Augmented Reality for Machine Troubleshooting

As part of Schneider Electric’s InnovationTalks, a virtual event held in June 2020, the company featured a tour of its factory in Batam, Indonesia. The factory produces a number of products for Schneider Electric technologies, including controllers, drives, relays, and contactors.

According to Budi Sulistiarto, digital transformation leader at the Batam factory, this facility began its digital transformation process in 2017. In 2019, the factory was recognized by the World Economic Forum as a Lighthouse factory, indicating recognition of its successful application of advanced automation technologies to drive operational and environmental impacts.

 In this video, Sulistiarto shows how workers in the Batam facility use Aveva’s Augmented Operator Advisor, which is used by maintenance workers in the factory to perform equipment troubleshooting by highlighting color-coded points of interest on each piece of equipment. In addition to highlighting areas of focus on each machine, the Augmented Operator Advisor gives workers access to relevant equipment manuals, electrical diagrams, as well as live data from the machine.

Sulistiarto says use of this software enabled the factory to achieve a 17% reduction in maintenance repair times.

According to Schneider Electric, the Batam factory has deployed a range of Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) technologies, including smart sensors, alarm prediction management, site benchmarking, and augmented reality to create an empowered workforce that has visibility into operations, maintenance, and energy use.

Using these technologies, the factory reported a 44% reduction in machine downtime in one year. In addition, the factory’s use of digital planning and scheduling tools to provide an end-to-end view of demand, align partners, and engage workers led to a 40% improvement in on-time delivery.