Column - Digital Metal: Support for Trial Operations with Smart Glasses and Remote Monitoring
ヘガネスジャパン
As the COVID-19 pandemic shows no signs of abating, several installations and trial runs of printers have continued. Under normal circumstances, engineers from the printer manufacturer in Sweden would travel to handle these tasks, but this is not possible due to the pandemic. The challenge is how to manage this with only Japanese staff. The problem-solving project adopted "smart glasses" as a support tool. The camera on the smart glasses captures the scene the operator is looking at and transmits it to Sweden. Engineers in Sweden give instructions to the operator through audio and a small monitor installed on-site (as shown in the photo). Although the small monitor set at a close distance was somewhat difficult for me to see due to my presbyopia, I found the smart glasses to be more useful than I expected! That said, various data that cannot be fully captured by the smart glasses alone are necessary for the trial run. The Digital Metal printer is equipped with a function for remote monitoring of the necessary data from Sweden. This remote monitoring function has a mechanism to protect customer data from unauthorized access and is designed to support the operation of the printer. This proved to be helpful even during the trial run, allowing for smooth adjustments.
