Virtual worksite visits are already part of Aurora Infrastructure Oy´s day-to-day activities – Rejlers’ AOS remote monitoring tool provides a real-time view of the worksite

Aurora Infrastructure Oy utilises the Accelerated Operations remote monitoring tool developed by Rejlers for the purposes of its project.  In the context of worksite monitoring, the service provides a weekly digital worksite view by means of 360 cameras and smartphone cameras. For Aurora’s Development Manager Olli Vaittinen in Kilpilahti, the service became indispensable during the coronavirus pandemic as it enabled him to access the worksite virtually from his home office.

The main task of Aurora’s Development Manager Olli Vaittinen is to push projects from the idea phase to implementation, while managing specifications and type drawings. The current project is an EPC project to be supplied as a turnkey delivery. The project’s worksite monitoring is assisted by the digital Accelerated Operations (AOS) project service developed by Rejlers, which enables virtual worksite visits and facilitates finding and distributing information.

“We have been collaborating with Rejlers for some time around design assignments, but this was the first project to be completed according to an EPC model. With the expansion of Rejler’s project organisation, we wanted to provide the opportunity to compete for this project. As a result of the competitive bidding, we reached an agreement with Rejlers on how to handle the project and the process is quite far along at this point,” says Development Manager Olli Vaittinen of Aurora.

Virtual worksite visits become the new normal

The project is a typical investment project for Aurora, which involves improving and updating electricity distribution within a limited area by building a new substation and a robust power distribution point.

“Existing substations in the area will be connected to the new substation, while streamlining the grid structure to shorten protection chains and increase protection speeds,” Vaittinen says.

Vaittinen’s core duties also include worksite visits, which became more difficult at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic some two years ago.

The crisis changed Aurora’s work methods substantially as many switched to remote work arrangements exclusively. This also made worksite visits a challenge. “We ended up resolving the issue with the AOS service developed by Rejlers, which now enables us to visit worksites virtually and monitor their progress from our home office,” Vaittinen says.

Reliable real-time view for all interest groups

Rejlers has productised its service in such a way that customers and partners alike can use it for their projects independently or with support from Rejlers. Access rights to the service can be distributed to different interest groups to provide everyone with a view of the worksite, even without physical on-site visits.

Authorities have also praised Rejlers in the context of building supervision thanks to the transparency enabled by the service.

“The number of photographs captured by the modern 360 cameras is many times that of the smartphone cameras that were used before. The project service developed by Rejlers, on the other hand, enables the photos to be efficiently distributed through a safe cloud service without anyone having to install any software on their devices. An internet connection on a mobile device or computer is enough,” says Product Manager Jaakko Larvanto, who is in charge of the service at Rejlers.

“From a technical standpoint, the AOS service has functioned well and reliably. It is easy and simple to use. Obviously, the content depends on how actively the site staff take photos and upload them to the service. For this project, the updates have been almost weekly,” says Vaittinen, clearly satisfied.

The ability to return to work phases years down the line is useful to a variety of interest groups

According to Rejlers Project Manager Max Sunnarborg, projects are stored in the cloud service, which makes it possible to return to any work phase even years after the fact. This facilitates the planning and implementation of warranty repairs, for example. Maintenance teams are also often interested in ways to implement various technical solutions in their own activities.

“The weekly view stored in the service enables us to return to previous work phases. It has been a big help in communicating with the customer. If any issues or uncertainties emerge during or after a project, we can easily address them with contractors afterwards,” says Sunnarborg.

Customers can purchase the AOS service for their own use, which ensures that the models created during the worksite phase will remain available for the entire life span of the building.

“We have also received positive feedback in the context of official audits and inspections, especially for the transparency of the service,” Sunnarborg says.

“The cooperation with Rejlers has been smooth throughout and has deepened as a result of this project,” Vaittinen says with satisfaction.

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COMPANY FACTS:

Aurora Infrastructure Oy is a power grid company for industrial customers that require high reliability, which distributes about 5,0 TWh of electricity to its customers each year. This is equal to 6% of the total power consumption of Finland.  Aurora Infrastructure’s subsidiaries are Aurora Tornio Oy and Aurora Kilpilahti Oy. Aurora Tornio owns, operates and develops an industrial power grid, while Aurora Kilpilahti does the same for the industrial power grid of the Kilpilahti area. Aurora Infrastructure is owned by significant international infrastructure investors InfraVia Capital Partners, Access Capital Partners and Pantheon Ventures. www.aurorainfrastructure.com