The Virtual Engineer

Even before the global COVID-19 pandemic, Uniper considered travel risks, environmental pollution and high costs to have shown the need for a technology to provide the expertise of our engineers remotely. With Microsoft’s HoloLens device, a pair of augmented reality smart glasses, we can offer instant inspection of customers’ physical assets and issue consultation without sending a number of experts to the site. Simultaneously, clients have wider access to our engineers’ knowledge as we can easily involve the whole team into a discussion. The pair of smart glasses allows wearers to integrate digital content into their physical surroundings and themselves being connected to remote colleagues and digital systems around the world.

“By using the HoloLens the customer can be the eyes and the ears of a Uniper technical specialist. The customer has instant support with the same, or potentially even better, quality as the customer gets not only access to the knowledge of our technical specialists but also to a full library of information”, says Dr. Claire Verona, Head of Integrity and Inspection Solutions at Uniper.

“This is a whole new way of working”, says Pete Davies, Head of Digital Engineering Solutions at Uniper. “Our people can deliver world class engineering insights remotely, conveniently and quickly – away from their desks. After work, they return to their families and don’t have to travel so much anymore.” In fact, travelling is one of the most dangerous things our engineers do – the accident rate while they are practicing their work is significantly lower. “We needed to resolve the problems of declining expertise, safety and high costs. With Microsoft’s HoloLens we found a solution”, says Davies. Walkarounds, inspections and maintenance work can be conducted with live data, specialists identify issues remotely and react accordingly. We ship just a device to a site instead of a number of engineers.

Having experienced all the challenges associated with remote working and successfully overcoming them, Uniper can provide everything you need to access our expertise. We provide the hardware, and if required, we can even provide the data connectivity. Thanks to the Trimble Hard Hat/HoloLens integrated solution, the device fulfills all personal protective equipment (PPE) requirements and is comfortable so users can wear it for a long period of time. The result is the reduction of the overall safety risks – when adhering to suitable risk assessments and method statements (RAMS).

“The current environment and COVID-19 situation have shown that a physical presence is neither always possible nor necessary. Now our virtual engineers bring the expertise directly to the people on the site, without the need of traveling”, says Davies. “The project represents the continuation towards increasingly ambitious and rewarding outcomes on Uniper’s roadmap for the use of mixed and augmented reality.”