The State of Manufacturing

The global economy has faced significant roadblocks in the past two years. The pandemic has forced businesses to change the way they operate, and manufacturing is no exception. To keep up with the demands of a post-Covid, ultra-connected world, companies require fast networks of manufacturers and suppliers to move products to market quickly.

In manufacturing, time is money, and upholding project timelines is crucial to success and customer relations. 

Manufacturers must be more efficient with their operational and customer management processes. Customer relations and satisfaction have become more crucial than ever – from closing the deal to supporting the customer through the manufacturing lifecycle.

Meet Beyonics

No stranger to these compounding obstacles is Beyonics, a precision manufacturer focusing on clients in Healthcare, Automotive, and Technology. Beyonics provides flexible product solutions for worldwide customers in today’s complex supply chain environment. The company also has facilities in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and China.

The Challenge: Serving the Manufacturing Needs of a Global Economy

Even before the pandemic, manufacturers like Beyonics were feeling the pressure of global competition. With a worldwide customer base, Beyonics must meet strict qualifications and timelines to win business. The company operates in a highly competitive industry where businesses are constantly searching for ways to improve the entire manufacturing value chain which include increasing production capacity, reducing material losses, improving customer service and delivery lead times so on.

For precision manufacturing, it is crucial for customers to understand the capabilities, facilities, quality management, and protocols of a manufacturer. Traditionally, these tours were accomplished in person. However, bringing customers on site, especially through the selling process, often involves flying 12+ hours, factory floor disruption, and a web of complicated logistical challenges.

The pandemic compounded these challenges. Unable to provide on-site tours, Beyonics turned to virtual visits using standard videoconferencing products like Zoom and  Teams. However, these tools were designed for faces, not spaces. Since standard videoconferencing is inherently far less interactive and immersive than being on-site, the experience fell far short of the in-person tour. Beyonics needed to find a full-angle video interactive system to provide potential customers with a high-quality online presentation of their facility. 

Solution: Leveraging 360-Degree Remote Collaboration to Close Deals

Enter 360-degree facility tours powered by Avatour: an entirely new way to conduct immersive, high-quality site visits. 360-degree remote collaboration is designed from the ground up to share the context of a real-world space. The platform leverages real-time 360-degree video capture to provide remote viewers with a complete, interactive experience, in which they can control their own perspective and explore in every direction. This unique technology comes with built-in collaboration features that make meeting onsite more convenient and intuitive, including recording, snapshots, synchronized video playback, annotation, and more. And the Avatour platform can work in the field, with the ability to connect to 5G/LTE networks in addition to WiFi.

360-degree remote collaboration is a viable sales tool that helps manufacturers bring people onsite without the disruption, cost, or logistical challenges associated with normal in-person visits. 360-degree visits can be leveraged both during the sales process as well as throughout the customer lifecycle as a way to monitor quality and progress.

Implementation:

Implementing this new capability proved to be very straightforward. 

The Avatour team provided a complete hardware kit. This included a 360-degree camera, Bluetooth audio gear, batteries and portable mounting hardware. Critical to the Beyonics team was the Avatour works on LTE/5G networks in Malaysia. This feature ensured use even with limited WiFi coverage.  Through a short training and connection testing meeting, users can comfortably operate the system to start an online site tour. The Beyonics team conducted their first customer meeting only days after receiving the hardware.

Beyonics has been impressed with the quality of virtual site visits. In fact, even customers have said the experience was “better than being there in person.” The ability to provide “transparency on demand” increased the level of trust and confidence with both new and existing customers.

 Results:

Avatour provides the ability to host high-quality, interactive site meetings in 360-degree review environments. Now, manufacturing leaders like Beyonics are not only using remote collaboration to shorten the sales cycle and strengthen customer relationships. They are also extending this hybrid approach across all categories of on-site interaction, including inspections, quality assurance, and method transfer. With this new technology, the challenge posed by the pandemic has led to a long-term improvement in effectiveness and efficiency.

Meet Avatour

Avatour is helping businesses redefine their operations by reducing distance as a barrier to collaboration. Our 360-degree remote collaboration platform allows users to join virtual tours, trainings, and inspections via web browser or VR device.

Using off-the-shelf 360-degree hardware, collaborators, employees, stakeholders and more can meet face-to-face. Wherever they are in the world they can gain a complete understanding of a given physical environment.

To learn more about what our platform can offer your business, click here to book a demo.