Collaboration is key -  Librestream’s Expert Augmented Reality Platform

Interview – Sam Scott, Senior Technical Specialist

As the demand for digitalisation continues to grow, one company who are already firmly positioned in the market is Librestream. They have developed an augmented reality service platform, providing expert remote advice. Senior Technical Specialist Sam Scott discusses the benefits of this innovative technology, utilising collaboration to unlock a number of efficiencies in the industry.

Tell us about Librestream’s technology/products?

Our company was founded by a team of engineers who lived the challenge we now solve. Like our customers, this team didn’t have access to the expertise and content they needed to safely inspect, troubleshoot and resolve issues in the field. They spent a good portion of their time travelling to locations or waiting for someone to join them – only to find an answer 15 minutes later.

From this experience, came the Onsight augmented reality service platform. We built the platform to empower workers with immediate access to remote experts, digital work instructions, sensor data, and online content.

The Onsight platform includes a broad range of software capabilities and optional hardware accessories including:

1. Connect, remote expert guidance to collaborate through live video, audio, advanced telestration and images
2. Flow, digital work instructions to step workers through consistent, safe processes
3. Workspace, specialised content system to securely upload, manage and access relevant information in the field.
4. Specialised hardware including the Hub, a collaboration device that connects NDT/RVI inspection devices in the field; the Cube, an industrial wearable with optical and thermal imaging for asset analysis; the Smartcam a rugged camera with measurement and NDT/RVI connectivity options.

What are the key benefits for the Oil & Gas/offshore industry?

Librestream’s AR service platform creates opportunities for our customers in oil & gas to experience a wide range of benefits including:

1. Reduced downtime through remote troubleshooting and collaboration.
2. Accelerate training for new and /or less experienced service technicians.
3. Improved safety, by not having to send specialist to site when they can support existing personnel remotely.
4. Increased customer satisfaction based on speed and accuracy of service.
5. New revenue opportunities by offering more value-added services.
6. Higher employee productivity.
7. Alignment to green initiatives including reduced travel, optimisation of current workflows to reduce environmental impact.

How does this technology incorporate collaboration to improve operations?

Onsight Connect is the core of the solution, which immediately connects teams (experts, peers, third party) via video and audio collaboration for more efficient operations. This solution runs on multiple smart devices including wearables and ex-rated devices and is designed to work in areas with very low connectivity.

Where we are seeing a lot of interest is our wearable solution. Onsight Connect paired with our Onsight Cube industrial wearable enables workers to stream both optical and thermal imagery to teams during the collaboration sessions. Onsight Flow is another way the oil and gas industry is improving operations. Flow transforms paper-based processes to digital work instructions, which improves accuracy and worker safety on the rig.

All content from these sessions can be recorded and saved into Onsight Workspace – the specialized content management system or within their own Knowledge Management Solutions.

What impact can this technology have on training?

Customers use our solution to improve training and remote mentoring. Remote mentoring can save hours when a remote technician needs help or advice from an expert. Training is also expedited, where some of the results we have seen include reduced training time by 35 percent.

With Onsight Connect, users can learn from recorded sessions and images. And Onsight Flow creates a self-directed learning environment for users. Onsight Workspace is a depository of knowledge which organisations have used to train their new employees.

We are seeing a big push in the market to enhance our wearable technology. Field techs can perform tasks hands-free while talking and viewing feedback from remote experts. With built-in augmented reality capabilities, remote experts can draw on top of the live visuals or send snips of manuals to augment the experience for the field workers.

In comparison at other industries experiencing success with this type of technology? What more can the Oil & Gas industry be doing to adopt this on a larger scale?

As all industries continue to evolve organisations are improving operations with digital transformation initiatives. An added pressure on the oil and gas industry which is not as prevalent in our other customer industries (Aviation, Manufacturing, and field service) is its continuous flux. Because of this it is important the industry invests in digital technologies that improve worker efficiencies, reduce safety hazards and retains knowledge. Key results within our other customer industries include:

• Increased customer service
• Quicker training
• Reduced AOG situations
• Accelerate new product lines
• Faster first-time-fix rates
• New premium service offerings.

In order to enable larger deployment, the industry as a whole needs to embrace digital technologies. This means creating a mandate at multiple levels in the industry that prioritises digital transformation implementations.

What are the next steps for Librestream when it comes to this technology?

As we continue to develop digital transformation initiatives, our customers are one of the main resources we use to help effectively expand our vision and solution. Right now, we are focused on data. Data is an incredible resource for organisations. On the importance of IoT data and analytics. We are already seeing customers building out their data depository through tagging data workers collect daily such as pictures of an asset, the reading on a gauge, or a recording of an inspection. With this additional information, you leverage all the relevant data as part of a preventative maintenance program and translate to better KPIs for both you and your customers.