Transcript of a discussion on how workers in harsh conditions are gaining ease in accessing and interacting with the best intelligence thanks to cloud-enabled, hands-free, voice-activated, and multimedia wearable computers.
Listen to the podcast. Find it on iTunes.
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the transcript. Sponsor: Hewlett
Packard Enterprise.
Dana
Gardner: Hello, and welcome to the next edition of the BriefingsDirect Voice
of the Customer podcast series. I’m Dana Gardner,
Principal Analyst at Interarbor
Solutions, your host and moderator for this ongoing discussion on digital
transformation success stories.
 |
| Gardner |
Our next industrial-edge
innovation use-case examines how RealWear, Inc.
and Hewlett
Packard Enterprise (HPE) MyRoom combine to provide
workers in harsh conditions ease in accessing and interacting with the best
intelligence. We’ll now learn how a hands-free, voice-activated, and multimedia
wearable
computer solves the last few feet issue for delivering a business’
best data and visual assets to some of its most critical onsite workers.
Here to describe the new high-water
mark for wearable augmented
collaboration technologies are Jan Josephson,
Sales Director for EMEA at RealWear. Welcome to BriefingsDirect, Jan.
Jan Josephson: Thank
you, very much. I’m happy to be here.
Gardner: We’re
also joined by John “JT”
Thurgood, Director of Sales for UK, Ireland, and Benelux at
RealWear. Welcome, JT.
John “JT” Thurgood: Thank
you, Dana, it’s good to be here.
Gardner: A variety of technologies have come together to create the RealWear solution. Tell us why nowadays a hands-free, wearable computer needs to support multimedia and collaboration solutions to get the job done.
Hands-free help
Thurgood:
Over
time, our industrial workers have moved through a digitization journey as they find
the best ways to maintain and manage equipment in the field. They need a range
of tools and data to do that. So, it could be an engineer wearing personal
protective equipment in the field. He may be up on scaffolding. He typically
needs a big bundle of paperwork, such as visual schematics, and all kinds of authorization
documents. This is typically what an engineer takes into the field. What we are
trying to do is make his life easier.
 |
| Thurgood |
You can imagine it. An
engineer gets to an industrial site, gets permission to be near the equipment,
and has his schematics and drawings he takes into that often-harsh environment.
His hands are full. He’s trying to balance and juggle everything while trying
to work his way through that authorization process prior to actually getting on
and doing the job – of being an engineer or a technician.
We take that need for physical
documentation away from him and put it on an Android device, which is totally
voice-controlled and hands-free. A gyroscope built into the device allows
specific and appropriate access to all of those documents. He can even freeze at
particular points in the document. He can refer to it visually by glancing
down, because the screen is just below eye-line.
The information is available
but not interfering from a safety perspective, and it’s not stopping him from doing
his job. He has that screen access while working with his hands. The speakers
in the unit also help guide him via verbal instructions through whatever the process
may be, and he doesn’t even have to be looking at documentation.
He can follow work orders and
processes. And, if he hits a brick wall -- he gets to a problem where even
after following work processes, going through documentation, and it this still doesn’t
look right -- what does he do? Well, he needs to phone a buddy, right? The way
he does that is the visual
remote guidance (VRG) MyRoom solution from HPE.
He gets the appropriate expert
on the line, and that expert can be thousands of miles away. The expert can see
what’s going on through the 16-megapixel camera on the RealWear device. And he
can talk him through the problem, even in harsh conditions because there are four
noise-canceling microphones on the device. So, the expert can give detailed,
real-time guidance as to how to solve the problem.
You know, Dana, typically that
would take weeks of waiting for an expert to be available. The cost involved in
getting the guy on-site to go and resolve the issue is expensive. Now we are
enabling that end-technician to get any assistance he needs, once he is at the
right place, at the right time.
Gardner: What
was the impetus to create the RealWear HMT-1? Was there a specific use case or
demand that spurred the design?
Military inspiration, enterprise adoption
Thurgood:
Our
chief technology officer (CTO), Dr. Chris Parkinson, was
working in another organization that was focused on manufacturing military-grade
screens. He saw an application opportunity for that in the enterprise environment.
And it now has wide
applicability -- whether it’s in the oil and gas industry, automotive, and construction.
I’ve even had journalists wanting to use this device, like having a mobile
cameraman.
