Best practice at ENGIE Refrigeration: How AR glasses are opening up new perspectives for industry

‘The use of AR glasses in industry is a strategic decision.’

‘At ENGIE Refrigeration, we are committed to providing our customers with excellence in cooling and heating. In other words, we strive to offer the highest quality, most efficient and most sustainable chillers and heat pumps worldwide. This goes hand in hand with our goal of technological leadership in key market developments. That is why we started looking into Augmented Reality at a very early stage, because AR glasses offer numerous advantages for the industry – and we want to realise this potential for our company and ultimately for our customers. Today, we are the pioneer in this field across the entire refrigeration and heating industry, and we wouldn't be ENGIE Refrigeration if we weren't already working on driving new ideas forward and thus extending our lead. For me, the use of AR glasses in industry is a strategic decision to further strengthen our competitive position.’

Jochen Hornung, CEO ENGIE Refrigeration

‘AR glasses are a game changer in the development of chillers and heat pumps.’

‘When ENGIE Refrigeration we started to look into AR glasses for industrial use several years ago, it quickly became clear to us that the development of chillers and heat pumps would be a key area of application. We have been working with Hololight, a specialist in AR and VR software for industrial companies, from the very beginning and have steadily expanded our cooperation over the past few years. Above all, we have worked together to improve the glasses enormously and adapt them more and more to our specific requirements at ENGIE Refrigeration. It's an investment that pays off, because I now see AR glasses as a game changer in the development of chillers and heat pumps. They support us in the very demanding challenges we face in the development team and greatly simplify interaction between team members. For example, the optimised software with higher performance of the glasses was able to identify suboptimal designs at an early stage during the development of QUANTUM Air using the 1:1 representation, enabling us to improve the prototype directly – and thus bring an even better product to market in less time.’

Jörn Stiegelmeier, CTO ENGIE Refrigeration

‘With AR glasses, we offer our customers an immersive product experience.’

‘AR glasses for industry are not only enjoyable – they have virtually revolutionised our marketing activities at ENGIE Refrigeration. Until a few years ago, as is customary in the industry, we always brought real exhibits to events and trade fairs. That is now a thing of the past, because we made a radical decision to break new ground in marketing and rely exclusively on Augmented Reality for product presentations at events such as Chillventa. What was a bold move at first, has brought a lot of positive feedback: our AR stations continue to be a crowd-puller wherever we use them. This is because they enable our customers to experience our products down to the smallest detail – an important added value, especially for highly complex products such as chillers and heat pumps. By the way: if you would like to experience our products through AR glasses, take a look at our YouTube channel, where you will find current examples in short videos.’

Tatiana Köhler, Director Marketing & Communication at ENGIE Refrigeration

‘The use of AR glasses in industry improves product quality.’

‘At ENGIE Refrigeration, we want only the best for our customers – and that means, first and foremost, excellent product quality. The innovative AR glasses for industry will enable us to further improve the quality of our chillers and heat pumps. How? By completely switching from 2D to 3D quality control, we are optimising our internal processes. In future, we will replace or supplement the drawings in production with models using AR glasses. The special AR glasses for industry, which have been adapted to the needs of ENGIE Refrigeration, will continue to be used for quality checks in line production and for quality checks of incoming goods. This will simplify and speed up processes, thereby having a positive impact on product quality.’

Rüdiger Roth, Head of Thermodynamics & Mechanics at ENGIE Refrigeration

‘With AR glasses, we offer our customers even greater added value.’

‘Thanks to AR glasses for industry, we at ENGIE Refrigeration are “ready for the future” – and of course we want to pass this on to our customers. That's why we are increasingly using our glasses – currently the Microsoft HoloLens 2, which offers many improvements over the previous model – in customer presentations, on-site simulations and in the future in service. This opens up many new possibilities: For example, precise virtual visualisation simplifies the planning of a replacement machine or the complicated installation of a chiller or heat pump in difficult space conditions. This is because AR glasses for industry are designed to position the machine virtually exactly where it is to be placed in the future; this is possible either in BIM (Building Integration Modelling) format or in standard CAD formats. The advantage is obvious: we can check space conditions or collisions in real time, live and on site, and directly resolve any bottlenecks and discuss them with the customer. In this way, we create specific advantages for the respective user, who benefits from better traceability and a high-precision solution.’

Daniel Keller, Director Sales & Business Development at ENGIE Refrigeration