Valmetal is the largest North America farm equipment manufacturer in both production volume and variety! Valmetal specializes in the designing and the manufacturing of equipment to mechanize and automate most processes for the preparation and distribution of food to farm animals. Valmetal offers two product categories: farm equipment and automated systems.

Challenge

The dealer network of the Valmetal Group is worldwide. Thus, it is impossible to have on-site technical support in each of the countries for troubleshooting and maintenance. The company was looking for a solution to access their systems remotely to connect to the PLCs, HMIs and VFDs of their system. Valmetal was also looking for a way to give their customers access to the HMI from their phones or tablets. Yet they did not want to give them access to the PLC. Additionally, Valmetal was looking for a way to bring their equipment into the modern era and provide a marketing differentiation from their competitors. In the past, Valmetal used Team Viewer which means the customer must provide a PC and a router on site. The Valmetal support team had to configure the client’s PC and router. This configuration has the risk of causing problems on the client’s existing network. This was very complicated, expensive and often frustrating for customers and Valmetal support teams.

Solution

In close cooperation with the engineers at Tosibox, Valmetal integrated the TOSIBOX® Lock into the control cabinet of their system. The customer only has to connect an Ethernet cable with Internet access in the TOSIBOX® Lock to have access remotely. The client does not have to modify any of its existing Ethernet networks to give Valmetal support teams direct access to their new system. With the TOSIBOX® solution, Valmetal has built their own maintenance and IoT infrastructure right into their systems without impacting the customer’s network. With the TOSIBOX® Mobile Client application, Valmetal can have secure and easy access to their machines from everywhere. Valmetal service technicians are also able to connect to any customer with the application from anywhere. This facilitates and improves the customer support and the startup of machines. With the TOSIBOX® Mobile Client, rebranded as the Valmetal mobile app for iOS and Android, Valmetal has the flexibility to allow their customers to see the systems they need to see, on the devices they want to use, while limiting access to other more technically sensitive areas. The Mobile Client application icon was changed to reflect the Valmetal brand. By indicating the company brand in the app icon, the customers know to contact Valmetal first. This lets Valmetal be first-hand involved in customer support and inquiries go to the right channel. The TOSIBOX® Lock is now integrated into all systems that Valmetal builds.

Benefits

  • Easy configuration of the TOSIBOX® Lock and facilitates installation

  • Improved technical service for Valmetal customers

  • Allows access to the system at any time and from anywhere easily

  • Improved Valmetal brand with a modern approach to post-sales support

  • Provides modern cyber security for Valmetal machines and customers

  • Cost-effective solution that saves money every time a remote maintenance action takes place

”TOSIBOX is a dream-come-true for our automation and service teams. We tried all other cloud-based remote access systems and none of them offered the flexibility, security and ease of use as TOSIBOX. With TOSIBOX, we have taken the steps to provide customers modern interaction with their machinery and our marketing and sales teams a differentiator that matters.”

Alexandre Beland, Control & Design Engineer, Valmetal