Ensuring Automation Uptime: Patti Engineering’s Service Contracts

Service contracts are essential for ensuring automation system uptime by providing maintenance, technical support, and timely issue resolution. They serve as a safety net, minimizing downtime, reducing troubleshooting costs, and potentially optimizing system performance for long-term success. Patti Engineering provides customized service contracts designed to meet the unique needs of each client. They are available for both our own previously completed projects, as well as those originating from a different vendor based on our partner technologies. This article outlines the different components of Patti Engineering’s service contracts and details how clients benefit from them.

The Patti Engineering team includes a large pool of skilled engineers that regularly complete a diverse range of manufacturing automation and integration projects. In addition to this project work, Patti Engineering also takes on ongoing service contracts, as well as engineering Time and Expense (T&E) contracts. With the latter having been previously discussed, this article focuses on our service contract offering. 

Service contracts reduce both a client’s risk and the cost of addressing a system malfunction and/or downtime scenario. When either of these events occur, the contract is in place to deliver engineering expertise in a timely and cost-effective manner to identify and resolve the issue, returning the system to regular operation. 

Patti Engineering’s service contracts are tailored to address a client’s particular needs in terms of engineering response time, number of support hours included, onsite versus remote support, and even optional reoccurring system performance analysis. While it is common for clients to seek a support contract as a system’s warranty period ends, Patti Engineering will engage in a service contract at any point throughout its lifecycle. 

Service Contracts: Who We Support and Serve

In addition to supporting projects previously installed and commissioned by Patti Engineering, we also support non-native systems based on our partners’ technologies, including Siemens, Ignition, Mitsubishi, FANUC, Beckhoff, and Arduino. To do so, we tailor the contract to include a learning phase that precedes the start of the support term. During the learning phase, our engineers spend time studying the system to gain familiarity with it. They will visit the facility to review the equipment in current operation, obtain electrical prints, and copies of all program code. This ensures that the engineers are fully knowledgeable on the system and ready to troubleshoot it once the support term commences.

Location-Agnostic Service Contracts  

Patti Engineering takes on support contracts in any location, irrespective of a client’s physical proximity to one of our offices. While we will send an engineer onsite as required, for the vast majority of support calls, remote access to the equipment is the best means of addressing the issue. At the onset of a contract, we collaborate with a client’s IT department to ensure we have a secure portal into the facility, allowing our engineers remote access. Patti Engineering respects and follows all clients remote access policies and standards. 

Patti Engineering Service Contract Features

While Patti Engineering’s service contracts are customized to meet a client’s particular needs, the core architecture of the contract remains the same. The contracts can be summarized as follows: 

• Three to five engineers are fully trained on the system and are ready to offer support from a contract’s onset.
• Regardless of the day or time, a live operator always receives service phone calls via our hotline. This operator knows the engineers that support each contract and immediately contacts them based on a previously arranged call order. 
• The engineer’s response time is defined as the time it takes for the engineer to be ready to begin working on the problem. This response time is negotiated to meet a client’s particular requirements and is clearly stated within the contract. Total hours of both remote and onsite support are customized. 

As an optional feature, Patti Engineering incorporates recurring consultation meetings for the purposes of continuous system improvement. To that end, some of our service contracts include a regular review of the system’s performance through analysis of the system’s data/statistics for optimizing overall throughput. This option provides a client with actionable insights to improve Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE).

Table 1: Table comparing the service contracts of three Patti Engineering clients, based on contracted hours, response time, and OEE consultation.

Example Service Contracts – Three Clients with Unique Needs 

This section outlines the individual service contracts for three specific clients, as outlined in Table 1. Note that each client has their own specific needs that Patti Engineering has effectively addressed within each contract.

Retail Industry Client

This client, a major retailer, required a service contract to maintain the operation of its Southwest Distribution Center (SWDC) sorter system. The system automates the handling and sorting of large volumes of products within their distribution centers. Patti Engineering’s customized service contract includes up to 100 hours of remote support per year, with a response time of one hour during regular business hours. Should more hours be required during the contract’s term, the client will be pay standard rates rather than emergency rates, with daily minimums waived. 

Printing and Labeling Industry Client

An automotive printing and labeling industry client required comprehensive support for one of their systems, including recurring consultation for the purposes of continual improvement. The contract included 20 hours of remote support and 10 hours of onsite engineering. It also included a proactive component: quarterly reviews of production data compared with machine timing information for continuous improvement of the system. Finally, the contract laid out a competitive component replacement cost, should the need arise. 

Apparel Retail Industry Client

Patti Engineering’s apparel retail client needed extensive support for their garment sorting systems, associated data servers, custom applications, web interfaces, and RF scanner software. This service contract includes 150 hours of remote support and 20 hours of onsite engineering. The contract offers the option for additional onsite support at discounted rates, and any unused onsite hours will be used for a final performance evaluation. 

Final Thoughts

Patti Engineering’s goal for service contracts is to become a trusted partner for our clients and to maintain that trust over time. Our service contracts provide targeted ongoing knowledgeable engineering support in a timely manner to address system malfunctions. The contracts are designed to meet the specific needs of each client, providing guaranteed response times, a flexible approach to support hours, as well as the option to include regular engineering consultation for continuous improvement. At Patti Engineering, our service contracts are another way we remain committed to supporting the optimization and ongoing success of our clients’ operations. 

For more information about our service contracts, contact Patti Engineering at info@pattieng.com.