He foresaw a wide range of use-cases,
and so worked with a team -- with our chief executive officer (CEO), Andy Lowery -- to
pull together a device. That design is IP66-rated,
it’s hardened, and it can be used in all weather, from -20C to 50C, to do all
sorts of different jobs.
There was nothing in the marketplace that provides these capabilities. We now have more than 10,000 RealWear devices in the field in all sorts of vertical industries.
The impetus was that there was
nothing in the marketplace that provides these capabilities. People today are
using iPads and tablets to do their jobs, but their hands are full. You can’t
do the rest of the tasks that you may need to do using your hands.
We now have more than 10,000 RealWear
devices in the field in all sorts of industrial areas. I have named a few
verticals, but we’re discovering new verticals day-by-day.
Gardner: Jan,
what were some of the requirements that led you to collaborate with HPE MyRoom
and VRG? Why was that such a good fit?
Josephson: There
are a couple of things HPE does extremely well in this field. In these remote,
expert applications in particular, HPE designed their applications really well from
a user
experience (UX) perspective.
 |
| Josephson |
At the end of the day, we have
users out there and many of them are not necessarily engineers. So the UX side
of an application is very important. You can’t have a lot of things clogging up
your screen and making things too complicated. The interface has to be super simple.
The other thing that is really
important for our customers is the way HPE does compression with their networked
applications. This is essential because many times -- if you are out on an oil
rig or in the middle of nowhere -- you don’t have the luxury of Wi-Fi or a 4G
network. You are in the field.
The HPE solution, due to the
compression, enables very high-quality video even at very-low bandwidth. This is
very important for a lot of our customers. HPE is also taking their platform
and enabling it to operate on-premises. That is becoming important because of security
requirements. Some of the large users want a complete solution inside of their
firewall.
So it’s a very impressive
piece of software, and we’re very happy that we are in this partnership with
HPE MyRoom.
Gardner: In
effect, it’s a cloud application now -- but it can become a hybrid application,
too.
Connected from the core to the edge
Thurgood: What’s
really unique, too, is that HPE has now built-in object recognition within the toolset.
So imagine you’re wearing the RealWear HMT-1, you’re looking at a pump, a gas
filter, or some industrial object. The technology is now able to identify that
object and provide you with the exact work orders and documentation related to
it.
We’re now able to expand out
from the historic use-case of expert remote visual guidance support into doing
so much more. HPE has really pushed the boundaries out on the solution.
Gardner: It’s a
striking example of the newfound power of connecting a core cloud capability
with an edge device, and with full interactivity. Ultimately, this model brings
the power of artificial
intelligence (AI) running on a data center to that edge, and so combines
it with the best of human intelligence and dexterity. It’s the best of all
worlds.
JT, how is this device going
to spur new kinds of edge intelligence?
Thurgood: It’s
another great question because 5G is
now coming to bear as well as Wi-Fi. So, all of a sudden, almost no matter
where you are, you can have devices that are always connected via broadband.
The connectivity will become ubiquitous.
Now, what does that do? It means
never having an offline device. All of the data, all of your Internet
of Things (IoT) analytics and augmented and assisted reality will
all be made available to that remote user.
So, we are looking at the
superhuman versions of engineers and technicians. Historically you had a guy
with paperwork. Now, if he’s always connected, he always has all the right
documentation and is able to act and resolve tasks with all of the power and
the assistance he needs. And it’s always available right now.
So, yes, we are going to see
more intellectual value being moved down to the remote, edge user.
At RealWear, we see ourselves
as a knowledge-transfer company. We want the user of this device to be the
conduit through which you can feed all cloud-analyzed data. As time goes by,
some of the applications will reside in the cloud as well as on the local
device. For higher-order analytics there is a hell of a lot of churning of data
required to provide the best end results. So, that’s our prediction.
Gardner: When you can extend the best intelligence to any expert around the world, it’s very powerful concept.
For those listening to or
reading this podcast, please describe the HMT-1 device. It’s
fairly small and resides within a helmet.
Using your headwear
Thurgood: We
have a horseshoe-shaped device with a screen out in front. Typically, it’s worn
within a hat. Let’s imagine, you have a standard cap on your head. It attaches
to the cap with two clips on the sides. You then have a screen that protrudes
from the front of the device that is held just below your eye-line. The camera
is mounted on the side. It becomes a head-worn tablet computer.
