Efficient Plant March 2018 - 12

feature | industry views

Smart Deployment Needed
Bob Fei, president and CEO, Life Cycle Engineering,
Charleston, SC, LCE.com

I see enormous potential for VR and AR
(when deployed smartly) to boost human
productivity in key phases of the asset life
cycle. When engineers and technical
resources are more productive, asset productivity will increase, driving improved business
performance, measured in financial metrics such as
return on assets.
A powerful tool when used for engineering, planning, and
design, VR allows virtual walkthroughs of new facilities and

Effective Training
Peter Richmond, business
development director, AVEVA,

production lines, driving early decisions that optimize the overall
design, procure, and build phases of the capital project. Similarly,
maintenance planners can use VR to virtually walk through
their job plans to ensure thorough preparation.
Smart deployment of AR boosts daily productivity of
operators and maintainers. By accessing plans, instructions, drawings, and videos in an AR heads-up display,
valuable time can be saved by having those resources
literally right in front of your eyes. Scanning bar codes can
trigger EAM transactions such as material consumption or
work-order status updates, all while keeping the worker's head up
and hands free, resulting in a safer and more productive work environment. AR can also boost productivity with the worker's ability
to "reach back" to the job planner, reliability engineer, or OEM for
expert over-the-shoulder, real-time coaching.

Product Development
Frank Langro, director Pneumatic Automation,
Festo Corp., Islandia, NY, festo.com

Warrington, UK, aveva.com

We have already seen
augmented/virtual
reality become firmly
embedded within training
activities as a way to better
simulate operational situations.
This change has resulted in improved training effectiveness. Now we see AR/VR playing an important
role in asset management and operator rounds. Repair diagnostics can now be performed with greater
precision and effectiveness by providing real-time
access to support materials and imagery. A wealth of
product and service-manual information is available
for instant access from any location.
Further, the ability to "call a friend" has been added. Technicians encountering an obstacle or a question can readily access subject-matter experts, who
can be summoned through an augmented-reality
interface. These resources can then share what the
operator is seeing and provide real-time assistance,
helping to accelerate repair cycles.

| EFFICIENTPLANTMAG.COM

Whether it's mobile phones, televisions, or car models, companies are bringing new products to the market at
ever-shorter intervals. Product development has to adapt to these short innovation cycles and production facilities have to be adapted or redesigned faster.
Starting up production lines is a time-consuming and expensive process for
plant operators. A virtual startup reduces those costs considerably. The prerequisite for this is that the virtual version match the real installation in every
detail. Such a depiction requires comprehensive modeling of the individual
components installed in the machine. This includes geometric CAD data and
kinematic models.
When all of the geometric, kinematic, and physical models of the individual
parts are combined, the result is a complete virtual depiction with very realistic
properties. That means that it is possible, even at an early stage in the planning,
to work out how high the cycle rates will be during production. Considerations
are then made as to whether this cycle rate is sufficient or the speed has to be
increased.
By carrying out the virtual startup, initial process-sequence optimizations can
be made before constructing the real facility. Even the control software can be
developed alongside this process during the early design stages. This results in
economic benefits because the startup time is reduced. It also increases the level
of safety, as various test cases can be experienced virtually to examine errors in
the motion sequence or the programming and their effects. EP

MARCH 2018

http://www.LCE.com http://www.festo.com http://www.aveva.com http://www.EFFICIENTPLANTMAG.COM

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Efficient Plant March 2018