Industrial-strength video and audio supports troubleshooting by faraway experts

Shutting down an equipment line because the nearest person who can resolve the problem is a day's travel or further away is a costly decision. Tandberg, a visual communications technology supplier, offers a nifty system that creates something of an electronic wormhole to reduce such space-time limitations.

Tandberg's FieldView is a wireless hand-held device that looks much like a 35-mm camera. It combines high-resolution video and two-way VoIP audio link with remote-control features and on-screen annotation capabilities that enable an onsite person to work with a remote expert who can control zoom focusing and “draw” on the viewing screen to deliver directions on how to tackle the problem.

According to John Paul Williams, global marketing manager for the manufacturing and energy industries, “Communication standards have advanced, and networks have become robust to the point that it makes this technology possible today.”

Firewall traversal technology, pioneered by Tandberg, enables connections inside a company's firewall while simultaneously preserving network security. Tandberg put the intellectual property into the public domain, where it became the basis of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) standard known as H.460.18/19.

“This opened up visual communication through networks,” says Williams. “Such communication was previously limited to being between conference rooms. Then it moved to the desktop. FieldView takes it to the next level—putting it on the factory floor, or in the field.”

The FieldView device was developed by the Canadian engineering firm LibreStream. “LibreStream didn't have the organization to bring the product to market, so Tandberg worked out an OEM agreement,” says Williams.

Tandberg likens the power of FieldView to that of the Toyota Production System. With the system that Toyota pioneered, says Williams, “You don't actually build the car faster. What you do is take out the waste,” to compress cycle time, which is the epitome of lean.

FieldView reduces or eliminates what Williams calls “human latency.” Human latency in field service is caused when an expert is required to visually inspect the problem, but his physical presence is subject to the vagaries of travel. FieldView greatly compresses human latency. A beta user of the product—a service department of a large automobile dealership—claims a reduction close to 300 percent in service time.