(November 28, 2008) The "eCall" web-based remote service function from Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG has won the Service Management Award 2008 presented by the KVD (German Customer Service Association). At their annual congress in Munich, a clear majority of the roughly 260 association members voted for the Heidelberg service function, which came out top ahead of IBM and Mettler-Toledo. The annual KVD award goes to service-related ideas and products that improve the quality of a specific service area and/or represent a new, trendsetting approach to service.
 
According to Bernhard Steinel, who has global responsibility for Systemservice at Heidelberg, "The award demonstrates that Heidelberg could convince the market with its Systemservice portfolio. In line with the strategy of achieving further growth in service activities, Heidelberg is pushing the development of web-based service tools such as eCall. The company and its customers benefit in equal measure from higher productivity, lower costs, and more efficient structures."
 
The eCall service function, which had been unveiled at Graph Expo in 2007, is a web-based tool that significantly cuts the time required by service staff to rectify a malfunction. The function forms part of the Heidelberg Remote Service portfolio. In case of a malfunction, the machine automatically generates a report that, with the user's approval, goes directly to Heidelberg Service in the form of an error ticket. It previously took around 30 minutes from an error message being received to action being taken. eCall cuts this to less than a minute.  What's more, in up to 70 percent of cases - such as setting, application, or process errors - this data enables the problem to be identified and resolved the very first time the service expert and press operator speak together on the phone.
 
Heidelberg Systemservice can also use this data to send the customer the necessary spare parts and / or determine the measures required, so that the technician arrives at the customer's prepared.
 
Virtually all presses supplied by Heidelberg worldwide now have a Remote Service connection and have thus been able to use eCall for over a year.
 
Further details on the KVD and the Service Management Award are available at www.kvd.de.