PTC and Rockwell signed a partnership agreement in 2018, to connect the two companies' PLM and automation solutions into a unified and seamless suite. This has manifested in Rockwell’s FactoryTalk automation platform.
Rockwell Automation has announced an agreement with Edison, a major European electricity company. The deal involves PTC’s augmented reality (AR) software, with licenses and technical support for its Vuforia Expert Capture, which is part of Rockwell’s automation solution, FactoryTalk InnovationSuite.
The background here is that PTC and Rockwell signed an in-depth partnership agreement in 2018, to connect the two companies’ PLM and automation solutions into a unified and seamless suite. Among other outcomes, this goal has manifested in Rockwell’s FactoryTalk automation platform.
It’s easy to see the rationale behind Rockwell collaborating with PTC. As a PLM developer, PTC has been at the technological forefront of connecting sub-PLM areas such as shopfloor-related IIoT solutions (PTC’s ThingWorx platform) and AR (PTC Vuforia) to the PLM and product development side. Together, Rockwell and PTC are among the few players with bundled PLM solutions that can challenge Siemens Digital Industries in terms of connected PLM and factory automation platforms.
In many ways, AR is one of the most interesting technologies in the PLM area. AR addresses product development in a way that has bearing on the entire product life cycle—from the initial concept and design, through the manufacturing process, to use and maintenance in the hands of the end user. The technology has also begun to gain an industrial foothold and is being used more and more today, even if the broad breakthrough is still conspicuous by its absence.
“But the potential is increasingly clear to many,” PTC’s CEO, Jim Heppelmann, says to engineering.com. From just a couple of years ago being almost exclusively about pilots, there are now real implementations where the technology is used as a routine element in the development work, and on the aftermarket side in connection with service and maintenance efforts.
“PTC’s Vuforia is consistently recognized by industry analysts as the leading industrial AR suite,” Heppelmann says. “Moreover, Vuforia has been a growth engine for PTC, with revenue growing more than ten-fold since PTC acquired the core technology from Qualcomm in 2015.”
It is also clear that Vuforia’s AR technology, in slightly different guises, is already benefiting heavy engineering OEMs in different industrial segments.
In this context, the agreement can be regarded as an important commercial step forward for PTC. Edison is one of the major players in its field in Europe. The business covers everything from the procurement, manufacture and sale of electricity and natural gas to a range of services within energy and the environment. The company is at the forefront when it comes to the challenge of the energy transition. Headquartered in Milan, Italy, it employs 5,000 workers and has revenues of $9 billion.
But what exactly is Edison aiming for with the Vuforia solution? And what can you do with AR technology in general?
Aiming to Upskill the Workforce
Like so many others in the energy field today, Edison focuses on renewable energy sources, highly efficient thermal generation, and activities and services related to “green” gas.
The company produces, distributes and sells sustainable electricity to the whole of Europe and also delivers energy services to third parties.
By using Vuforia Expert Capture on the AR side, Edison aims to upskill the workforce, reduce training costs and digitize the day-to-day technical work procedures. How will they accomplish this?
First, let’s briefly look at what AR is and how it has evolved in the PTC environment.
PTC’s Arsenal in IoT and AR
In the years after 2010, PTC’s CEO Jim Heppelmann started the company’s investment in an IoT and IIoT platform with the purchase of ThingWorx. Today, the initially basic ThingWorx platform has been developed into a tool with broad industrial capabilities connected both to PTC’s AR platform Vuforia and to the PLM system Windchill.
These tools tie together the different stages of the product life cycle, from the first requirements specifications, product development and manufacturing to the products in the hands of the end users. Data from the product’s use in the field can not only be fed back to the PLM system for corrections, development and innovation of the functionalities related to how they are actually used, but can also be used for servicing the products when, for example, a spare part needs to be put in the right place.
AR Can Become an Important Piece of the Puzzle in the Life Cycle
The AR solution has the potential to fulfill important functions as a key piece in the product life cycle. This includes providing support and aid in product development, where the engineers can digitally “step into” a 3D model of a product and dynamically, in real time, simulate and study functions.
But that is only one possible example of AR in the product life cycle. Other applications include digital live manuals for how a product should be handled or operated, or using wearable AR glasses to retrieve a 3D model of a product to be built or serviced. For example, a 3D layer in Vuforia that is exposed “in front” of the physical machine can show how a worn part inside a machine may be replaced.
The value potential of AR technology is extremely high, and there are few limitations on how these solutions can provide industrial service using digital twins via a Windchill-connected digital thread with the capability to make every move in a product’s lifecycle traceable.
AR technology has existed for some time now, but in its infancy was limited by the lack of good business models. The core question was: “How can AR technology be used to create financial and technical benefit?”
Today, AR’s development stage and the related business model problems are more or less passé. During the last six to seven years, a series of effective applications have come to market and shown very large profits, both in terms of product development and with maintenance and service applications.
In particular, the latter is—among other things—what makes the Edison collaboration an important milestone.
Cutting-Edge Setups at Edison
Together with Rockwell and with the help of Vuforia’s AR solutions, Edison will develop cutting-edge approaches such as step-by-step instructions, best practices and training materials for employees. With the help of instructions, which are set in context, the operator receives information via devices such as mobile phones, tablets, text documents and AR glasses. This increases the employees’ safety and capacity to properly handle the products and facilities they are supposed to manage—with detailed guidance and sometimes completely free hands.
“With the support of the Rockwell team running Vuforia Expert Capture and a pair of glasses, we were able to record a technical process performed by one of our specialist operators, edit step by step and publish the AR content for new operators to share,” says Cecilia Scaffidi, head of digital demand at Edison, in a comment in Rockwell’s press material around the deal. “The ability to collect, document and deliver technical knowledge in this way will increase the productivity and safety of our facilities to a degree.”
Digital Transformation Journey
Malte Dieckelmann, head of the EMEA region and software at Rockwell, in the same press release notes that by introducing Vuforia Expert Capture, Edison has taken the next step in its digital transformation journey.
“Given that the digital content can be used offline, Edison can also use this software to digitize O&M processes, reduce training costs and improve the safety of the people employed in the renewable resource-based sector, which quite often does not have access to Internet,” he says.
Rockwell’s and PTC’s Joint Package
Finally, it should be noted that in addition to the FactoryTalk Innovation suite, PTC and Rockwell also released an interesting new turnkey cloud solution in 2020 called “Factory Insights as a Service,” which enables manufacturers to go further and scale up their digital initiatives when it comes to automation of their production.
“Factory Insights as a Service” is the second major package PTC and Rockwell have brought to the table after initiating their collaborative efforts in 2018.
The first was the FactoryTalk Innovation Suite pairing Rockwell’s Manufacturing Execution System (MES) solution FactoryTalk with PTC’s PLM solutions. This solution was released shortly after the start of the collaboration. The goal of this package was to create seamless connections between IT/PLM and OT, i.e. Operative Technology (in simple terms: data from the machines on the workshop floor).