accessible for everyone to use – no matter their technical skill.

The solution: maintenance and repairs through remote support 

The remote support solution, offered by SynergyXR, successfully overcame Sanovo’s challenge by delivering an easy-to-use platform that enabled their technicians to repair, and offer support, completely virtually. 

For instance, the client’s plant technician (located anywhere in the world) simply places their HoloLens on, and the support technician, located in Denmark, can assist and support remotely, through their computer. 

The support technicians, in Denmark, are able to share 3D content such as instruction diagrams, manuals, and other documentation to help facilitate reparation. The physical actions are executed by the plant technician on location. 

The plant technician can manipulate this content with their hands and follow instructions in real-time, while the support technician digitally “looks over their shoulder”. 

Accessibility is a key strength, as the support technician can easily join the platform using their PC or HoloLens. 

SynergyXR’s turnkey solution made remote support quick and simple. They offered a plug & play solution that was straightforward and easy to implement

Olaf B. Poulsen | Vice President at Sanovo 

Introduction to staff was radical but manageable. A hands-on approach was used to introduce the solution to the Sanovo team, and SynergyXR offered flexibility in regards to changing the platform’s requirements and designing the desired content (for instance, Sanovos products in 3D).

Most importantly, this solution offered significant alleviation to the firm’s major pain point, namely reducing the expensive and time-consuming process of finding and implementing a remote support setup that was further accelerated by the pandemic.

The result: offering global support from one base

From two days to just a few hours. That’s how quickly this new solution lets Sanovo repair machines remotely. What was previously a laborious affair that required grueling international travel, often to remote areas, can now be remedied from Denmark in just a few hours. 

The successful solution has the potential to profoundly reduce Sanovo’s time and costs spent on traveling to onsite locations, as well as improving productivity. The idea of being able to support a global fleet of machinery from a single base is now becoming a reality. And the reduced travel, says Olaf, “has the added benefit of helping us reduce our carbon footprint”, a goal that the company was already working towards. 

Not only has the platform optimized remote support, there’s also potential for using it across other areas, such as training, sales, and customer support, to make them more efficient and streamlined. From a sales perspective, the solution has given Sanovo the tools to import real objects (such as a 3D rendering of machinery) into the platform, along with 3D content including videos, and images to support any situation

We are most impressed with the speed of SynergyXR. Even large files are quickly inserted to the platform from the cloud

Jonas Grøftehauge| Automation Service Engineer at Sanovo