Evaluating Telecollaboration Modalities for the Realization of an Industrial Maintenance Operation in a Constrained Environment

Abstract

The continuous improvement of reactivity and resilience of the maintenance teams is one of many industrial companies’ priorities, especially in the scope of urgent interventions. To save valuable time usually lost travelling, it is possible to mobilize a technician near the defective infrastructure, and an experienced technician to guide him entirely remotely. Teleassistance, or telecollaboration, is a subject whose interest has grown widely in recent years in line with the evolution of digital technologies. Our study brings a new eye towards the current state of the art with an important focus on the industrial aspect of the operation; in terms of constraints but also of tasks to be realized. We present an interface of telecollaboration specially developed for Android tablets in order to evaluate the quality of the communication as well as the performance of an industrial maintenance operation on the operator-assistant format. The raised problematic is related to the methodology for finding the most optimal methods and formats of communication according to the quality of the available Internet network. The results of this study intend to provide relevant information on the use of teleassistance in an industrial environment according to different levels of available Internet speeds, or different work constraints such as noise or the use of safety equipment. Our work proves that it is essential to provide some form of audio communication to the collaborators to ensure the proper execution of the operation; and solutions are presented in the case where it is impossible to do so, depending on the cause, whether it is related to the work environment or connectivity.