It is well known that the oil and gas industries are often the ones that are very resilient in their adaptation to new technologies. Although, this tendency has been changing in recent times.
This is due to a threat from new entrants into the market with clean energy projects, which forced the ‘old guard’ to adapt to new circumstances. Another factor is the huge technological advancements and the advent of the Fourth Industrial Revolution or Industry 4.0, which can no longer be ignored.
This way, the oil and gas industries are getting on board with the latest technology trends and augmented reality (AR) is no exception. AR has the potential to provide improvements in efficiency, decrease operational costs, while at the same time improving safety and sustainability.
According to McKinsey's research, organizations in the oil and gas sector could reduce capital expenditures by up to 20% if they adopt digital technologies, cut operating costs in upstream by 3% to 5% and by about half that in downstream.
The retired chairman Archie W. Duncham, formerly of ConocoPhillips, claimed that: ‘For upstream, midstream, downstream and machinery manufacturers, the risk of digital inaction is greater than the risk of digital failure’. Although, it is important to identify the possibilities that emerging technologies can deliver to the oil and gas industries as well.
For example, augmented reality adds new value via remote assistance. In other words, highly paid engineers are able to control several assets offshore, in real-time from wherever they are in the world. This is made possible with an AR headset, for example, HoloLens.
Another application is the possibility of holding meetings in AR, with several participants that can be on different continents. A real-time meeting in AR gives the opportunity to visualise and review the same AR assets together. These may include 3D models, documents, PDFs, etc. Another important use-case, that can be massively beneficial for the oil and gas industry, is training using AR. It offers a great opportunity to decrease the costs of training and offers even better education, all without the need of a supervisor.
In light of this, our solution here at holo one is specifically designed for enterprises and industries that use heavy machinery, which of course includes the oil and gas industry. We are pioneers in binding together the most requested features in AR in one single platform. Our solution sphere is unique, containing the modules; EXPERT, WORKSPACE and TASK that cover the use-cases of diagnosis of machinery, repair, read real-time data visualisation, maintenance, workflow and augmented collaboration in AR.
