Safran Engineering Services supports rollout of augmented and virtual reality
At 7am on Monday morning, Gérard Coumes and Quentin Loizeau from Safran Engineering Services set off for the village of Bidos near Pau in southwest France. Their mission: wrap up the AILAN 4.0 project. During this project, they’ve been providing expertise in augmented reality (AR) to help the teams at Safran Landing Systems digitize final inspection of the nose landing gear for the Airbus A320 family.
- Perspective
- At a glance
- Discovery
The story behind a project
As they arrive at the Safran Landing Systems site in Bidos, Gérard and Quentin explain why they’re here at the final inspection line. “More than three years ago, we formed a team of experts tasked with helping identify cases where we can leverage augmented reality solutions that have been proven within Safran to support the switch to digital,” says Gérard, innovation manager at Safran Engineering Services Toulouse. “Having identified and classified them by type, the objective today is to roll them out at Group companies wherever there’s a need, an interest and a proven return on investment.”
To achieve this, Safran Engineering Services is working closely with Nicolas Lepape, head of AR/VR at corporate level, and with the Diagnostic 4.0 teams. They identify projects that could benefit from AR technologies. The team then takes on the project, defines the need and rolls out the solutions based on industrial-grade AR technology developed by our partner Diota.
There are several stages to this process. “First, we analyze the need and remotely verify the project’s feasibility,” says Thibaud Chong, innovation engineer at Safran Engineering Services. “If it passes this first stage, we contact the operational staff at the site to specify the need and help them draft a definition of requirements. We work locally to prove that the solution makes sense, then roll out a pilot project and deliver training for the teams who’ll be using the technology.”
Augmented reality and data
All these stages have been completed on the AILAN 4.0 project in Bidos. Projects to meet similar needs have already been through the process at Safran Electronics & Defense in Montluçon and Safran Nacelles in Le Havre, France. “In Bidos, the requirement initially covered inspection, assembly and traceability,” says Quentin Loizeau, who’s leading the project. “We watched how the operators work in order to identify the phases that could be digitized. We focused on final inspection, where AR can add real value.” The solution was then created, based on 3D models of the landing gear and digitally incorporating the entire inspection process.
“Using a tablet, the operator superimposes the digital model on the actual equipment, identifies the items to be inspected, checks they comply and enters their status in the tool, with the option to characterize any anomalies.” Not only can operators now work more efficiently, but computerized data entry also allows crosschecking and analysis. “This lets us determine whether an issue is recurrent or not, for example,” adds Quentin Loizeau. “If it is, we go back and work directly on the design.”
As they leave the Bidos site, Gérard and Quentin know they’ve made a positive contribution to Safran’s digital transformation. “It’s a unique opportunity,” they conclude. “Our team is involved in some really exciting projects. We get to visit each company, see all of Safran’s products and ultimately help improve the operational performance of the workshops.”
Using a tablet, the operator superimposes the digital model on the actual equipment, identifies the items to be inspected, checks they comply and enters their status in the tool, with the option to characterize any anomalies.
KEY FIGURES
- 6
members of the AR team at Safran Engineering Services
- 11
cases identified and proven at Safran
- 3
projects rolled out in workshops
- 5
projects in progress
Learn more about "FAIRE" project in this edition
