Case Study – Nippon Gases UK Ltd
When our Senior Service Engineer, Nathan Burley, attended a routine monthly check at Nippon Gases UK Ltd in Teesside, he thought it would be great opportunity to do some training and deploy our new Assisted Reality (aR Technology) headsets for the first time. The visit normally involves Gas Chromatography calibration and checks on instruments which are critical to Nippon’s operations. Using a Realwear Navigator-500 headset and the Maintastic platform, Nathan could take our Junior Service Engineer, Ivan Lesnianski, along for the virtual ride. “In a job where there isn’t much routine, this was a great chance for Ivan to practice the same thing each month and get used to it” said Nathan. But when he arrived at the unmanned instrument cabin, things did not look great. In this case study we show how aR technology reduced downtime for the customer and improved engineer cross-training.
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- Got the customer back up and running the same day
- Avoided a return visit with time-consuming follow-up and costly downtime
- Transferred knowledge from a Senior Field Service Engineer to two other engineers – ensuring they are better prepared in the future
“I opened the door to the cabin and every shutdown alarm in there was screaming. It obviously wasn’t going to be a routine check.”
Nathan quickly determined that the Hydrogen Generator was the root cause of the issue: The generator had run dry and with no water, it was producing no Hydrogen. Starved of Hydrogen carrier gas, the GC’s had also then shutdown. The unusual thing was that there was plenty of water in the external reservoir.
“I found an air lock in the external water line. I removed that and manually refilled the internal tank but the generator wouldn’t reach output pressure.”
– Nathan Burley, Senior Service Engineer
Nathan reached out to Ivan and fellow Senior Service Engineer, David Williams via our AR service software, Maintastic, and brought them up to speed. David had seen something like this before during factory training and thought he knew the solution but he was struggling to articulate what needed to be done.
“Everything was really new at this stage”, said Ivan. “Nathan and I were the only ones who’d tested Maintastic in training. This was the first deployment. Thankfully, it’s so simple to use that I was able to help David, and he helped Nathan.”
– Ivan Lesnianski, Junior Service Engineer
David brought sections of the gas generator’s user manual and fluid schematics up in Nathan’s Navigator-500 view screen. As Nathan disassembled the instrument, David provided live feedback and guidance using the software. The issue was a blockage, located in a gas / liquid separation valve, and once cleaned, the system was back up and running.
“I knew I’d seen this before but there’s no way I would have been able to talk him through it over the phone with confidence. Being able to watch over his shoulder though made it so easy to help”
David Williams, Senior Service Engineer
With the system back up and running Nathan and David liaised with the instrument manufacturer who suspected some algae build-up inside the generator. Because the system was back up and running the same day, no sampling was lost and maintenance to deep clean the generator was scheduled for a time convenient for the customer.
We’re see many opportunities to help customers reduce downtime with these new tools. In addition, this was a great opportunity to improve cross-training too. And this, was the very first time we used Maintastic and the Realwear Navigator-500 in the wild!