It can be worn in hard hats,
bump caps, normal baseball caps, or just with straps (and no hat). It performs
regardless of the environment you are in -- be that in wind, rain, gales, such
as working out on an offshore oil and gas rig. Or if you are an automotive
technician, working in a noisy garage, it simply complements the protective
equipment you need to use in the field.
Gardner: When
you can bring this level of intelligence and instant access of experts to the
edge, wherever it is, you’re talking about new economics. These type of
industrial use cases can often involve processes where downtime means huge
amounts of money lost. Quickly intercepting a problem and solving it fast can make
a huge difference.
Do you have examples that
provide a sense of the qualitative and quantitative benefits when this is put
to good use?
So, what does that mean? That
means my vehicle is off the road. It means I have to have a replacement vehicle.
And that expert has to come out from head office to spend time traveling to be
on-site to resolve the issue.
What can happen now using the
RealWear device in conjunction with the HPE VRG MyRoom is that the technician contacts
the expert engineer remotely and gets immediate feedback and assistance on
resolving the fault. As you can imagine, the customer experience is vastly
improved based on resolving the issue in minutes – and not hours, days, or even
weeks.
Josephson: It’s
a good example because everyone can relate to a car. Also, nowadays the car manufacturers
are pushing a lot more technology into the cars. They are almost computers on
wheels. When a car has a problem, chances are very slim you will have the skill-set
needed in that local garage.
The whole automotive industry has
a big challenge because they have all of these people in the field who need to
learn a lot. Doing it the traditional way -- of getting them all into a
classroom for six weeks -- just doesn’t cut it. So, it’s now all about
incident-based, real-time learning.
Another benefit is that we can
record everything in MyRoom. So if I have a session that solves a particular
problem, I can take that recording and I have a value of one-to-many rather
than one-to-one. I can begin building up my intellectual property, my FAQs, my better
customer service. A whole range of values are being put in front here.
Gardner: You’re
creating an archive, not just a spot solution. That archive can then be easily
accessible at the right time and any place.
Josephson: Right.
Gardner: For
those listeners wondering whether RealWear and VRG are applicable to their
vertical industry, or their particular problem set, what are couple of key
questions that they might ask themselves?
Shared know-how saves time and money
Thurgood: Do
your technicians and engineers need to use their hands? Do they need to be
hands-free? If so, you need a device like this. It’s voice-controlled, it’s
mounted on your head.
Do they wear personal
protectant equipment (PPE)? Do they have to wear gloves? If so, it’s
really difficult to use a stylus or poke the screen of a tablet. With RealWear,
we provide a totally hands-free, eyes-forward, very safe deployment of knowledge-transfer
technology in the field.
If you need your hands free in
the field, or if you’re working outdoors, up on towers and so on, it’s a good
use of the device.
Josephson: Also,
if your business includes field engineers that travel, do you have many
traveling days where you had to go back because you forgot something, or it
wasn’t the right skill-set on the first trip?
If instead you can always have
someone available via the device to validate what we think is wrong and
actually potentially fix it, I mean, it’s a huge savings. Fewer return or
duplicate trips.
Gardner: I’m
afraid we’ll have to leave it there. We have been exploring how RealWear and
HPE MyRoom combine to provide workers in harsh conditions ease in accessing and
interacting with the best intelligence.
And we have learned how a
hands-free, voice-activated, and multimedia wearable computer is solving the
last few feet issue for delivering a business’ best data and visual assets to
some of its most critical on-site workers.
Please join me in thanking our
guests, Jan Josephson, Sales Director for EMEA at RealWear, and JT, Director of
Sales for UK, Ireland, and Benelux at RealWear, which is based in Vancouver, Washington.
Thurgood:
Anytime, Dana. Thank you, very much.
Gardner: And a big thank you to our audience as well for joining this BriefingsDirect Voice of the Customer digital transformation success story. I’m Dana Gardner, Principal Analyst at Interarbor Solutions, your host for this ongoing series of Hewlett Packard Enterprise-sponsored interviews.
Thanks again for listening.
Please pass this on to your IT community, and do come back next time.
Listen to the podcast. Find it on iTunes.
Download
the transcript. Sponsor: Hewlett
Packard Enterprise.
Transcript
of a discussion on how
workers in harsh conditions are gaining ease in accessing and interacting with
the best intelligence thanks to cloud-enabled, hands-free, voice-activated, and
multimedia wearable computers. Copyright Interarbor Solutions, LLC, 2005-2019.
All rights reserved.
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