Reducing machine downtime via mixed reality

MAINTAINING TEMPO is as important in industry as it is in a sport like football. A single, unforeseen break in play can irretrievably knock a team off its rhythm, and it never recovers the momentum.

In industry and manufacturing, machine downtime is the culprit, inflicting heavy costs on organisations. Research from Senseye found manufacturing and industrial firms are taking a $864bn financial hit each year because of unplanned downtime, losing 3.3 million hours of production time a year to machine failures. Conducted among Fortune Global 500 firms, the research found, for example, that automotive plants lose $557bn a year – as much 20% of revenue.

Among the biggest problems with downtime in an industrial context is that it drags down productivity. The cost in the automotive industry is so high because of the knock-on effect across multiple processes working at the limits of efficiency.

For almost every industrial production sector, downtime is a major setback. The oil and gas industry has invested hugely in its reduction but still experiences significant costs from equipment and process failures, as does advanced manufacturing. However, even in areas such as the manufacture of commodity products, where the focus is more on production volumes rather than margin, downtime is still a costly experience. Whenever a business like this suffers an hour of downtime, losses mount rapidly. 

Empowering people

Reducing downtime is a significant operational goal, but it also delivers huge benefits from a human perspective. Employees do not want the frustrations of waiting around for the machinery to start up again. And people can be an important part of the solution. The key lies in technology that enables workers to proactively monitor systems and solutions to ensure they remain up and running; technology that empowers them quickly to remediate the situation through applying precisely the right fixes and repairs.

From a staff perspective the main difficulty when demand for complex troubleshooting arises, is to bring to the on-site worker all the information required so they deal with the situation efficiently. This is where technology plays such a critical role, helping to augment cognitive capabilities and support workers deliver what the situation demands, even in the most dynamic environments.

Combining the physical and digital

Mixed reality-based worker-support, in which physical reality and digital content combine to enable interaction with, and among, real-world and virtual objects, has a major contribution to make in these situations. It allows a remote worker to establish a low-bandwidth (as low as 256 kilobits) audio-video call using a headset, while facilitating the transfer of photos, files and multi-step animated holograms.

Workers who need assistance to resolve a complex problem, but have no access to the necessary skills or experience, use the technology to call with someone who does. The expert sees what the on-site worker sees and uses holographic assets to support the task, enabling the user to remain heads-up and hands-free.

Using a head-mounted tool while simultaneously consuming knowledge from a remotely located expert is a big advantage because the brain naturally works well with visual information. If technology can present information in a visual format, the worker can often absorb and act on it straight away, thereby shortening both time-to-action and time-to-insight.

Another advantage is that the technology aids knowledge-retention. If an engineer consumes knowledge through 3D visual representations at the same time as they are doing the work, they retain it better. Many experts concur that learning by doing is better than learning by watching – especially for cognitive retention.
 
Working across multiple sectors

There are many examples where employees have used mixed reality to fix a downtime problem. For example, a customer wanted to rectify a malfunctioning bagging system. To address the problem, the company ran a mixed reality session and connected up with a remotely-based expert, who instantly identified the cause and fixed it.

Similarly, a nuclear plant in Canada experienced downtime in a steam turbine. As the experts were unable to travel because of Covid, workers at the plant were able to access their help remotely using mixed reality. By leveraging their insight, they were able to rapidly rectify the problem, save days of downtime and achieve enormous savings as a result.

Use cases such as these are why the benefits of mixed reality solutions are becoming better understood for problems where there is downtime or potential downtime. This is true even if some companies still grapple with how best to operationalise the technology and which types of applications to use to ‘move the needle’ get their workers on board.

Reducing emissions and removing the skills shortage

One of the significant consequences of using mixed reality technology is in reducing travel and carbon emissions. Clearly, if a problem can be resolved remotely, an engineer or expert does not have to travel to the site to fix it. Ultimately, it is helping businesses meet the ESG targets which are increasingly important in attracting investment but which many businesses struggle to achieve.

More immediately, such user-friendly technology helps overcome the marked skills gaps that are now very apparent in most advanced economies. In electrical and mechanical engineering for example, many of the generation born up to the mid-1960s, who make up a large proportion of the skilled workforce, are about to retire, taking their knowledge with them. The Engineering Design Show in the UK found in its research that more than 50% of engineering firms struggle to recruit and retain staff with the skills and knowledge necessary for jobs in the industry.

Exhilarating to use, mixed reality technology helps train up new generations to fill this skills gap and prepare for major developments such as electric vehicles and their infrastructure. As is becoming apparent, the approach to learning that uses e-learning along with traditional classroom tuition and on-the-job training is not especially rapid. Instructor-led training is limited to the amount of time the instructor has available. E-learning has the advantage of flexibility and any-time availability, but still has the drawback that training is theoretical and not hands-on, among the wires and pipes.

Mixed reality obviously combines the best of both worlds, providing flexible, and highly engaging access to expertise, but in a real-world setting where trainees put theory into practice. It means organisations can optimise the time of their own experts, with one session having a limitless number of uses by trainees. A whole day of traditional instruction can be condensed into a short session with more impact because of the cognitive benefits of mixed reality and hands-on practice.

It is clear, then, that mixed reality technology is not an offshoot of the gaming industry with little relevance to the realities of industry. It offers multiple benefits, significantly reducing downtime while optimising the deployment of employees with expertise and experience. It can make a major contribution to ESG targets and engage new entrants with training that helps fill the significant skills gaps that many industries face. For all these reasons, mixed reality technology is destined to become an essential tool, delivering a wide range of important benefits, not least in reducing downtime

Adam Clay is director UK and Europe of Kognitiv Spark

For more information:

www.kognitivspark.com

Tel: 07862 600684