{"data":{"news":{"items":[{"title":"Skyjack breaks barriers between operators and machines ","date":"2020-04-03 09:08:40","id":2136,"author":"","blurb":"","blurb_image_uid":"https://dxfpracgmlczp.cloudfront.net/2020/04/1586242496552_20-006-ElevateLive.jpg","blurb_expanded_image_uid":null,"article":"\n\t\n\n\n

Skyjack has launched its new digital product, Elevate Live, which directly links equipment operators to the machines they’re working on. The system provides access to critical machine information such as the machine’s current state of health, pre-use inspection guides, and familiarisation materials through a simple QR code. Putting this information into the operators’ hands gives them more resources and reduces the workload for rental companies.

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“Until now, when operators needed information about the machine’s current state of health, they have limited options,” said David Swan, product manager of technology and innovation at Skyjack. “We’re providing instant access to data for the operator to help them better understand proper battery care, which ultimately saves rental companies money.”

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Providing operators live data on machine health has always been a difficult task due to the complexity of providing login credentials to all the personnel on an often changing job site. Elevate Live provides immediate access to that data for the operator right at the machine and without the burden of password.

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“A machine is on rent as much as 70-80% of the time,” explained Mr Swan. “That means that giving operators the data and information at the machine to properly maintain it is key to rental companies achieving a lower cost of ownership.”

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Elevate Live is available on all Skyjack equipment, whether or not Elevate telematics is installed. If a machine has Elevate telematics installed, the operator will see the machine’s state of health including a simple percentage of battery life, last charge date, and recommended charging action. This information is made available through Elevate’s new battery management system (BMS). On a combustion machine engine faults and daily usage metrics are displayed.

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If a machine does not have Elevate telematics installed, the operator still has access to several features. These consist of: operator manuals (standard paper copies are still on the machine, however a digital copy complete with a search function saves time searching for specific text on site); familiarisation videos (brief visual overviews of the machine); serialised machine information (specific information to the machine including parts manuals and specification sheets); emergency lowering procedures (how-to guide in case the operator or occupant is unable to bring the lift safely to ground level); pre-use checklist (visual guides for pre-use inspection); and Quickstart guide (a symbol-based, non-language specific overview of how to get started and best practices for use).

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Skyjack has included the above materials into Elevate Live as a way to help rental companies and operators meet their obligations under the new ANSI standards.

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Mr Swan asserted that, “Making our support material more readily available to operators increases the probability that they’ll interact with our machines as recommended, thus supporting our safety initiatives, and our customers’ cost of ownership goals.”

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This technology promotes improved battery behaviour and provides operators with the power to make even more informed and safe decisions on job sites. Elevate Live breaks the barriers for operator engagement as there’s no app to download, no username or password to enter, and goes well beyond Skyjack’s website.

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Bentley Systems recently presented its new digital cities initiatives, applying digital twins technology for more efficient city and regional operations as well as for more connected and resilient infrastructure. Digital twins converge assets’ 4D-surveyed and engineering representations to enable new collaborative digital workflows to serving planners and engineers in public works, utilities, property management and development, and city stakeholders.

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Digital twin cloud services provide an intuitive and immersive 4D environment, converging digital context and digital components with digital chronology for ‘evergreen’ infrastructure digital twins over asset lifecycles. For infrastructure professionals, BIM and GIS are effectively advanced through 4D digital twins.

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“Bentley Systems’ major technical thrust is the advancement of digital twins across infrastructure domains. This finally opens up for owners their previously ‘dark’ engineering technologies and data (ET), for federation with traditional information technology (IT) and newly connected operating technologies (OT),” said Greg Bentley, CEO of Bentley Systems.

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“Correspondingly, because the opportunities for benefits are so compelling, our major organisational initiative is our new digital cities product advancement group. Our digital cities group’s charter is both to ramp infrastructure engineering digital twins to full city scale, and at the same time to help with going digital through entry points for any engineering department in any municipality.”

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“At Bentley Systems we have long and rich histories in respectively geospatial technology (GIS), and in BIM, for municipal infrastructure applications spanning capex and opex,” said Robert Mankowski, Bentley’s vice president for digital cities. “With our new cloud-based iTwin Services bringing this all together, city and campus digital twins now offer an immediate opportunity to help cities and regions solve a wide range of challenges and problems, enhancing their infrastructure performance and their constituents’ quality of life.”

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Infrastructure digital twins

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City-scale digital twins begin and are updated through 4D surveying and reality modelling by ContextCapture and Orbit GT to derive as-operated 3D models from photogrammetry (including from UAVs) and/or point clouds.

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Reality modelling provides engineering-precise, real-world context to support planning, design, construction, and operations. Users of Bentley’s open applications (OpenBuildings, OpenSite, OpenRoads, OpenRail, OpenUtilities) can leverage this digital context to model new and improved buildings, roads, transit systems, tunnels, bridges, utilities, and more.

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4D digital twins become a common and federating index for previously siloed information, without requiring source systems to change their existing environments or data formats. The foundation context for any digital twin includes reality meshes, terrain models, imagery, and GIS sources. Engineering models (from any BIM software) of buildings, streets, transit systems, utilities, and other city infrastructure, both surface and subsurface, are semantically aligned and geo-referenced to enhance the richness and relevance of digital twins over time.

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Public works departments, property developers, utilities, transportation agencies, and others now have access to a full and current contextual view of the built environment. Engineering and architectural firms will be able to develop new services that contemplate updating and managing digital assets over their lifecycles. And, cities will benefit from living and current digital twins of their infrastructure and surrounding environment.

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Now, cities can combine their surface and subsurface surveys and engineering data into cohesive 4D digital twins to ensure over time their asset performance, resiliency, and sustainability. Using Bentley’s open simulation applications during asset lifecycles, for example, as-constructed buildings can be evaluated for seismic resilience (STAAD), the evacuation of vehicles and people in stations, stadiums, and other public places can be assessed and optimised (Legion and Cube), the impact of flooding events like hurricanes can be determined (OpenFlows Flood), and the suitability of subsurface conditions for urban projects can be ensured (Plaxis, SoilVision).

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OpenGround: geotechnical digital twins

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Bentley’s geotechnical engineering and analysis applications empower subsurface digital twins, critical for assessing and managing risks in infrastructure projects and assets. Subsurface digital twins entail modelling of the underground environment, including the geology, hydrology, chemistry, and engineering properties, made possible by Bentley’s geotechnical offerings (Plaxis, SoilVision, Keynetix and gINT).

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To further enable subsurface digital twins, Bentley has introduced the OpenGround, a new cloud service (available end of 2019) to store, manage, report, and share data about natural ground conditions.

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www.bentley.com

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