Case Study: How a VPN Edge Router Slashed Our Machine Service Costs by 80%

For a machine builder, the "truck roll" is the ultimate profit killer. This case study demonstrates how deploying a Robustel industrial edge router as a plc remote access gateway can drastically cut service costs—often by over 80%. We'll explore how this edge router, powered by the RCMS platform and RobustVPN, replaces expensive field service visits with secure, on-demand remote troubleshooting. We'll show you how a single edge router pays for itself the first time you don't have to send an engineer to a remote site.

If you're a machine builder (OEM), you know this story. It's 2 AM, and a machine you sold to a customer 3,000 miles away is down. The customer's factory is stopped. They are losing $20,000 an hour.

You have two options, both terrible:

1. Burn Money: Book a last-minute, $3,000 flight, a $500 hotel, and send your top engineer on a two-day trip. They arrive on-site, plug into the PLC, open TIA Portal, and find a single, glaring FALSE bit that should be TRUE. A 10-minute fix for a $5,000 plane ticket.
2. Burn Security: Convince the customer's terrified IT department to create a port-forwarding rule through their firewall, exposing your PLC directly to the public internet. This is the definition of a cybersecurity dumpster fire.

This is the central dilemma of post-sales support. How do you cut service costs without torpedoing your security? The answer is simple: stop thinking of remote access as a problem. It's a feature. It's a feature of your industrial edge router.

For years, OEMs have been trapped. The cost of a "truck roll" (or, more accurately, a "plane roll") is so high that it can wipe out the entire profit margin on a machine sale. MTTR (Mean Time To Repair) isn't measured in hours; it's measured in days of travel.

To avoid this, many have turned to dedicated plc remote access gateway boxes like the HMS Ewon. These are good tools! They create a secure tunnel. But they are often a "one-trick pony." They're an expensive box that sits idle 99% of the time, waiting for a failure.

What if your edge router—the same device you need anyway for data collection—could do that job and this one, all in a single unit?

This is the modern, TCO-crushing solution. A single Robustel industrial edge router(like the EG5120 or R1520 Global ) combined with our Add One Product: RCMS platform is designed to do both jobs.

This is the baseline edge router function. The device is a rugged, cellular-first firewall. It uses a 4G/5G SIM card to create an internet connection that completely bypasses the customer's IT network. This creates a secure "air gap" for your machine, making it invisible to their internal network and safe from their security policies. This secure edge router is your first layer of defense.

This is the "killer app" that saves you money. Our RCMS platform includes a service called RobustVPN.

• How it works: It's an "on-demand" secure cloud broker. An engineer at your office opens the RobustVPN client. The remote vpn edge router, which has a secure outbound connection to RCMS, is instructed to connect to the VPN.
• The "Magic Cable":RCMS securely connects your engineer's laptop and the remote edge router to the same virtual network. The engineer is now "virtually" plugged into the edge router's LAN port.
• The Result: They open Siemens TIA Portal or Rockwell Studio 5000 and the software discovers the PLC at 192.168.1.10. They are in. No firewall changes. No port forwarding. No security risk.

We worked with a European manufacturer of specialized packaging machinery. Their service model was a "cash bonfire."

• BEFORE: They were spending ~$200,000/year on flights and hotels for their 5 expert engineers, who were perpetually burned out. Customer downtime (MTTR) averaged 48-72 hours.
• THE SOLUTION: They made a strategic shift. Every new machine shipped was equipped with a Robustel 4g lte edge router. All devices were pre-registered in their company's RCMS account.
• AFTER:

1. 80% Cost Reduction: In the first year, they reported an 80% reduction in service travel costs, saving over $160,000.
2. 90% First-Call Fix Rate: They found that 9 out of 10 service calls were software or configuration issues. These were now diagnosed and fixed remotely via the vpn edge router in minutes.
3. MTTR Slashed: Their Mean Time To Repair dropped from 48 hours to under 1 hour.
4. New Revenue: They now offer a "Gold Support SLA" as a recurring revenue service, powered by their edge router fleet. Their service department became a profit center.

Stop thinking of your edge router as just a data collector. It is your most powerful cost-saving and revenue-generating tool.

For a machine builder, the business case is a slam-dunk. The cost of a professional edge router and its cloud management license is less than half the cost of one avoided plane ticket. It pays for itself the very first time you use it.

By deploying an industrial edge router with secure plc remote access capabilities, you don't just cut service costs—you transform your entire business. You become more responsive, more efficient, and more valuable to your customers. This edge router is the key.