Cumulus Terminate
Augmented Reality Cable Termination for O&G Construction Projects.
Cumulus Terminate is an app for resource industry construction projects for assisting technicians when terminating cables enabling improved efficiency and quality unlike traditional hardcopy work-packs.
Current best practice for cable termination requires technicians to complete the task assisted by a work-pack comprising complex hardcopy drawings including a wiring diagram and completions check sheet. These drawings are densely populated and it is not uncommon to introduce errors when progressing line by line, wire by wire during termination. Follow-up QC checks have been introduced over time to compensate for this error. On completion of the task, the technician is required to complete a hardcopy check sheet that is subsequently scanned and uploaded into a Completions Management System.
Cumulus Terminate is a digital solution to improve the task of terminating cables. Data is imported directly from the instrumentation design package and job cards allocated eliminating the cost of work-pack creation. The task is work-flowed to the technician’s device, either mobile, tablet, augmented reality headset or smartwatch. The technician is guided throughout the entire termination task with just-in-time instructions for each job step or micro-task which are correspondingly registered as events within the data-log. On completion of the task, no paperwork is required to be filled out, completions data can be work-flowed directly to the project CMS.
Augmented reality alleviates the possibility of error introduced by misreading the drawings; and removes the time lost from the micro-task of refocusing back on the drawing, finding the correct line and refocussing back on the on-the-tools task. This method of delivering just-in-time information has shown to offer 25% productivity improvements and near-zero error rates for similar wire termination tasks within the aerospace industry. Near-zero error rates enable elimination of follow-up QC checks.
Today’s greenfield O&G projects require 320,000+ wire terminations during the construction phase for instrumentation alone2. Even small efficiency improvements will translate to significant time and cost savings throughout the project lifecycle.
The initial efficiency and quality gains are just the beginning. Collected data can be analysed to discover further optimisations. A/B testing can be introduced for rapid side-by-side comparisons of new workflow optimisations.
Note 1: Boeing claim a 25% reduction in build time and near zero error rate when using AR for wiring harness termination on aircraft. Note 2: 320,000 instrument terminations on Prelude FLNG excluding turret and vendor packages.