Alstom
As a promoter of sustainable mobility, Alstom develops and markets systems, equipment and services for the transport sector. Alstom offers a complete range of solutions (from high-speed trains to metros, tramways and e-buses), passenger solutions, customised services (maintenance, modernisation), infrastructure, signalling and digital mobility solutions. Alstom is a world leader in integrated transport systems.
Improve Remote Support processes
In 2016, as part of its Industry 4.0 activity, Alstom chose JoinPad as technology partner to help them improve one of their internal processes through Augmented Reality technology.
Alstom needed to improve communications between their on-field operators and the remote experts providing guidance. Complex operations were accomplished using non-standardized tools to connect the workforce with facilities’ control rooms.
JoinPad worked tightly with the italian team of Alstom Milan’s Plant, in Sesto San Giovanni, to help them improve their Remote Support process, that covers the full spectrum of their services.
Our solution
The use of Augmented Reality, especially when applied on smart glasses, offers considerable advantages in the field of Remote Support, allowing users to share information and content directly on operators’ field of view.
JoinPad’s Smart Assistance was designed to provide to the remote expert the on-field operators’ first person view. In addition, experts can place holographic 3D widgets in space, relative to the environment’s objects, to give instructions and annotation about workorders and procedures using different functionalities, such as text, image sharing and real-time drawing. The crossplatform solution was delivered as a prototype working on Microsoft HoloLens smart glasses, Android tablets, like the Samsung Tab Active 2, and as web-based application.
“JoinPad’s Smart Assistance has proved to be an efficient tool for our teams working in services all over our sites. It reduces the margin for error and the time needed to our workforce for troubleshooting. It is a valid skill support and knowledge is shared in real time, allowing fluidity of information.”
Olivier Giacomoni, MD Services, Italy and Switzerland.
Advantages
After weeks of intensive testing we have been able to measure a decrease in downtime and costs, but more important was the quality improvement with the information transmitted real-time to the field, achieved by sharing the user’s point of view and adding virtual annotation in Augmented Reality, which made it possible to reduce significantly the number of errors during the intervention operations.
The use of JoinPad’s proprietary algorithms allowed us to deliver a more flexible solution to the customer, making Smart Assistance suitable for any kind of working environment and to a wider range of devices.
Further Developments
Alstom decided to bring the project from the proof of concept stage to production, asking us to support the application with a platform to manage workorders, sessions, users and the relative produced documentation, also integrating it with other typical Industry 4.0 features such as Big Data, Artificial Intelligence and Virtual Assistants to autonomously support on field operators.
This will represent the natural evolution of the industrial platform.
More info about JoinPad’s Smart Assistance here.
You can find the full press release about the project with Alstom here.
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