THINK

DIGITALLY,

PRINT

MINIMALLY

05

THE CARMAKER IN THE

PALM OF YOUR HAND

WITH THE IMPROVED ŠKOMAP MOBILE APP, YOU CAN NOW REPORT

PROBLEMS AS WELL

F

or nine years, ŠkoMap has

been helping workers across

all areas. Through company

PCs, it gives them access to schematic plans of buildings with GPS coordinates, general designations of

workplaces (a workshop, office, meeting room etc.) and contacts (name

and phone number) to the manager

of the facility owned or managed by

the carmaker.

The upcoming ŠkoMap 2.0 version will provide users with a lot of

additional features. Thanks to navigation, for example, they will have a

much easier time navigating office

buildings and production facilities,

along with other benefits in the form

of convenient fault reporting and

troubleshooting. It will be primarily

intended for company PCs and smart

devices. After the installation of special software, it will work in so-called

protected mode with other company

applications, even in private mobile

phones.

It was developed by IT specialists

from FIE/4 – HPC, Digital Factory and

Virtual Reality and FIS – Office and

Services Management in cooperation

with NavVis. Test operation took place

in May in buildings C29, C30, V8 and

M2A. “The development and deployment of the original version was preceded by mass mapping of all the

facilities nine years ago, when electronic 2D plans began to be prepared for

all the facilities. Using a hand-held laser rangefinder in Vrchlabí, Kvasiny,

and Mladá Boleslav, the process took

three years, even with the help of temporary workers,” recalls Leoš Červený of FIE/4, who coordinates the development of the new application. His

team now adds scans of and current

data on a number of other buildings

to ŠkoMap 2.0. The scanning of individual plants must not restrict the production process; for that reason, it is

performed only at night and on weekends. Although the scanning team

is moving relatively quickly and can

scan two facilities over a weekend, it

faces a mammoth challenge. The carmaker, including its branch plants,

office space in Prague, and the testing centre in Úhelnice, uses 486 buildings. By the end of 2019, employees

will find at least 22 newly mapped facilities of the main production plant

in the second-generation ŠkoMap.

MIROSLAV NĚMEC

Innovative

features

Electronic fault

reporting

The advent of modern technology,

as well as the growing number of

office and production facilities on the

carmaker premises, has generated

new requirements for additional

functionalities. In particular, it has

concerned more user-friendliness

for mobile phones with Apple and

Android operating systems or easier

facility navigation or touring in the

form of the Indoor view. When

planning a route on a mobile or PC,

ŠkoMap 2.0 will show you all the

facility access zones (you will see

whether you can pass or need to

request access) and will take you to

the selected workplace when you

enter the facility.

However, navigation is not the only

upgraded feature. ŠkoMap 2.0

also allows you to report faults or

incidents instantly, and for facility

managers it displays their exact

location and offers an efficient way

of removing them that is much more

convenient for facility managers and

employees. No more complicated

forms to fill out. If you report a

fault, you only need to select from

three categories, in which about

99 percent of the possible cases are

described in detail. As a result, you

create an incident report in three

clicks, then just indicate the location

– or take a picture of the fault – and

click send. Facility managers or the

particular departments can then deal

with it immediately.

22

FACILITIES WITH PRECISE

NAVIGATION IN THE MAIN

PRODUCTION PLANT BY THE END

OF 2019

486

How not to get

lost without

GPS

Which technology should be

chosen for navigation in facilities

where GPS does not work?

Various variants were considered,

from the so-called invisible

points and Wi-Fi transmitters

to a combination of several

different procedures. In the end,

the NavVis system from the

company of the same name,

proved to be the best one. It

enables navigation based on the

principle of taking three photos

from different angles but from

the same spot. If the facility’s

3D model is known, including

photographic and laser scans,

the aforementioned three

images can be used to determine

the position very accurately

and quickly. In addition, the

technology is also suitable for

planning production lines and

production facility equipment.

FACILITIES IN TOTAL ARE OWNED

OR MANAGED BY THE CARMAKER

Displaying the

facility and the

workplace in

ŠkoMap 2.0 on PC

Fault reporting and

troubleshooting

Scanning

with the

NavVis

robot

Display navigation

on a mobile

16 ŠKODA MOBIL SEPTEMBER 2019