Orkel expands with RealWear assisted reality devices

Norwegian heavy agricultural machinery manufacturer Orkel is expanding with RealWear assisted reality devices.

RealWear devices reduce costly downtime for farmers around the world, deliver environmental benefits and generate significant cost and time savings by providing instant assistance through assisted reality.

RealWear, a global leader in assisted reality solutions for frontline teams, has announced that Orkel, a Norwegian manufacturer of compactors and other machines for agriculture, industry and waste management, has adopted RealWear wearable devices across all of its operations and its dealer network. Orkel is relying on this equipment to provide real-time customer and product support, eliminating waiting times for in-person visits and preventing costly delays for farmers in the event of a breakdown.

The first 40 devices, purchased through Allegra AS, a RealWear Gold partner, will be assigned to remote after-sales maintenance, servicing and commissioning of Orkel's heavy agricultural machinery products. Orkel's R&D team tested several smart glasses before choosing RealWear's HMT-1® head-mounted displays. According to Orkel, the device's ruggedness, guaranteed safety, noise cancellation and long battery life were decisive factors.

With this innovative solution, Orkel connects its customers with its maintenance technicians, without the need for unnecessary travel. As part of Orkel's after-sales support offering, each customer needing commissioning or technical service receives a kit including the HMT-1 headset, an Orkel safety helmet and mounting clips. The customer simply puts on the device and contacts the Orkel technician by voice command; once connected, the technician can immediately see exactly what the customer sees thanks to the head-mounted camera and the easy-to-use VSight software. The technician then solves the problem. The customer can then choose between buying the RealWear device for their own use or returning it to Orkel.

Orkel has been able to solve a number of problems with this solution. For example, its maintenance technicians generally had to travel to the customer's site, resulting in travel costs and environmental costs. Any delay in repairing equipment can also be detrimental to customers' operations.

?Our customers truly appreciate the value of the system because we are able to respond much faster when a problem occurs. Too often, our maintenance technicians had to travel for what turned out to be a quick repair. Now, with RealWear, we save time, reduce our CO2 emissions and, above all, our customers' machines are up and running faster. This is essential, especially during the harvest season,? says Svein Erik Syrstad, technician at Orkel.

Based in Fannrem, Norway, the Orkel group is a recognized supplier of compactors, round balers and transport equipment. Present in more than 50 countries worldwide, its largest market is currently mainland China. As the agriculture and livestock sectors are heavily dependent on the harvest period, Orkel's customers need maximum machine availability, especially in peak season.

On the device, Orkel uses VSight Remote, the augmented reality-powered collaboration and remote service platform from its partner RealWear, which enables manufacturing companies to carry out remote maintenance operations using augmented reality. The Orkel machine telemetry system ensures that details about various aspects of the machine's operation are securely sent to the cloud. Orkel's maintenance technicians are thus able to read the data and guide their customers to the next step of the procedure. Thanks to this information, Orkel pinpoints the specific error more efficiently, then guides the operator remotely to the resolution.

?We love this technology because, as an R&D engineer, I can observe the work being carried out,? explains Magnus Nordås Lervik, project engineer at Orkel. ?I quickly discover better ways to design future machines by seeing common problems with my own eyes and how to solve them. With this technology, our R&D team anticipates how we might design products in the future, from the operator's point of view.?

?Orkel and its customers have gained a number of benefits since deploying RealWear technology with VSight and Microsoft Teams,? says Jon Arnold, Vice President of RealWear Inc. EMEA region. ?Across the agricultural sector, machine downtime affects productivity and efficiency, especially with harvest periods getting ever shorter. Remote assistance with RealWear is changing the game for the agricultural industry when every second counts.?