About Müller Martini AG
Müller Martini AG is a global leader in print finishing solutions and digital printing systems. With approximately 1,500 employees in over 50 countries and extensive expertise in machinery solutions and service processes, the company has established itself as an industry leader. Müller Martini’s machines are known for their durability and quality. However, with an increasingly complex product portfolio and the challenges of demographic change, the company faced a crucial question: How can service be modernized and made more efficient to meet rising customer expectations?
Challenges in Service Operations
Like many machine manufacturers, Müller Martini faces an aging workforce, with experienced service technicians retiring and valuable knowledge being lost. At the same time, machine complexity is increasing, and customers expect faster, around-the-clock solutions. Reto Hofer, Head of the Support Competence Group in Zofingen, explains: “Our service employees need to access and process increasingly complex data quickly to minimize downtime.”
Another challenge at Müller Martini was the decentralized storage of information across various portals and local databases of different country organizations. As a result, service employees spent a significant amount of time searching for relevant data instead of focusing on actual problem-solving. Ideally, first-level support should be able to resolve simple issues directly. However, these employees often lacked the necessary expertise, or existing knowledge was scattered across different systems, notes, and emails, making it difficult to access.
The Solution: InsightLoop by Coresystems
To address these challenges, Müller Martini implemented InsightLoop, an AI-powered solution from Coresystems. InsightLoop extracts knowledge from existing data and utilizes it to provide solutions for service cases, enhancing customer service with an AI-first approach. By connecting disparate data sources, service teams gain quick access to relevant information, significantly improving diagnostics and problem resolution.
Thanks to InsightLoop, service technicians have access to relevant service data in real time at all times.
Müller Martini and Coresystems have been partners since 2014. Their collaboration began with the implementation of a global ERP system and later expanded to include a Field Service Management solution. This long-standing partnership facilitated the integration of InsightLoop, as Coresystems was already familiar with Müller Martini’s system landscape. “The main advantage was that Coresystems knew how to best integrate InsightLoop into our existing processes and applications,” Hofer explains.
InsightLoop was initially tested in a pilot phase to evaluate its benefits, focusing on machine types with high service demand. “We wanted to ensure that the investment provided real value before expanding the system further,” says Hofer. After successful initial tests, InsightLoop was extended to additional machine types, allowing even more service cases to be addressed with AI-driven technology.
InsightLoop enables fast and more efficient maintenance of different machine types.
InsightLoop in Action: Efficient Diagnostics and Knowledge Transfer
One key application of InsightLoop at Müller Martini is precise support for diagnosing service cases within the ticketing system. By analyzing historical service cases and documentation based on metadata such as machine type, symptom descriptions, and error codes, the platform predicts possible causes and defective components. This enables service engineers and technicians to respond faster and more accurately, significantly reducing machine downtime. Ralf Putzke, Technical Support Specialist at Müller Martini, summarizes: “One of the biggest challenges in service is making valuable knowledge accessible to the next generation of technicians. If this knowledge isn’t structured, it gets lost over time. InsightLoop helps us solve this problem by intelligently linking existing service information and providing technicians with relevant answers.”
Another crucial use case of InsightLoop is optimizing knowledge management. The platform enables technicians to access relevant documents from a database of over 4,000 records, including manuals, technical reports, and service protocols, based on metadata. In the future, access to valuable knowledge will be further expanded. By intelligently retrieving information from past similar service cases, technicians no longer need to spend time searching for relevant data. Instead, they receive immediate access to the most relevant documents and solutions. This rapid availability of knowledge accelerates Müller Martini’s service processes and ensures consistent quality in troubleshooting.
Visible Improvements in First-Level Support
Experiences from the rollout in the United States show that the greatest benefit of InsightLoop at Müller Martini is seen in first-level support. Local market organizations often employ staff with less detailed technical expertise than factory technicians. Nevertheless, they must be able to respond quickly to complex service inquiries and ideally resolve customer issues directly. Previously, critical information was not centrally available.
InsightLoop bridges this gap by integrating fragmented knowledge, structuring it, and delivering precise real-time solution recommendations. This allows service employees to respond more quickly and confidently to customer inquiries without needing to conduct time-consuming searches. This not only improves support efficiency but also enhances the quality of diagnostics and problem resolution.
Challenges
For AI-driven service diagnostics to be effective, data quality is crucial. In many cases, such data is not readily available. Therefore, the clean identification and classification of suitable data is a fundamental prerequisite for successfully applying AI in industrial environments.
Focus on the Future
Building on positive experiences from the German and U.S. markets, Müller Martini plans to expand the system to additional regions, particularly in Europe. The more information is available, the more precise and effective the AI can become. With each new input, the system continuously learns and improves its results.
A central focus is closing existing knowledge gaps with the expertise of in-house specialists. Müller Martini leverages InsightLoop’s Knowledge Curation function to systematically integrate valuable know-how from its experts. This feature identifies gaps in reliable content and supports the creation of new insights through an internal expert network with a question-and-answer tool. The knowledge gained is incorporated into both InsightLoop and curated documents, enabling the company to create targeted content to fill these gaps. Optimally utilizing existing knowledge is essential for handling service requests faster and more efficiently.
Conclusion
The collaboration between Müller Martini and Coresystems is a prime example of how technology and innovation can elevate service processes to a new level. InsightLoop has already made a significant impact by accelerating access to critical information and improving service process efficiency. With further rollouts and deeper integration, InsightLoop will continue to play a transformative role in Müller Martini’s service management, laying the foundation for future-oriented service excellence.