Featured Shimizu Construction use case
Shimizu Construction Co., Ltd. is a major general construction company founded in 1804. As a pillar of their construction enterprise (construction, civil engineering, overseas construction), they are developing businesses in the four fields of LCV (Life Cycle Valuation) and Frontier, real estate development, engineering.
We spoke to Masakazu Yanagawa of the Civil Engineering Technology Headquarters Innovation Promotion Department (hereinafter abbreviated)
This time, we were able to participate in a remote meeting regarding e construction of Sotetsu / Tokyu direct line, Shin-Yokohama Station, and ask how they are using RICOH Remote Field and what they feel the benefit of using it is.
The reason to choose RICOH Remote Field, 360° hi-def video
Question: Why did you decide to use RICOH Remote Field?
Yanagawa san:
The Civil Engineering Technology Headquarters Innovation Promotion Department, which I am in charge of, is a department that promotes digital transformation in the civil engineering department, and provides new tools and trial support to increase productivity.
From before we had been conducting remote real-life trials. Especially from the last year, with the expansion of the new corona virus, we have received many requests for remote presence from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport & Tourism and local governments.
We had used web conference systems and smartphones up until now, but we would hear "the angle of view is limited" or "I can not see where I want to see", which was a challenge.
Question: What was the decisive factor in choosing RICOH Remote Field after comparing with other companies' services?
Yanagawa san:
Firstly, you can see real-time, 360° 4K video line. It is easy to grasp the overall sense of the site because the viewer can freely move the video around on the developer side. In particular, it is very important to be able to convey the whole sense of construction, especially in civil engineering construction sites.
There are many places where the communication environment is not good, such as in tunnels, dams and bridges. In such places, RICOH Remote Field can remotely control the streaming quality settings of THETA, so you can lower the settings in places where the communication environment is bad, and continue streaming without stopping.
In addition, it is also convenient to use multiple cameras at the same time. If you want to see details, you can stream from wearable cameras and smartphones together at the same time, so you can see all the detail you could see with your own eyes, such as fine scale and letters.
Question: Finally, how do you see your use of RICOH Remote Field in the future?
Yanagawa san:
In the future, I think Remote Field will become the standard in remote presence. In addition, with the development of the 5G communication environment, the era of extending WiFi at low cost will come, even in civil engineering sites. Video transfer speeds will increase, so instead of simple visuals, people can do various things, such as video diagnosis using AI and CIM collaboration.
In addition to promoting the introduction of RICOH Remote Field, we will use its on-site video to discover what other uses it can can be used for in the future.