The shop floor is where your products meet your customers. It’s where parts get identified, repairs get made, and expectations are either met or missed. And for too many dealers and service teams, it’s where visibility into product design breaks down.
Despite upstream investments in CAD and PLM systems, downstream teams—dealers, field technicians, and service reps—often rely on out-of-position pictures, parts books with exploded views, or cutaways to accurately identify parts and repair equipment. These tools leave them guessing at configurations, parts, and procedures they should be able to verify instantly.
And when guesswork enters the equation, service suffers.
When Visibility Breaks Down, Service Slows Down
If a technician can’t confirm a configuration or identify a part visually, machine downtime spikes. Whether they’re prepping for a repair, assisting a customer in ordering parts, or troubleshooting a service issue, missing or mismatched information means delays and rework.
Instead of quickly pulling up the exact 3D model of the product—as built—they're stuck flipping through static drawings or sending requests back to engineering for a print if something needs to be built. That slows customer response times, increases costs, and leads to frustration on all sides.
Legacy workflows were never built to support real-time, customer-facing collaboration. And now, they're showing their age.
Static Models Can’t Keep Up with Dynamic Needs
Products evolve. Configurations change. Engineering updates roll out. But without a real-time connection to those updates, shop floor teams at the dealer level are constantly one step behind.
Take parts identification: A customer brings in a machine, and the technician needs to find a specific replacement part. However, if they’re working from a generic or outdated model, they may end up ordering the wrong part—or often they will just order both to make sure the customer is moving and the dealership absorbs the cost.
These aren’t isolated events—they’re systemic symptoms of workflows that weren’t designed for today’s customer expectations or business speed.
Access Shouldn't Be a Barrier
No technician, dealer, or service representative should need a CAD license—or an expensive computer—just to see what a product looks like. Yet that’s exactly the hurdle many teams face. And when access depends on engineering assistance or specific hardware, it undermines both autonomy and efficiency.
Customers expect answers. Dealers want to deliver. But siloed data keeps both waiting.
Real-Time 3D, Right Where It’s Needed
Imagine this instead: a dealer pulls up the customer’s exact product model—complete with configuration—on a tablet. A technician zooms into a 3D assembly, confirms the part orientation, and sends the order within seconds.
That’s what Vertex enables. Secure, real-time 3D visualization streamed directly to any device. No installs. No exports. No delays.
This is zero-friction collaboration across the shop floor—built for aftermarket agility, service precision, and customer confidence.
Factory Floors Face the Same Problem—At a Different Scale
While I’m focusing on dealer and customer service workflows in this article, the root issue—lack of real-time access to 3D data—affects the factory floor too.
When technicians on the line build from static documents, the same risks apply: rework, scrap, and production delays. One incorrect version can derail an entire build. And without dynamic 3D access, even small changes can cause massive disruptions.
Whether it’s a technician in a factory or a service tech in the field, the visibility gap is the same. The solution has to scale across both.
Visibility Drives Customer Satisfaction
When shop floor teams—from dealerships to service centers—have real-time access to 3D data, everything improves.
- Faster part identification
- Fewer errors and callbacks
- Shorter service times
- Stronger customer trust
That’s why leading manufacturers are turning to Vertex to modernize aftermarket and service workflows. With a platform that streams 3D—securely and without exposing CAD files—they’re unlocking massive ROI from existing PLM investments and delivering next-level customer experiences.
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