PG Connect: a new frontier for Field Service Management

Engineering Innovation in

Digital Industry

                        
                                                                            PG Connect: a new frontier for Field Service Management

Client

Prysmian Group

Portfolio

Digital Industry

Region

Milan, Italy

PG Connect was designed and built by Prysmian with Engineering. It transforms the execution of on-field activities by exploiting Advanced Collaboration capabilities and Augmented Reality (AR) technologies for both field operators and clients, ensuring efficiency, sustainability and safety

Challenge

To enable remote collaboration between field operators and clients, limiting travel and evolving Field Service Management

Solution

A new platform, based on our SPACE1 solution, providing a combination of cutting-edge hardware and software components

Results

Enabling technology transfer, remote testing and ensuring on-field operators’ safety

Challenge

Innovation enables business

“Being in a leadership position also means leading the market, directing its decisions and choices. If we want to maintain this leadership through time, then innovating becomes crucial”.
Stefano Brandinali joined Prysmian Group in November 2015 as Chief Information Officer: he subsequently also became Chief Digital Officer, leading the Digital Innovation department for the past two years.

“Prysmian – explains Brandinali - is the world leader in the production of power and data transmission cables. In our market sector, Digital Transformation means combining our physical products with a new digital "layer", possibly an intelligent and predictive one, enhancing our offering portfolio with solutions enabled by new technologies”.
Thanks to their approach to innovation, Prysmian Group (29,000 employees in 50 countries and 106 production plants) currently serves its customers through advanced solutions, towards strategic objectives in the world of energy transition, digitalization and sustainability.

Solution

PG Connect: Augmented Reality (AR) for Field Service Management

With PG Connect, Prysmian Group adopts a solution that meets the needs of its stakeholders, providing them with an innovative and sustainable solution, especially relevant today, as Covid-19 is limiting travel, revolutionizing Field Service Management. Carlotta Dainese, Head of Prysmian Group's Digital Innovation Lab, describes PG Connect as: “a new digital ecosystem that enables both operators and clients to live the same experience, simultaneously, even if hundreds of miles apart”.

PG Connect is a digital platform stemming from the harmonic combination of two parts: the hardware part that allows to remotely connect field operators and customers, and software based on SPACE1 solution developed by our partner OverIT.
Combining Augmented Reality capabilities provided by SPACE1 and a RealWear Head Mounted tablet, the on-field operator (Prysmian Presenter) shares his perspective with colleagues or customers remotely connected (Guest) and shows, real-time, the execution of the activities (e.g. factory tests).

As explained by Carlotta Dainese: “PG Connect completely changes the way we work. It brings many benefits in terms of efficiency, as it accelerates technological transfer, and sustainability, because it reduces travelling. Lastly, it increases security, being a hands free device that is activated by voice commands”.
PG Connect - explains Stefano Brandinali - well represents the objectives that we at Prysmian set for our digital products: to solve specific situations and to then become useful ecosystems for the whole organization".
For Engineering, PG Connect represented the opportunity to create a cutting-edge solution, co-designing it with the Client, as this is essential to clearly understand their needs and objectives.

“We chose Engineering as a partner, not only for their specific and vertical skills, but also for Engineering’s capability to listen, their demonstrated ability to work within a volatile context, where initial conditions continuously vary. These characteristics allow us to manage a project that is not limited to a single product, but that brings to a long-term partnership, proving that Engineering is a perfect fit with our corporate values, which are drive, trust and simplicity”.

Stefano Brandinali

Group CDO & Group CIO – Prysmian Group

Results

Possibility to carry out remote acceptance tests

More safety for operators in the field

Ease of transmission of the technology transfer

Travel reduction and environmental sustainability

Project value

Enabling Technologies

AR-MR-VR

Engineering proprietary products & other technologies

SPACE1

Digital Industry