Sibur will start selling industrial systems with augmented reality (AR) elements, the company told Vedomosti. The product, originally developed by Sibur for its own needs, allows remote control of production processes and the operation of industrial equipment, his representative explained: “This reduces costs by freeing up the working time of employees.”
The AR complex in the interpretation of Sibur’s “daughter”, Sibur digital, consists of so-called augmented reality glasses – a camera and a screen on which information necessary for the employee is displayed, all this is attached to the employee’s helmet so that the screen is in his field of vision …
“Augmented reality glasses in this case are not the usual construction of two lenses in a frame, but a small device fixed on the head or helmet of an employee so that he can see not only the screen, but also the devices with which he works,” explains Sibur digital ”. “Augmented reality is that the display shows the necessary information about the device or a video conference with an expert and colleagues.” The main purpose of the AR complex is to conduct online consultations at production facilities, the company explains.
People in production need to see information about the equipment they work with, observe the technological process, share this information with colleagues connected remotely, and at the same time have free hands, says Georgy Prutkovsky, a representative of Sibur Digital: for example, a diagram of a device or a digital pointer is displayed, so an employee can receive help in solving a particular problem as quickly as possible without interrupting his work. ” This organization of work allows you to reduce the number of business trips and field consultations; equipment inspection can be carried out remotely, based on the image transmitted by the camera, the developers explain.
In 2020, the use of the AR platform allowed Sibur to save more than 20 million rubles, his representative says.
The augmented reality complex works only with the Sibur media platform – a set of equipment and software that allows you to use it in the basic version cost from 2 million rubles, says a company representative. By itself, a set of glasses, a camera and a display costs $ 500-700, says a person familiar with several developers of such gadgets: “These are, in any case, the prices on the world market.”
In addition to the augmented reality complex, the holding will offer its clients its own Internet of Things (IoT) platform, adapted for work in industry, they say in Sibur.
“The demand for solutions of this kind is growing today, since they allow optimizing the costs of providing work at remote industrial facilities,” agrees Yevgeny Abakumov, CIO of Rosatom State Corporation.
Modern solutions in the field of virtual reality make it possible to broadcast a photorealistic image, thus achieving both high efficiency in training and the effect of presence, agrees the managing partner of Leta Capital Alexander Chachava: “The demand for such solutions will grow, in particular, due to the COVID epidemic -19, because the team of engineers will be able to get the necessary information without going to the site and without exposing anyone to the risk of infection. ” All over the world, there is a tendency to create digital twins of various objects on which you can work out emergency situations, consider the possibilities of modernization, etc. – for this, AR technologies are also needed, Chachava notes.
According to a joint study by TMT Consulting and Huawei, the Russian market of virtual reality (VR) and AR in 2020 compared to the year before last grew by 16%, reaching 1.4 billion rubles. According to the forecasts of the authors of the study, by 2025 the AR / VR market in Russia will grow to 7 billion rubles. – primarily due to the introduction of technology in industry.
“AR is one of the most promising segments of the IT market, in the next five years it will develop the fastest in Russia, its annual growth will be 50%,” forecasts Konstantin Ankilov, CEO of TMT Consulting.
The head of the Content-Review project Sergey Polovnikov believes that it will not be easy to find buyers for the Sibur AR-system: “The project has no export potential yet – foreign markets are highly competitive, Epson, Bosch, Siemens offer their AR-developments to their clients. It’s not even about prices – the customers of such solutions trust well-known and trusted suppliers. “
As for the Russian market, the interest of a particular company in AR systems depends on how developed its IT infrastructure is, because without integration with systems for accounting for repair and maintenance requests, planning and logistics, gadgets with cameras and augmented reality glasses are ineffective. Polovnikov points out: “Companies that already have a well-developed infrastructure find it easier to turn to already reputable suppliers. The AR-solution of Sibur can be in demand in state-owned companies and state-owned enterprises, where the issue of import substitution is acute. “
“In general, today the maturity of Russian technological solutions in the field of AR is insufficient, and there is still a lot to be done for domestic developments to find wide application,” Rosatom agrees.
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