PETpla.net Insider 12 / 2018

MOULD MAKING PET planet Insider Vol. 19 No. 12/18 www.petpla.net 34 Moldintec has developed an app for their PET customers Keep up with your customer needs The manufacturing 4.0 is changing the rules of the industry. From the CAD systems integrating platforms for moulds configuration according to customer requirements, CNC controls connected, robots, and ERPs. The PET blow moulds manufacturer Moldintec has developed an exclusive mobile app for their customers. The R&D+I team is not just work- ing on petaloid bases, laser advanced decoration or mould cooling. Taylor- made in-house software and plug- ins programming push the company to step forward into IoT. The app presents online updated 24/7 info of every running moulds project to put customer needs ahead of the game. Every day the market moves for- ward at an ever-increasing pace. The new generation of young engineers are arising who were born with the internet at home and the internet of things (IoT) as part of their everyday lifes. This blow moulds manufacturer company got the message coming from the market: keep abreast of customer needs moving to the smart factory concept: respond quickly to customer feedback and market trends with specialised solutions. Today searches are made by voice; mobile devices are the standard as well wearable. Information was always king, but today the way that informa- tion flows is more important than any tangible that a company can deliver to the market, states the company. “Moldintec has evolved in many ways during its 20 years of business. Founded in 1998 the company started up with a fax machine in the office, now mobile phones are a thing of the past here, instead pop-up alerts show incoming messages. Our customers expect us to respond at google speed!” says D.I. Jorge Pucci, Moldintec CCO. Moldintec asked itself how to keep a moulds manufacturing business growing in a market where intangibles are more valuable than tangibles? Is bottle design or mould engineering enough for the future of the business? After internal meetings about how to keep the customer service and innovation as the company focus for the next coming years, the answer comes from the young programmers putting the customer’s project at their fingertips, on a mobile screen, online 24/7. The bottle and mould technology are fields where the company leads thanks to a strong R&D budget, so the software point of view will change the rules and the way that company and customer are connected. The development of an app inside the walls of an industrial company was challenging. Without previous experience, the obvious solution was to hire a mobile software company to get the app for a price, but that’s not in the company DNA so the manage- ment took the long route programming it internally to keep the knowledge in the company. Creating an agile supply chain through IoT With a focus on personalised cus- tomer service as a key to the success of the business model, Moldintec App puts the customer at the centre of the company’s operation. Streamlining the commercial, engineering and manu- facturing process give the company the capability to discover actionable insight in real time with an end-to-end point of view that softens the impact of issues and gets products to market faster. Both sides of the supply chain now are connected due to an app which not only demonstrates Mould- intec’s inner process, but customer related milestones (purchasing, finan- cial, technical, international trade, etc) are also integrated as part of the moulds manufacturing to keep the company’s competitive edge. “What we’re talking about is deliv- ering a degree of visibility and col- laboration unseen before in the blow mould industry. We were working to