Elly Yates-Roberts |
Howden has launched its new digital solution – Virtual Expert – to deliver better, remote service experiences and enable collaboration between customers and product experts via augmented reality (AR).
Howden Virtual Expert expands the firm’s remote assistance services, building on PTC’s Vuforia Chalk software to connect customers and Howden experts. The service enables Howden to respond faster to queries, reduce maintenance costs and lower environmental impact by limiting travel.
Using Howden Virtual Expert enables engineers to evaluate issues remotely, which can avoid the need to physically visit a location or can ensure technicians are fully prepared to resolve the issue before arriving on-site. Another key application is troubleshooting maintenance tasks and guiding customers to resolve minor problems themselves. In addition, if a field service engineer encounters something unusual on-site, they can easily get in touch with a product expert to get the most accurate information to allow them to complete the job.
As an early adopter of HoloLens AR headsets, Howden has been pioneering industrial AR since 2018. Developing AR training tools allowed the firm to continue to train global engineering and field service teams and resolve customer problems during the Covid-19 pandemic, despite travel being impossible.