HoloLens 2 & Remote Assist starting to support field technicians at Ørsted

As the global leader in offshore wind, Ørsted develops, constructs, and operates offshore wind farms around the world. With 1,800 wind turbines installed off the coasts of Europe, the US, and the Asia-Pacific region, the company is contending with a growing fleet and heavy asset operations in remote and challenging locations.

In order to maintain operational efficiency and minimize potential wind turbine downtime while scaling field technicians’ expertise across the global fleet, Ørsted needed to invest in technology that – during the actual service execution – would provide field technicians with the knowledge, skills and resources required to meet the growing demands of issue resolution and maintenance. The company aimed to establish an innovative foundation for the training and upskilling of its growing workforce, allowing for future operations to be more interactive and autonomous.

NNIT’s strategy to help Ørsted involved implementing their Remote Assist Booster Program, guiding Ørsted through envisioning, pilot, technical device deployment, and business realization assessment. Leveraging Microsoft HoloLens 2 and Dynamics 365 Remote Assist app, Ørsted has successfully adopted this innovative technology and is now scaling it across regions. The collaboration has successfully empowered field technicians and technical site support to streamline issue resolution processes.

Learn more about the challenge, strategy, and results of the case below!

The challenge Ørsted was facing
With the fleet growing in geographically remote and difficult-to-access locations, Ørsted field technicians often need timely and even ad-hoc expert guidance that includes a quality visual connection with site support as well as possibilities of on-the-spot testing across multiple systems. This often resulted in the need for multiple asset re-visits for issue resolution, time-consuming travel, and costly downtime of the wind turbines.

The challenge Ørsted was facing was therefore two-fold:
1. Optimize heavy asset operations in geographically remote and difficult-to-access locations
2. Provide field technicians with support and tools that help minimize costly downtime of wind turbines, while ensuring their continued safety

NNIT’s strategy to solve the challenge

The strategy employed by NNIT was to leverage their scalable Remote Assist Booster Program to facilitate the first application of this device to users and swiftly deploy the mixed reality technology, helping Ørsted to attain and substantiate both economic and sustainability benefits within their organization.

This program guided Ørsted through four crucial phases: envisioning, pilot, technical deployment, and business realization assessment. Even before the completion of the pilot, Ørsted successfully derived value from Remote Assist in real-life situations.

Ørsted’s results
With the successful implementation of Actify Smart Building and the integration of real-time data analysis, Implement Consulting Ørsted experienced significant benefits from a single use case, empowered by Microsoft HoloLens 2 and Dynamics 365 Remote Assist with the support of the NNIT Remote Assist Booster Program. In this scenario, what began as a simple cable replacement task turned into an unplanned troubleshooting situation. With remote support, three onshore experts collaborated with the supplier, quickly determining that the cable supplied was wrong, the fault was identified, and new component and cables were ordered. Without HoloLens, the process would have required transporting cables to onshore, potentially adding a day or more to the resolution. However, by leveraging HoloLens Remote assistance, Ørsted efficiently resolved the issue within just two hours. The Booster Program accelerated Ørsted’s understanding of the technology, enabling them to test practical use cases in a short three-month period.

If you have any questions regarding the case, please contact the below

Ørsted Lab
Global Operations
Yuliya Nikiforova, Lead Product Owner
yunik@orsted.com

NNIT
Microsoft Advisory & Technology
Frederik Willumsen, Mixed Reality Offering Lead
frev@nnit.com