This past week Toshiba rolled out e-BRIDGE CloudConnect to its independent dealer channel. e-BRIDGE CloundConnect is a cloud-based system that connects Toshiba e-STUDIOs to the cloud and back to Toshiba’s service and support entities, enabling the company, and by extension, its dealers to better manage the devices in the field from a service and device configuration perspective.
“Through this we believe we can improve the service efficiency for our dealers and our direct operations, and it expands the capabilities for our dealers to support our end users by improving the management of their entire fleet of devices and things they can do to make sure their devices react the way they want them to based on what’s important to them,” noted Steve Tungate, VP/GM Service, Supply Chain, and Innovation for Toshiba, during a Webinar for press and analysts.
He emphasized that this new service tool is actually a new technology platform and will improve the value Toshiba provides its end customers and dealers. “We look at this as a way to help our dealers be more profitable and provide added value to our customers as we differentiate ourselves in this space. As we know, hardware is become more commodity like and this separates us from the pack.”
The platform was designed by Toshiba’s solutions engineering team in Irvine working closely with Toshiba’s R&D labs in Japan. “These are real voice of the customer-type features that we put into this product and fit well in the America’s market,” added Tungate.
e-BRIDGE CloudConnect is factory equipped on new e-STUDIO devices with a firmware update available for existing devices in the field. The capability is turned off as a default. The dealer is responsible for turning it on at installation to start communicating with the cloud with a simple code change. According to Tungate, most any action anyone can do from the panel of the device can be done remotely from the cloud.
The device sends data nightly or at user-suggested intervals into the cloud. Dealers can use that data to troubleshoot, monitor configurations, download firmware, and from a fleet perspective, look at all devices attached to the cloud and find out if there are any service trends or anything that will enable Toshiba to make additional developments or enhancements of service capabilities for those devices.
The platform has been designed in a way that enables Toshiba to continually add enhanced services.
“What you’re going to see at launch is less than what you’re going to see it do in the future,” said Tungate, hinting at future enhancements.
The Benefits of e-BRIDGE CloudConnect
e-BRIDGE CloudConnect provides the following benefits:
- The ability to bridge business systems and MIF to improve services processes
- Remote management of Toshiba e-STUDIO devices
- Maximum uptime
- The ability to collect service data from Toshiba e-STUDIO devices
- An in-depth understanding of device performance via the cloud
- Real-time alerts that can minimize downtime
- Proactive troubleshooting
- Device monitoring and automatic updates
The primary benefits to the dealer are automated meter collection, and correct and timely billing. Other benefits shared by Ormond include pre-flight device settings with automated code setups, the ability to manage consistent fleet configurations, the ability to monitor and maintain device settings, the ability to provide remote FW updates, and the use of service files for diagnosing problems.
For customers the benefits encompass not having to do meter reads, not needing a secondary server/application, faster response times, service time reduction and a reduction of incomplete service calls. e-BRIDGE CloudConnect has already been implemented and tested by Toshiba’s direct operations. Based on that experience, Tungate noted that customers have expressed increased satisfaction with the service they’ve received.
Digger Deeper into e-BRIDGE CloudConnect
According to Louis Ormond, director of R&D planning for Toshiba, who was the prime architect of this product, the device does not send customer or personal data to the cloud.
The system also receives data from Toshiba’s backend systems and allows the device meter information to be fed into back-end systems. The system can be set to monitor only those error codes that the user deems important. “Only some are critical to ongoing daily operation of the device,” noted Ormond. “There’s no need to monitor for every single jam or every time a door or tray is open. But if there is a critical alert such as fuser warning then we’d want to know that as soon as possible.”
It can also sends device alerts and errors separate from machine data, i.e., device jams in real time allowing the service team to proactively address that alert.
The program is a hosted application, hosted on Microsoft Azure and does not require the installation of software on the device itself. By default communication is once per day and can be configured to send data during off hours.
Ormond noted that a cloud-based platform was an easy choice for Toshiba because of ease of development and deployment, its cost effectiveness, users don’t need to use their own IT resources, and the platform is scalable. Microsoft Azure was selected because the company is considered a technology leader; it’s a secure, robust platform; and there’s already an existing relationship Toshiba and Microsoft.
Models supported at initial release include the e-STUDIO2440C series, e-STUDIO2551C series, e-STUDIO5055C series, e-STUDIO6570C series, e-STUDIO507 series, and e-STUDIO857 series.
In the next couple of months Toshiba plans to introduce firmware for some of its legacy products as well as support for other upcoming models on its product roadmap.
