This blog post will be particularly interesting for:
- Production companies grappling with high equipment maintenance costs and substantial equipment downtime expenses.
- Business owners, production directors, asset management professionals, and equipment maintenance directors seeking solutions to optimize their operations.
- Companies involved in operating and managing assets spread across numerous geographically dispersed locations, including those with limited accessibility. Examples include telecom companies with cellular base stations widely distributed across territories and power distribution companies.
Augmented Reality (AR) is rapidly gaining prominence and is now a leading trend in maintenance management. The potential applications of AR in this field are abundant, with many yet to be translated into practical tools.
Currently, these applications can be broadly categorized into two groups: training technicians for equipment maintenance and providing on-site support for repair teams.
Augmented Reality for Technician Training
Leveraging augmented reality for training repair teams is an exceptionally promising and cost-effective solution. Training can be conducted directly on the production site, eliminating the need for equipment shutdown. Alternatively, virtual training courses can replace the expense of sending staff to vendor training centers. Moreover, the use of virtual and augmented reality technologies minimizes the risk of employee injuries and equipment damage during training.
AR is employed to train technicians, significantly expediting the learning process. For instance, Siemens has implemented AR technology to replace traditional paper and tablet-based manuals with 3D visualizations. This innovation has reduced training time on some components from a day to just 45 minutes, making training safer and more cost-efficient.
Augmented Reality for Repair Team Support
Equipped with augmented reality glasses, technicians can access information in the form of 3D images, text, and videos overlaid on the equipment they are repairing. This includes interactive repair guides with step-by-step instructions, and detailed prompts within the technician's field of vision, maintenance checklists, real-time equipment parameter values transmitted from IoT sensors installed on the equipment, historical data, hazard warnings, and more. These capabilities are particularly crucial as industrial equipment grows increasingly complex, making troubleshooting more challenging and expensive.
AR technologies are revolutionizing remote site servicing by field teams. Highly skilled employees no longer need to physically travel to remote sites. Instead, they can remotely view the site through a technician's perspective and access comprehensive data, enabling them to make real-time operational decisions and recommendations. This approach significantly reduces the cost of maintaining remote facilities, enhances labor productivity, and improves asset reliability.
Key Business Benefits of Implementing AR Technologies in Maintenance Management:
- AR reduces MTTR (Mean Time To Repair) by eliminating the need for technicians to search for information, manuals, instructions, regulations, or standards during diagnosis and repair. According to the Augmented Reality for Enterprise Alliance (AREA), this can reduce maintanense time by an average of 35%, simultaneously enhancing industrial security by guiding technicians along safe paths and promptly warning them of potential hazards.
- AR boosts technician productivity by automating tasks such as data entry for incidents, processing work orders, and reporting on work performed. Voice interfaces can streamline these processes, leading to significant time savings. (AREA estimates potential savings of 50 minutes per day in customer service by directly exchanging repair and completion orders between devices and back-end service management and CRM systems).
- AR addresses the challenge of a shortage of highly qualified personnel. Expert engineers can provide real-time guidance to on-site technicians, visualizing instructions through virtual pointers in their field of view. This not only optimizes the use of highly qualified personnel but also drastically reduces failure resolution time and equipment downtime. (For example, Thyssenkrupp aims to reduce elevator downtime by 50% through remote AR guidance from senior engineers).
- AR enhances reliability indicators, reducing MTTR and increasing the success rate of first-time functionality restoration. This also leads to a reduction in the inventory of exchange stock units. More failures can now be resolved on-site, eliminating the need for unit replacements. (AREA projects that an average company could eliminate two out of every five loaner machines with this approach).
As the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) continues to expand, equipment and solution providers are increasingly integrating augmented reality products into their offerings. Despite the current costs associated with such solutions, AR for training and remote service is an emerging trend poised for substantial growth in the years ahead.
Awara IT is consistently committed to developing and implementing solutions that secure business growth for companies through asset maintenance cost optimization, advanced analytics, and the provision of a dedicated mobile application for field employees, including AR solutions. For example, our recent comprehensive offering, based on Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Supply Chain Management, effectively addresses key concerns and unlocks valuable business outcomes:
- Reduced Equipment Downtime
- Optimized Inventory and Material Control
- Minimized Overtime Repair Work
- Reduced Illiquid Inventory
- Reduced cost of maintaining remote facilities
Connect with our team today to initiate a conversation about your unique business challenges. Awara IT is ready to tailor the perfect solution to meet your specific needs. Let's unlock your production company's full potential together.
The blog post is created by:
Aleksei Czeslawski, Awara IT Solution Architect
