Challenges

Toyota’s production engineering and production staff oversee the installation of new manufacturing lines and the maintenance of existing manufacturing lines and plant buildings around the world. Because this work is typically done by local Toyota personnel and subcontractors, the departments that oversee the operations at these worldwide plants must visit each site to ensure that work is done correctly and safely.

If an issue with plant machinery arises at a site, subcontractors cannot make decisions to resolve the problem on their own due to potentially hazardous conditions. Instead, a Toyota employee must travel to the remote location to review the issue. There are even instances when a higher level manager from Toyota’s headquarters must also visit the site to assess the issue and make the final decision on how to resolve the problem. At times, it is very difficult for an employee to travel to the factory site as construction is usually carried outduring the factory’s off-hours and on holidays.

Because Toyota maintains strict regulations for managing confidential information at all locations, including its headquarters, local sites and plants, it can be difficult for Toyota employees and subcontractors to communicate effectively from a remote distance. “Safety permissions based on on-site confirmation are a very important part of our process,” says Ms. Aya Miyazaki from the Powertrain Production Engineering Planning Department. The use of cameras, devices and software that could lead to an information security breach is strictly prohibited. While these measures are necessary to maintain information security, the inability to freely record information often leads to inefficient processes.

Solution

Ms. Miyazaki and her colleagues found Augmented realiy based Remote assistance from Microsoft Hololens that maintains secure communication and adheres to information restrictions at the same time. Solution is a simple remote assistance tool that connects subject matter experts with workers both inside and outside of their organization via mobile or tablet. It combines live video, audio and the ability for both participants to draw digital annotations on their live shared view for real-time visual collaboration and problem solving.