Siemens, Microsoft and Prodware join in together on an innovative project
For more than 170 years, innovation and creativity have been at the heart of Siemens’ company culture. We develop innovative solutions that help us in our daily tasks just like the eHighway solution. This solution will revolutionize the Road Freight Transportation Industry. Similar to electric trains, the eHighway truck connects with a pantograph to an overhead contact line and is thereby able to drive independent of its heavy freight large distances fully electric. The eHighway is a very safe, efficient and especially ecological solution.
During the commissioning, before the eHighway operates for the first time, a technician checks the flawless operation of the pantograph. With the Microsoft Hololens we augment reality in order to provide all the relevant information at any required location. Augmented reality allows us to better prepare for the actual usage. The digital model allows components to be viewed in great detail. Safety is also improved by information videos that warn engineers about hazards. The service employee has full access to documents and information and a service screen displays the measures to be implemented. The real-time data transfer simplifies collaboration over even large distances. The engineer and the head office see the same as the colleague on site. At the end of the work the engineer evaluates the job. He uses audio commentary to document the results. In the future, we want to further optimize the documentation process. For example with optical character recognition, OCR. OCR can be used to automatically input serial numbers and rating plates.
Prodware is a reliable and professional partner. They helped us from the beginning to realize our ideas. What we see here is therefore unique. We are proud to demonstrate just how flexible the Microsoft platform is and the diverse range of potential uses made possible by Dynamics 365. When it comes to mixed reality and cloud computing the big question is how we can bring the existing world with the new one both in systems terms and emotionally so users can identify with the solution and declare it suitable for use and practice. The Siemens team and our partner, Prodware, worked together brilliantly and developed an innovative concept for an innovative product.
I am confident we will very soon experience Hololens during commissioning activities in reality. So we combined ecological advantages of the eHighway and proved safety and efficiency even further with augmented reality. The Hololens thereby gives us completely new ways of collaboration but not only, it’s also about information management. Having the working steps digitally configured and processed in Dynamics 365, we can for example, better track the issues that our technicians encounter. This in combination with simple queries and big data analytics enable us to continuously improve in all aspects. After all, you can only be successful for 170 years if you continuously adjust your way of working to new technologies and reinvent yourself time and time again.
