THINK
DIGITALLY,
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