Couto Industrial — Immersive digital twin
About Couto Industrial
Founded in November 2001 by Rafael Couto on the basis of his long and successful experience in the sector and thanks to the trust placed in him by his customers, Couto Industrial has become a large family company in which two generations coexist.
The company’s activity is framed within the surface treatment and finishing industry, specialising initially in the design, manufacture and supply of a complete range of industrial blasting and painting equipment, as well as in the development of solutions for dehumidification, dust suction and abrasive suction during the blasting and painting processes. The company has specialised in the renewable energy sector.
Couto Industrial currently has several clearly differentiated lines of activity: Manufacture of its own equipment under registered trademarks: Racohi® blasting equipment, design and implementation of blasting and industrial painting booths, both for high productions in the renewable energy sector to medium and small productions in metal workshops, official distribution of airless painting equipment and marketing of all types of components, accessories, personal protective equipment: GVS/RPB.
What issues are being addressed or improved?
The need to follow in detail the production process in a blasting cabin in the manufacture of wind towers. The aim is to facilitate the specialisation of workers, their training, technical knowledge and remote monitoring of wind tower abrasive blasting production plants.
What digital technology is used to address the problem?
Through the use of an immersive digital twin (DT) with advanced real-time visualisation of critical industrial systems. Under the title “Media”, the project was developed by Couto Industrial, thanks to the collaboration of CTIC (Fundación Centro Tecnológico de la Información y la Comunicación) and the company Windar Renovables, with the support of the SEKUENS Agency.
This virtual reality simulation allows the entire process to be monitored through sensors, which favours the inspection and monitoring of the temperature and humidity of the installation.
The digitalisation of industrial processes has brought to light, among other aspects, the growing importance of the generation and use of in-house generated data.
This aspect has been boosted by the significant rise of the Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm, making it possible to sensor production lines, carrying out simulations or predictions that enable design and operations decisions to be made or aimed at a predictive maintenance model that maximises the continuous operability of equipment, among many other issues.
The generation of these volumes of information has also allowed other technologies to take off, such as that known as the Digital Twin (DT), which is based to a large extent on feedback from the information generated by the different sensors, ranging from the monitoring of a specific asset to a complete production line.
What results are achieved and what impact does it have?
This digital twin marks an important technological differentiation of Couto Industrial from its competitors. For several reasons, starting with the improvement of production processes, thanks to continuous real-time monitoring and simulation of parts of the process.
Also for the possibility of exploiting this virtual environment in the field of personnel training, which favours the efficiency of human and material resources, as it allows the recovery of abrasive blasting material for reuse by simulating the movements of machinery collection on the ground in the virtual environment and speeds up or favours decision-making.
The “Media” project had the fundamental objective of investigating technologies related to digital twin and immersive presentations as a means of advanced visualisation of critical industrial processes or systems in real time.
Therefore, this represents an advance in scientific technological knowledge in terms of the application of emerging Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques in the simulation, virtualisation and advanced immersive visualisation of critical processes and systems in a sector of great historical relevance and transcendence for the region, such as the industrial sector.
For the validation of this research, a pilot system was defined on a surface treatment and finishing facility that allows its remote monitoring and visualisation in an immersive way through its digital twin.
