Döinghaus leaps into aftermarket digital efficiency with Makula

October 18, 2024
Dr.-Ing. Simon Spelzhausen

Döinghaus, under the leadership of Erik Döinghaus, Holger Witkowski and Dieter Döinghaus, excels in the design and manufacturing of custom ultrasonic cutting solutions for the food industry. Established in 2009, the company has grown to employ over 50 specialists across its operations in Germany, renowned for delivering precision equipment to major food processing companies worldwide. 

Döinghaus has consistently demonstrated its commitment to innovation and quality. Jens Stückemann (Head of Service & Support),who we sat down with, confirmed that Their strategic encounter with Makula Technology at a bustling trade fair marked a pivotal step towards revolutionizing their operational processes and enhancing their customer service management systems.

Why Makula made sense as a strategic aftermarket partner

Before partnering with Makula, Döinghaus struggled with outdated and inefficient manual processes. The company's dependency on Excel spreadsheets for managing after-sales services led to duplicated efforts, data inconsistencies, and restricted the mobility of service technicians, confining them mostly to factory-based operations. As Döinghaus looked to scale its operations amid increasing demand, these manual methods proved increasingly inadequate, highlighting the urgent need for a more robust and scalable system.

Implementing Makula

Makula makes our daily work routine easier and clearer. The collaboration with the Makula team is great; a solution is found for everything straight away and our program requests are taken into account.

The integration of Makula began approximately two years ago and represented a major shift in how Döinghaus managed its operations. Transitioning to Makula involved overcoming significant challenges, including changing long standing operational practices and navigating initial limitations in the system's offline capabilities.

Despite these hurdles, Makula facilitated a transformation in service management, enabling

  • Quicker planning of service tours
  • A comprehensive view of customer issues
  • More direct and effective customer engagement through digital service certificates and detailed inspection reports.

Benefits and current usage of Makula

Since its implementation, Makula has become integral to Döinghaus’s operations, delivering substantial improvements:

  • Data centralization and consistency: Makula has centralized service data, allowing for real-time access by multiple users and ensuring consistency across the board.
  • Efficiency in customer service: The introduction of digital service reports with e-signatures has streamlined customer interactions, reducing service times and enhancing customer satisfaction.
  • Operational improvements: The system’s mandatory fields for data entry and customizable forms have significantly improved data reliability and utility, making operations smoother and more predictable.

We are able to plan our service tours more quickly, have a better overview of our customers' problems, and it makes it easier to work directly with our customers on site, for example by creating service notes or inspection reports.

Customer integration and feedback 

Döinghaus has actively integrated its customers into the Makula system, allowing approximately 10 major clients to log issues directly—a feature that enhances transparency and efficiency, especially for those under recurring inspection contracts. The addition of QR codes on newer machines simplifies access to machine documentation through Makula, further enhancing the user experience. Customer feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, with clients appreciating the modernized interactions and the streamlined, efficient service process.

The future with Makula

Looking ahead, Döinghaus plans to further leverage Makula by reducing the need for parallel documentation, enhancing routing and mapping integrations, and potentially offering Makula access as part of their service contracts. 

We kept a lot of EXCEL lists, which made our lives easier at that moment but are not worth mentioning compared to Makula😊

These initiatives aim to refine service delivery and operational efficiency further. The active feedback loop between Döinghaus and Makula ensures continuous system refinement, catering to specific needs and evolving challenges.

Dr.-Ing. Simon Spelzhausen
Co Founder & Chief Product Officer

Simon Spelzhausen, an engineering expert with a proven track record of driving business growth through innovative solutions, honed through his experience at Volkswagen.