Maintenance

This use case pertains to use of AR-assisted systems to diagnose issues and, once issues identified, provide digital assets and visual instructions to the user when performing repair and maintenance tasks. There is some overlap with inspection, remote assistance and complex assembly use cases.

Prior to AR Adoption

Maintenance is defined as having one or more of the following characteristics:

• Involves performing tasks on a physical object or system after it has been put in place and is in use. The tasks could include repairing a part or system which has failed (broken down)
• Involves performance of steps or replacement of specific parts as quickly as possible and in the right order
• May be performed on products and/or systems that were put in the field prior to there being digital manuals and on which the user may not have been trained in advance
• Components or tools may be examined and their conformance to manufacturer or company criteria confirmed (an inspection use case) by the user
• Requires parts that are not located at the site of maintenance (hence, the user must follow procedures to obtain)
• May require removal and disposal of damaged or worn parts

In advance of performing maintenance procedures, a technician typically receives training or certification in order to become familiar with the required parts, tools, procedures and specifications which the final product must meet. Corporate or industry policies may require that some procedures be practiced and performed a minimum number of times on sample materials prior to the technician being permitted to maintain a product or system. Maintenance may be planned or performed when other upgrades or repairs are being done. The technician frequently must go to the location where a piece of machinery or equipment is to be maintained. It may not be possible for the technician to bring all documentation, all tools or all replacement parts. Once on site, the technician may connect a diagnostic tool or portable computer to the system to be maintained and run tests. Test results identify which parts need to be replaced or serviced. The technician may need to contact a remote expert by telephone or wait for the expert to arrive to the site to provide assistance.

Business Challenges AR Introduction Addresses

Maintenance is usually performed without removing a piece of equipment from the field or setting in which it is being used. A technician travels to the equipment to be maintained and frequently, during maintenance, the system is not operational (down time). Companies allocate time for maintenance and it must be lower than the down time of having the machine or system break down unexpectedly or entirely replaced. Without Augmented Reality support, some maintenance procedures are provided to the technician in a printed document (e.g., a manual with text and figures) or on a screen that is provided for the purpose of illustrating (sometimes using animations) as well as documenting when steps are performed by the technician. In either electronic or print formats, the technician must focus attention on the task and parts as well as the source of step-by-step instructions. The machines being maintained may also need to be disconnected from an operational control system that records salient aspects of its usage, or connected to a diagnostic instrument. If a machine is connected to an energy source, or to other machines, there may be special procedures to follow for safety. A configuration stage may be necessary to establish the connection between the machine to be maintained and local or remote tools and software. Training technicians to safely and quickly connect to, download diagnostics from and do maintenance on all machines they may encounter in the field can be time consuming, reducing the overall productivity of the technician. It also restricts the employees that can perform a task (the flexibility of the workforce is lower). When the trained maintenance technician is unavailable, productivity is reduced (down time may be higher).

Use Case with AR

When a technician receives a maintenance work order using an AR-enabled system and display device that is connected to the operational systems and the documentation for the work order, a complete step-by-step maintenance procedures can be provided in real time and digitally registered with the technician’s workspace. The type of AR display used by the technician depends on many factors:

• Need for technician to use both hands
• Room in the vicinity where the procedures are performed for another screen pointed directly at the work space
• Support for introducing new display devices (e.g., wearable AR, projection AR)

Maintenance tasks conducted by a technician with an AR-enabled system reduces the need for the technician to change their focus of attention between the task itself and the documentation (e.g., a manual on screen or printed). The first and every subsequent step in the maintenance process is either automatically detected by the system or manually selected by the technician. At each step in a maintenance use case, text from documentation (and/or a symbol representing a process) is spatially registered (overlaid) with the part where or on which the user must perform the current task. When a diagnosis or maintenance procedure is completed, the system automatically detects its status and sends a message to the management system or the technician can confirm completion through voice, gesture or another interaction with the AR system. Another capability that an AR-enabled system for maintenance can support is access to remote experts who can see what the technician sees. Using AR the remote expert can tell the technician how to detach, remove and replace parts. The remote expert may also use tools to point the technician’s attention to special features and to give visual directions.

Common roles of Users

• Technicians
• Operations managers
• Inspectors

Business Benefits:

The benefits of AR-enhanced maintenance can be measured as reduced down time to complete the procedures with lower (or no) errors. Also the technician’s cognitive load would be reduced as a result of not needing to look away from the work space to the documentation, remember the documentation when focusing on the parts and work space. In addition, there can be benefits due to lower training time and higher overall productivity of technicians, even if they have not been trained on the specific assembly tasks. Finally, if the technician is unable to complete the maintenance and needs an expert, the remote expert can be called from the AR display and avoid unnecessary travel to the site to complete the maintenance task.