Maintenance operations are quite complex. These operations involve many functions and tasks that include repairs, replacement of structural parts and components. Also, include other activities necessary to maintain various equipment. These operations are important to continue to provide ongoing and uninterrupted services. Furthermore, maintenance operations are one of the key points for the progress of the business as a whole. Moreover, at the same time, these operations are quite expensive and usually time-consuming. Businesses constantly face various challenges for equipment maintenance. The many challenges that maintenance has are forcing managers to explore innovative solutions. Exploration of new innovative solutions can facilitate these maintenance processes. One of these solutions is Augmented Reality (AR), a technology that has big potential to improve remote maintenance. This technology is powerfully improving the work on the sites. Also, it is empowering the workforce with plenty of facilities to perform their job.
Augmented Reality technology makes it possible for remote maintenance to bring the right expertise to the site in real-time.
It creates a connection created between the center’s experts and the site workers. Thanks to the collaboration enabled by this technology, the site workers are able to perform maintenance in a short time by eliminating the extra costs that the bringing of experts to the site could have required. AR-based Remote Assistance shows to be quite effective, saving considerable time and reducing extra costs. In most cases, specialists might not be available on-site, which leads to transportation costs and long equipment outages. In addition, the traditional way of reviewing manuals by site workers is not easy. This comes due to the fact that these manuals are difficult to understand. Also, take time to assimilate the information they provide.
What we are seeing day by day is that large-scale AR applications are being implemented to facilitate expert-led assistance. Let’s take a closer look at how Augmented Reality is delivering great benefits to many businesses through remote assistance.
Faster and more effective task execution for remote maintenance
AR-based Remote Assistance enables real-time support for site workers during the performance of their maintenance-related tasks. In this way, it becomes possible to carry out the maintenance process faster but also in a much easier way. With this remote assistance, the center experts through live video streaming and different AR tools offer their expertise. So, we have experts working towards the same goals as the site workers for the same issues. All of this makes it possible to perform the maintenance process more efficiently. Also, significantly increasing the engagement and quality of work by the site workers.
Time savings and extra costs elimination
Thanks to AR-Remote Assistance, it is now possible to replace the traditional way of sending maintenance experts to the site. This process, which still incurs extra costs due to the high cost of travel, has now been significantly facilitated. Through AR tools collaboration the expert from miles away provides instructions for the employees stationed on the site. This provision of proper guidance is carried out without delay eliminating the need to travel.
Safety increasing and human errors reduction
The lack of knowledge that site employees have in most cases leads to fatal errors that cause millions of dollars in damage by disrupting many processes. But now, AR- Remote Assistance prevents all this. The expert of the center through AR annotations makes it possible to warn employees about possible various mistakes and risks while performing their duties. This, in addition to preventing large cost damages that can occur from human error at the same time, increases the safety of workers. They can also implement AR Remote Assistance in smart glasses, which ensures them with the ability to perform their tasks hands-free and in safe positions.
As mentioned above, this technology already facilitates field maintenance processes by reducing maintenance costs and reducing many errors. AR can improve maintenance practices, thus creating an environment of interaction between experts and site workers. Now maintenance thanks to AR technology becomes more and more facilitated without the need to bring technical expertise to the site. We can easily claim that through this technology the right expertise comes in real-time and virtually on the site by changing fundamentally the way of maintenance processes execution.
