Building Remote Field Support Solution
Tools used for development of your solution can make it effective
It is more than a decade that we have started work in collaboration solution development. Many of our customers come to us with requirement of building remote field support solutions for different use cases for multiple industries. Remote field support solution requires right skills as there are multiple perspective to see the problems. Choosing right tools and components are integral part of the solution. Here are some important aspects to consider:
1. Right strategy to identify main problem: There cannot be single strategy for remote field support solution for the remote assistance. This solution should provide right tools to subject matter experts as they are helping remotely and give easy access for the field users. Both field and remote user can have different requirements like multiple cameras from the field or multiple views for remote user to see various data. Specially, if this solution is for industries then solution should have multiple views for remote user to see control panels and camera view.
2. Media Server/Tools: Choosing right collaboration tools or servers is crucial for building any Remote Field Support Solution. Media server can be handy as how user will communicate and collaborate on the system. Simple audio and video call is the easiest way to start but this can grow to taking images of the scenario and sharing remote screen. These all functionalities will be available with any media server. An essential perspective comes when user needs to record a live scenario and do collaboration on top of that live video. Most of the media tools do not provide such recording and play back easily. Building such features can help a lot for diagnosing a problem. As these problems are not identifiable by just looking at the picture and it also requires certain steps to reproduce the problem.
3. Devices and communication layer: Various solutions consider just single camera on the field. There can be a need of supporting multiple cameras or other devices in remote assistance. A good communication layer for application is needed as it can be important to view multiple data points. Communication framework should support ease of transferring data, annotations and sharing files. Solution should have mechanism to collect data from the various devices. These devices can be on Wi-Fi, Bluetooth or wired channels like Ethernet or serials cable.
4. Augmented Reality (AR): With augmented reality (AR) in the solution, system can illustrate operational methodology or processes. This can boost technicians/field workers capabilities and efficiency. Digital Twin can also help in simulating the environment of the field.
5. Data collection and analysis: Solution should be provisioned to collect right data and perform analysis on top of them. It should be equipped with interfaces for integrations with other systems.
6. AI enabled problem solving: With the use of AI, solution can be trained to analyse video and data. You can utilise right machine learning (ML) tools that work on the acquired data and provision in identifying problems and suggest various solutions to remote and field person. This data can be utilised in training model for providing guidance in maintaining overall system and helping remote experts for saving their time.
7. Security: It is essential to implement security measures to protect sensitive information and data. If solution is using special glass devices / camera devices then it should also consider security of user from visibility perspective.
In summary, building a remote field support solution requires careful planning, selection of the right tools, and effective communication and collaboration.