Taking another big step towards fertilizer industry digitalization, Stamicarbon tested the use of mixed reality technology for the remote commissioning of an N/C Meter in a urea plant.

During the test, N/C Meter specialists from SPIE Nederland gave the commissioning instructions to a Stamicarbon Process Engineer wearing the Microsoft HoloLens in the plant via a Microsoft Teams call. By having direct communication, where every participant could follow the engineer's view, the remote team received a good overview of what was happening on the plant site.

"Although this field test was initially aimed at the remote commissioning of the N/C Meter, it was expanded with the remote training on the N/C Meter," said Leo Rams, Business Development Manager at Stamicarbon. "The theoretical part of the training using a PowerPoint presentation was directly followed by "hands-on" training on the N/C Meter in the plant using the Microsoft HoloLens. All operator actions in the real plant could be followed live via the Microsoft Teams call, which allowed to give the training to more than 30 participants during the COVID-19 pandemic." 

Future remote services 

Mixed Reality gives companies an entirely new set of opportunities for smarter, faster and more effective collaboration. It allows both parties in a live session to share documents, point at objects, draw, create arrows, annotate, capture snapshots, record videos, and work with small details even in harsh plant and weather conditions, thanks to good image quality. 

The success of this remote commissioning opens the possibilities to use Microsoft HoloLens for other remote services like equipment inspections, logistics, expediting and training, reducing or even eliminating the need for travel and thus lowering costs. 

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