SEA Marconi is a market leader in the diagnosis and treatment of insulating oils for industrial transformers, a sector in which it boasts numerous solutions and patents which are applied all over the world. Such operations carry a huge weight of responsibility with their success crucial to the correct functioning of important large-scale plants. The margin of error must be reduced to a minimum.

For the Protocube Reply R&D Department automating Sea Marconi’s management and maintenance processes represented a major challenge: that of developing an Industry 4.0 maintenance service based on the most advanced and reliable 3D technologies currently available.

Designing a complete plant maintenance system is a very complex challenge that requires the same multidisciplinary expertise as those employed in the creation of the integrated Meably System platform, which was presented for the first time at the 2014 edition of My Transfo, one of the leading events in the business.

Meably System is the maintenance platform for industrial plants and systems developed by Protocube Reply.

WHAT IS MEABLY SYSTEM?

Meably is a platform for iOS tablets composed of a series of integrated tools that make it possible to integrate and automate many of the operations involved in management and maintenance processes.

• Management & Utilities – Meably makes the tools and resources that each operator is authorised to use available to them, which they can access through a personalised log-in system. The app has all the necessary tools for programming and managing the tasks they have been assigned.
• Onsite localisation and interactive maps – Meably exploits the tablet GPS to identify the position of the georeferenced plants, which can be accessed easily from any position using the “best route creation” functions. The integrated GPS functions are also very useful in terms of security, constantly identifying the position of the operator.

Meably System makes it possible to implement a platform, whose value added is its 3D multimedia content, on a simple tablet. A “virtual experience” that enables workers to receive all the instructions they need to carry out their work. This kind of approach minimises the margin of error, directly and intuitively guiding the user through each of the steps they have to perform.

• Multimedia instructions in 3D and Augmented Reality– Meably supports 3D images, videos and interactive applications so the operator has all the information they need to manage the various maintenance phases. The Meably “virtual experience” makes even very complex step by step procedures simple and immediate.

Meably System supports augmented reality concepts and technologies that are able to virtually integrate the plant digital maintenance experience.

• Big Data & Analytics – One of the fundamental concepts of Industry 4.0 The Meably System platform is completely digital and connected in real time with the company’s central management system. The two-way exchange of data makes it possible to provide and receive all relevant information on every operation. Thanks to the database it is possible to automatically perform analyses and receive statistics in real time, from which strategically essential information can be gleaned to optimise the entire chain of plant management and maintenance processes.

The Meably System interface is the product of in-depth UI/UX R&D designed to optimise all procedures that can be carried out with the mobile app.

A key aspect in the development of this form of application is the User Interface (UI/UX), the result of detailed analysis and planning in the area of interactive design. The goal of Meably System is to guarantee a user experience in which the attention is not focused on the commands to carry out but on the operations to perform. Using the tool must become a natural and immediate process in as short a time as possible, regardless of the user’s level of training.

Meably System is the product of a user friendly approach resulting in optimised sequences of operations that are always able to predict the least number of steps required to carry out any task. Using the same principle, the application’s graphics project was based on a simple and concise approach in which the meaning of the icons is self-explanatory and does not require any further description.