IoT, Tech
A/R, augmented reality, iot, MassTLC, NewCo

PTC Demos Practical Uses of A/R

Boston is well known for its champion sports teams, ‘no R’ accent, and over a hundred different colleges and universities. As one of the oldest American cities, old becomes new again as Boston is quickly becoming known as a hub for technology and innovation.

In fact, Boston beat out Silicon Valley and was ranked No. 1 among the top 25 startup hubs in the country by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation last year. Forbes also reported that “Boston is booming,” following its Under 30 Summit last fall.

With a spotlight being shown on the city, it comes as no surprise then that Boston is one of the host cities for NewCo festivals. Since 2012, the NewCo “inside out” model gives participants access to a city’s most inspiring companies. Participants choose which organizations they want to explore, and then visit the company’s headquarters, experiencing firsthand how they are transforming their industries. NewCo hosts these events worldwide, with upcoming festivals in London, Mexico City, Austin, and more. NewCo festivals have already brought over 30,000 attendees into the offices of 1,500 innovative organizations.

This year’s festival in Boston on April 4-6th featured host companies such as AT&T, Cengage, Harvard Business School, Wayfair, and many more. The festival was presented by MassTLC, an association dedicated to accelerating growth and innovation in the Massachusetts technology industry.

“Massachusetts boasts a vibrant, innovative economy made up of creative people and companies like PTC. These individuals and organizations are leading the way in areas like IoT, security, big data, manufacturing, and services and much more,” said Tom Hopcroft, president and CEO, MassTLC. “Combined with our world-class schools and universities, talented workforce and an engaged, supportive community, MassTLC is eager to help showcase the companies that demonstrate why our region is internationally respected as a primary engine of innovation.”

As part of NewCo Boston, participants were able to visit PTC’s Needham headquarters and experience the Internet of Things (IoT) through a series of hands-on demonstrations.

The power of predictive maintenance

Remote monitoring starts any IoT journey, quickly followed by the need to learn something from the data collected. To demonstrate this IoT use case, an industrial Flowserve pump is equipped with seven sensors that send approximately 30,000 data points a second to an edge device.

This wave of data becomes useful when organizations learn what to do with all that information. For example, the Flowserve system provides suggestions and can even launch a service ticket automatically to evaluate the issue remotely or dispatch a tech prepared with the needed parts.

With machine learning and anomaly detection, smart connected products help monitor, predict, and mitigate. Like the pump, which may be used in oil and gas, hydrocarbon and chemical processing, power generation and water resources industries, it’s not just moving product from point A to point B; it’s really about moving money. Remember the old adage time is money, so any unplanned downtime can be crippling in complex manufacturing processes and supply chains.

Making data work for manufacturing

The introduction and sophistication of industrial robots is changing how things are manufactured. With so many systems on the shop floor, bringing together data from disparate technologies can be challenging for companies who need a single, cohesive view of operational performance.

A parts assembly robot was used to simulate a working factory in which the IoT can monitor production, visually detect part quality, predict outcomes, and identify future failures and their potential root causes. Today’s technology enables manufacturers to more easily manage quality and plan accordingly knowing when a system or part is going to fail.

Different data is valuable to different people. Whether you’re a production manager or a maintenance engineer, each person with a stake in the operation of the manufacturing line can see their own role-based view of real-time data. Ultimately this means they get the actionable information they need to do their jobs better.

Augmented reality offers new perspective

They say seeing is believing, and never has that been more true than with augmented reality (AR). While AR has gained public acceptance thanks to crazes like Pokémon Go, it is still often seen more as fantasy than reality among enterprises. Check out this blog to learn more about AR and the enterprise.

To bring AR to life, NewCo participants wore Microsoft HoloLens to experience a powerful visualization augmented over a Caterpillar generator. Whether to rebuild after a disaster, power maintenance projects, or produce energy for seasonal peak loads, Cat® Rental offers generator sets that are engineered for easy transporting and fast installation.

To make the rental process that much easier, AR enables detailed examination of different product configurations for sales and marketing and a simplified visual demonstration of service and operational procedures for language-free training and use. Additionally, AR can be used for cost-effective design reviews using full-scale, highly accurate 3D geometry before the product has even gone to prototype.

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