System suppliers: Dematic expands lifecycle support services

Dematic, supplier of logistics systems for the factory, warehouse, and distribution center, has expanded the company’s Customer Service infrastructure to increase lifecycle support offerings. With added service capabilities, new locations across North America, and increased staff, Dematic can extend critical support to more warehouse operations, with faster response and increased performance levels. Lifecycle support services are offered to all Dematic users as well as users of other brands of material handling systems.

Dematic has a Customer Service staff of over 350 people at 55 locations across North America. The functional areas of ongoing lifecycle support services include: Technical Support Call Center, Part Support, Field Service, Modernization, and Resident Maintenance Service. The Technical Support Call Center consists of mechanical, controls, or software telephone support that is available 24/7/365. Serving an installed base of over 2,000 user sites in North America, the Technical Support Call Center has a remote fix rate of 98%. Part Support includes a parts website, parts call center, and a parts warehouse stocked with 16,000 SKUs worth $20M strategically located in Memphis, Tennessee, next to a FedEx hub. Field Support performs system audits, scheduled maintenance, and emergency service calls. The Modernization Group upgrades, re-builds, expands, or reconfigures existing material handling systems with new components, controls, and software in order to improve system operational performance. The Resident Maintenance Program offers maintenance support at the customer site using dedicated Dematic technical staff in order to optimize system performance, extend system life, and reduce lifecycle costs.

On Modern’s annual Top 20 Systems Suppliers list, Dematic ranked No. 3 with 2010 total revenue of $1.2 billion.

“It’s all about maintaining an organization with bandwidth in order to assure the highest uptime for our user’s systems with the lowest cost of ownership”. “While the engineering and implementation process for a material handling system usually occurs during a 25-week period, we understand that Dematic must have a responsive infrastructure to support these material handling and warehouse logistics systems for the next 25 years or longer”, said Steve Brandt, Vice President, New Business for Dematic Customer Service. Examples of lifecycle support offerings include system audits, maintenance audits, energy monitoring/management, computer server replacement, software/controls upgrades, and equipment upgrades for conveyors, sorters, ASRS, and AGVS. An example of a new offering includes the Alert Monitoring Service, a technical support capability that monitors your system, alerts you only when there is a significant issue, and notifies you on how to respond to the issue. The Dematic Customer Service operation has a customer satisfaction rating of 4.5 (out of 5.0).