Background
Applemango Korea acts as a service provider for all necessary procedures when exporting or importing food to or from Korea. The company connects manufacturers and customers based on a pool of 10,000 domestic and foreign food manufacturers, and provides professional services ranging from food quarantine, customs clearance, and follow-up management so that various foreign foods can be safely imported and distributed in Korea.
In export, the company discovers overseas buyers through a global agent network from Asia to the Americas and Europe and supports its clients with all domestic food manufacturing operations. Applemango’s workforce consists of industry professionals with proven experience in overseas food sourcing and development of food manufacturers for the past several decades, as well as experts with know-how from customs officers specializing in food quarantine.
The company sees itself as an innovator in the food industry and is constantly looking at ways to improve its processes through new technology and digitalization.
Challenges
- Requirements for quick and accurate confirmation and agile communication in food import
- Regular product consultations with local agents necessary for export
- High labor and travel expenses for frequent inspections of overseas factories
- Keeping the business running also in times of international travel restrictions
- Smartphones and consumer apps for real-time communication and remote work instructions were inconvenient and technically limited
Solution
The real-time accuracy of due diligence of foreign food manufacturing factories has become increasingly stringent. For improving the non-face-to-face due diligence, Applemango therefore decided to look for an industry-proven and secure solution that would better suit their needs and improve the remote auditing processes. Augmented Reality (AR) was identified as a promising technology to serve the company’s needs.
After conducting AR-based product research including TeamViewer products for three months, TeamViewer Frontline xAssist was selected as an optimal solution. It meets all the conditions required by the government and the customers, it is optimized for Applemango’s business, offers an advanced feature set and easy usability. It runs on standard smart glasses, meaning hardware purchases are within reasonable limits.
While in the past, it was difficult to communicate through smartphones due to factory noise, it is now possible for the remotely connected viewers to communicate via voice or chat and add augmented reality markers to the video that are displayed in the field of view of the on-site expert wearing the smart glasses. TeamViewer’s solution thus makes it possible to give accurate and detailed work instructions. In addition, smooth and efficient collaboration is now possible through functions such as multi-party calls, technical data sharing, and automatic translated chats. The recording of important parts of the video enables an immediate documentation of compliance with food safety and quality.
After evaluating the successful first year, Applemango therefore decided to continue and expand the usage of TeamViewer Frontline in the future.
The results speak for themselves
- Remote inspection of 60+ overseas plants per year, saving 120 days of travel time and reduce carbon emissions
- Around 120,000 Euros of travel expenses saved per year
- Use of smart glasses allows auditors to use both hands freely
- Quick return on invests of only 12 months
- Higher availability of experts due to less unproductive travel times
- Fulfillment of due diligence despite external factors such as travel restrictions
- Increased satisfaction of customers, business partners and employees
Hanna Yu CEO, Applemango Korea
“With this solution, we were able to present a new industry standard for non-face-to-face due diligence procedures in the food industry. Furthermore, our investment costs were recovered within one year after purchase, and the satisfaction of our customers, partners, and employees is high due to the easy and stable use. These benefits of TeamViewer’s AR solution are further solidifying Applemango Korea’s status as an innovative partner in the food industry.”
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