WHEN Benjamin Lim, CEO of Simplex Pte Ltd, says he wants Simplex to be an innovative service provider and a disruptor in the foodservice industry, it is no empty boast.

Over 46 years, Lim has built Simplex to be a foodservice solutions provider with one of the largest presence in Asia. Simplex has 350 employees in more than 80 locations in nine countries. With such scale, Simplex positions itself as a one-stop solution provider of foodservice equipment and solutions to clients of all sizes.

“ We started out serving small shops and restaurants, and now our strength is in chain accounts— helping clients set up chain outlets,” says Lim.“ Chain store operations require a set and scalable system, consistent delivery of service and support by strong after-sales service providers.

“ It is not about the number of outlets, but service delivery over vast distances. For example, a client could be a chain store with five outlets spread out in different parts of Mongolia.”

After decades of experience in servicing chain store operators, Lim has good knowledge of the challenges in their industry, including small kitchens in the outlets, the need for central kitchen production and consistency in product and service delivery. Simplex is now focused on supporting customers in building smart kitchens to meet their challenges.

“ I can more easily identify the key issues for clients. For example, the focus of their attention should not be about initial set-up investment cost, but the total cost of ownership. It is generally difficult for most companies to track the cost of owning a piece of kitchen equipment over time. Harder still to measure service quality to clients, and after-sales service from vendors.”

Simplex has introduced Smartworz 3.0, an easy-to-use but comprehensive operation management app.“ The app is based on login ID and users can be identified as store manager, approving manager, or technician. It is designed to facilitate fixed

asset and service management for facility, foodservice equipment, and even IT systems.”

Smartworz 3.0 is an application fully developed ground-up by Lim himself. It runs on the company’ s cloud-based Ecosys platform.

The system stores a mine of information that is useful for service resolution. The service technician on-site can simply scan a QR code and can access critical information like equipment model number, warranty information, service call history, down to details about the specific machine part that was changed in the last service call.

Lim relates a case of how the use of the smart software benefited a client that is a US chain restaurant in China. The system was used to monitor the service management of the restaurant’ s water filtration system. Smartworz interfaces with an IoT device that monitors the water quality so that it creates automatic alerts to change filters when water quality is below par. After some time, there were more calls for change of water filters than anticipated.

Simplex CEO Benjamin Lim in front of his booth— backdrop of Simplex dominant presence in Asia.

This meant the company had to spend a bit more on water filters. However, the company was happy. As water is a key ingredient for the coffee served by the restaurant, the more frequent change of water filters led to consistently high coffee quality— and improved sales and profit.

“ This was a win-win situation for everyone – the water filtration vendor, the business owner and his customers. This is an example of an innovative idea that has improved customer operation and profitability.”

Simplex is located at Suntec Singapore( booth H6M1-01).