How Modern Remote Services Can Help You Stay Productive

The past 18 months has seen an enormous acceleration in the adoption of remote services, commonly through the use of IoT, AR and remote collaboration technologies. While some capabilities had already been in place across many manufacturing environments prior to the pandemic, such as the remote monitoring of equipment, the unforeseen restrictions brought greater urgency for connected operations and provided the necessary push to embrace modern solutions.

In effect, the pandemic has served as the ideal pilot programme for remote services, highlighting the varied use cases and providing evidence that they work in real-life situations. Due to the barriers still in place, such as the number of people allowed on site or onto the shop floor, finding ways to maintain productivity is crucial, meaning collaboration through remote technologies offers an effective solution.

While companies are seeing productivity gains from using digital technologies to optimise current working conditions, the priority now is to find advantages for using remote services as a driver for lasting change, not just as a stopgap until normality returns.

• Operators can access machine analytics to assess performance across facilities and locations and anticipate any potential issues.
• Training can be made virtual, interactive, and easily accessible across the organisation.
• Product review and improvement processes can be performed in a virtual space with the use of 3D engines and avatars.
• Physical prototypes are no longer needed as digital ones create the same results, only quicker and more iteratively.
• Simulations let senior management see how a production line will look and function, and even run tests on it before physicals machines are installed.

These use cases help in translating conventionally manually intensive processes into the digital realm. When moved into cyberspace, these important tasks can be handled in a more seamless, widely accessible way, pooling skills and resources from across plants and even extending out to non-plant locations.

Tackling the Generational Shift

Remote services aren’t just about staying productive now, they enable manufacturers to make continued productivity gains in the future through helping tackle the current skills gap impacting the industry. The sector is currently experiencing a generational shift as skilled engineers are retiring, taking with them a wealth of knowledge that could be imparted to the next generation of workers. Remote services allow these skills to be recorded using tools such as Expert Capture, and then made available on a company-wide scale for years to come.

At the other end of the generational scale, embracing remote technology also helps cater to the younger generation’s preferred way of working. As a more digitally native cohort enters the sector, manufacturing leaders are looking at how they can adapt the environment to fit their skills, preferences and habits. By using digital services as the standard, leaders can modify processes to incorporate digital and remote capabilities that help to get the most out of these workers and make the environment attractive to new talent.