Smart Glasses: new eyes ready to catch the future
When in March 2020 corona virus popped-up and contributed to speed-up use of all smart technologies which already existed but weren’t a part of our life yet, VTU Engineering was ready and open to bring what we can call a real revolution. Smart Glasses are one of the opportunity chosen by VTU Engineering to perform Smart Engineering and be closer to his customers.
That’s the case of EPCM project for an important customer in UK. The project was won in January 2020 after basic engineering execution and had the aim of production expansion, that means basically new equipments, civil works and utilities new pipings.
So definitely, not the best scenario to work from remote, but due to travel restrictions also to UK, projects could not be performed as we were used in the past and some new technologies become integrant part of our life. We were in the middle of a revolution where it is not more important where you physically are located, the important is simple to have the right devices and a connection!
From operative point of view, a local construction company has been selected, devices were shipped to the facility and, in this way, local team could have received some practical instructions from civil engineers in Italy during the constructive phase. Even if these technologies were already available on the market, we cannot hidden that we had some doubts at the beginning because of few practical cases existing in industrial sphere and simply because of change resistance from technicians side but also from customer who usually wants people on site. But contrary to our doubts, this situation gave the possibility to save some money of travels, reduce mistakes possibilities, increase reactivity in case of any issue and maintain project deadlines, so it translates with customer happiness.
It’s not truth that people need to stay in the same place for cooperating and this was also the big teaching that Covid-19 explains very well to everybody. In addition to that, remote team has all documents available and ready to use on his laptop and the possibility to make some quick checks in case of necessity, can look at an operation dynamically and, in case of mismatching, can promptly intervene. So this is the real important change: senior experts can virtually visit and review sites without traveling and can monitor multiple sites.
On the other hand, local team feels more confident, can speed up the job and in case of troubles, simply enable the connection by using also only a mobile phone as hot-spot and an expert can connect immediately and assist him. Other applications like Microsoft Teams, Vuforia chalk, Librestream are already supported and add features to HMT-1 Realwear common use.
Finally this is the case to say “when you’re connected, you’re never alone”!
The choice of Realwear Smart-Glasses
By wearing glasses, operator can perform his routine activities hand-free and has the possibility to interact with an engineer who can be in a completed different place! That means dialogue and share an issue for instance: the engineer from office can see what the engineer on the field is watching at or following some instruction steps to perform a particular technical activity or document navigation by sharing an image.
Traditional features can also be performed, like taking a picture which can be added to a testing phase for example or register a video.
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This technology is promising and has so many possibilities to expand his functionalities and use. The Smart Helmet, for example, features multiple 360-degree cameras, WLAN, Bluetooth, GPS, a solid-state memory and an infrared transmitter along with the smart glasses. It displays graphical plant, engineering or operating information directly in the user’s field of vision. Industrial workers are able to view additional maintenance or repair guides, or can get assistance on machinery procedures from a remote expert, as well as receiving early warnings of safety risks. Users have both hands free at all times in order to carry out the manual operations unhindered.
Another possibility is to have some integrations of AI to recognize objects and give more assistance to whom has to perform the activities.
If we speak about pharmaceutical environment, items on GMP like users recognizations and e-signatures in an integrated supervision environment are also topics which start to be common and actual also linked to Smart glasses use.
VTU Engineering has chosen Realwear HMT-1 as smart glass device, because it is powerful, work cable-free and has completely hands-free voice control. That means no scrolling, swiping, or tapping – just simple voice commands. Full shift internal battery with field swappable for continuous use, so no interruptions during performance of important activities.
The glasses are comfortable enough even for an industrial worker to wear on the production line, for example, and in case of field activities you can add some options like helmet and lances. An HMT-1 display appears as a 7″ tablet and can be viewed safely while work is performed.
VTU Engineering and Realwear HMT-1 smart glasses: a video from Rudi Wierer, General Manager di VTU Italia
