A stage is designed to attract attention, but one of its most fascinating elements is often ignored: the roof.
Surespan, a British manufacturer, worked on some of the largest construction projects in the world, from the Sofi stadium to Los Angeles to the highest building in the world, Burj Khalifa in Dubai.
It manufactures access to the roof and ground access – a small but complete part of the main infrastructure projects.
The installation process is not always easy. Technicians on the ground rely on the knowledge of internal engineers in Suprepan, who are often thousands of kilometers at the company’s headquarters. Security is also a concern because the company manages sensitive information, especially when working on government conceptions.
Previously, based on telephone calls and emails, Suserspan wanted to find a faster way for its employees to collaborate when it has set its company worldwide. He turned to two technological solutions: a new safety model to access installation files and augmented reality headsets to allow real -time communication on remote projects.
While an engineer at Surespan told Business Insider that the construction industry could be traditional and resistant to new technologies, the methods had allowed the company of tens of thousands of dollars.
At the Kielder Observatory in England, the double -leaf roof of Suprepan opens to reveal the sky. Surespan
Build a secure connection
Last year, Surespan created an operational base in Argentina as part of its plan aimed at extending its activities in South America. But it was not a fluid configuration: she experienced what Thomas Davies, the company’s commercial director, described as a “nightmare situation” when the Argentine team could not access critical design files for three days.
He used a virtual private network to manage digital connections.
“VPNs work on an implicit model of trust,” said Spencer, the founder of the Cybersecurity Company Opliciti. “This approach can be compared to give a user the keys to your office building, trusting not to enter the limited areas.”
As Sutupan has developed, its internal VPN has become less reliable and demanded the support of entrepreneurs to settle in new places. The VPN also sent traffic through congested centralized points, which led to slower connections. When the new base opened its doors in Argentina, the company had trouble responding to increased configuration requests, which is why the team on the field had to wait three additional days to access essential digital resources.
Robert Fletcher, Itsip Ilded by Surespan, wanted to find a faster way for users to connect to resources regardless of their physical location. “You must give to everyone, whether at the office, on a distant or travel construction site, reliable access, secure to the company’s resources while juggling different time zones and in different quality of local IT infrastructure,” Fletcher at Bi told.
With the help of Zscaler, a Cloud safety company based in San Jose, California, the company has gone to access to the zero-frust network, a safety model that requires continuous authentication and provides a more direct connection.
The summons told Bi that the ZTNA operates on a basis of “never trust, always”. He said companies are looking for more and more secure remote access solutions to protect their resources as they evolve. When they work in countries, he added, security becomes even more urgent, as some regions are more vulnerable to cybercrime.
A Gartner in 2024 survey estimated that 63% of organizations around the world had fully or partially applied a zero-frust strategy.
While VPNs offer users full network access after initial authentication, the ZTNA allows access only to the resources they need and continuously authenticate. The technology, according to Summons, is akin “to that many security agents check the identifiers at each entry point, ensuring that access to certain parts and areas is only granted to those authorized and verified”.
Fletcher said that the new Surespan system had provided employees with access to crucial resources, such as design software and project files. He added that since the change of the company, problems such as connection reductions and slow speeds had largely disappeared because ZTNA connect users directly to the applications they need, rather than sending them via an occupied central data center.
Provide virtual assistance in the field
A large part of the work of Sutupsan requires expertise in the field, with technicians in the field working on site to install the hatch of the company’s roof and soil. During the Pandemic COVID-19, the company tested AR headsets to connect workers to installation sites with SURESPAN engineers.
“Travel restrictions reaching harshly, we needed a way for our experienced engineers, often based here in the United Kingdom, to support our teams remotely in the installation of complex access solutions on sites around the world,” Bi Mikolaj Wisniewski, senior engineer at Souspan, in BI.
Technicians on the ground use helmets controlled by voice manufactured by Realwear, an AR company based in Vancouver, Washington. Helmets allow engineers from Surespan offices to see the installation site in real time. Users can also share documents, annotate live views and provide step -by -step instructions for the complex troubleshooting technician, inspection or installation procedures.
The method was not popular at first.
“As with any new technology, there has been a certain resistance at the start due to the learning curve and skepticism about wearing physical helmet,” said Wisnietski. “The construction can be quite traditional, and some members of the team were more comfortable with the old ways of doing things – being physically on site or simply sticking to phone calls and photos.”
Despite the initial reluctance, said Wisnietski, the team was won when he really used the helmet. Today, the tool is deployed whenever remote expertise is necessary quickly.
“Our site teams and our central engineering and support functions are now much more connected,” added Wisnietski. “We receive an instant visual context rather than having to deal with long messaging channels or perhaps unclear photos, providing an immediate visual context.”
Wisnietski said that AR helmets had enabled the company to earn more than $ 54,000 in flights and accommodation, which would otherwise have been necessary for engineers to go to the installation sites. Technology has also led to less project delays, he said.
“It breaks down the geographic barriers and allows a much richer and faster collaboration,” added Wisnietski. “The whole organization feels more reactive and connected when an engineer in the United Kingdom can provide direct advice to someone on a site thousands of kilometers.”
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