Executive summary

The French pilot was carried out by the textile company Jules TOURNIER with the knowledge of the technological provider SPIX Industry (SIMSOFT Industry) with the main objective to facilitate internal training and the acquisition of technical skills and professionalize the preservation and transmission of its know-how.

Like many industrial companies, Jules TOURNIER is facing a quadruple tension:

• An ageing of its qualified workforce;
• Complex know-how that can require a long training period (from 3 to 12 months);
• The low attractiveness of industrial jobs, especially in the textile industry;
• Difficulty in recruiting for expertise in the field.

It was a question of guaranteeing the preservation and transmission of know-how and gestures (in particular for textile industrial equipment operators) and benefiting from skills adapted to the challenges of the industry.

We wished to professionalize the preservation and transmission of its know-how by using a digital tool based on enriched video experience in order to get as close as possible to the professional gestures, to be able to describe them, to mobilize them, in order to transmit them for training purposes. Finally, the tool has enable the creation of a database of know-how, to maintain, enrich and transmit it.

The tool “K-ontact” of the company SPIX Industry (SIMSOFT Industry) had never been used nor tested for the textile trades. It was thus a question with the pilot DigiTVC of demonstrating the effective and efficient implementation of this application for the company and even for the sector.

Three other textile companies have tested the SPIX Industry solution with three different use cases. They are REGAIN, LA MAILLE AU PERSONNEL and ETS O. GUILLE.
SPIX Industry has helped textile companies to test specific tool to facilitate internal training and the acquisition of technical skills and to professionalize the preservation and transmission of its know-how by digitalization tools.

So, the project mainly focused on controlling the following 3 aspects:

A digital tool: based on video enriched with texts, descriptions, procedures in order to get as close as possible to the professional gestures, to be able to describe them, to mobilize them, in order to transmit them for training purposes:

• Creation of k-psules
• Integration of k-points

Build a methodology for capturing gestures through images:

• Describe and analyse the know-how with a technical expert
• Film the gestures
• Enrich the video with k-points
• Confront the k-psule with the technical expert
• Correct
• Make the video available to the operators
• Correct again if necessary

Creation of a database of know-how, to maintain, enrich and transmit it.

Finally, the scope of the French pilot involve the preservation of four skills in four different companies in order to be able to keep them and pass them on.
These four skills are the first elements of a skills database.
Another objective was therefore to formalize a method allowing the conservation and transmission of know-how by professionalizing the methodology and accelerating the training process.

Description of the implemented activities

Jules TOURNIER and the three other companies with the advice of ICAM and SPIX Industry (SIMSOFT industry) decided to implement K-ontact software for the next reasons:

The K-ontact solution is already designed to improve the capitalization of know-how in the industry.

• The K-ontact solution facilitates an operation that 1) was not carried out; or 2) was poorly carried out; or 3) was correctly carried out but not very efficiently.
• The K-ontact solution therefore optimizes a costly process that is often poorly or not done at all. The non-implementation has an immediate cost for the company, which loses skills and must reinvest in upgrading.
• The adoption of the K-ontact solution does not imply a major transformation of the industrial organization.
• The adoption of the K-ontact solution allows standardization of “blue collar” training lines.

The k-ontact solution includes a specialized video editor (k-Studio) to build a gestural know-how (K-psules) and a dedicated interactive application (k-Player) intended for operators.

The first part of the pilot consisted to:

• Identify the jobs in tension from the point of view of know-how with companies
• Capture as much as possible the tacit dimension of know-how with technical experts
• Capture of video-oriented gestural know-how (k-psules)
  • Quick access to skill points (K-points)
  • Integration of business repositories (PPE, machines, consumables, etc.)
  • “5 senses” view of gestural skill
  • Loop replay of the gesture for better understanding
• validate the final enhanced video with expert

The second part of the piloted consisted to:

• Validate the use of the player by the operators
• Validate the entire process with management

In parallel to the operations carried out by ICAM, UIT SUD and the companies, SPIX industry has provided support in the use of the software, training and the removal of residual bugs.

The pilot confirmed that SPIX industry’s k-ontact software seems to be suitable for the safeguarding and transmission of textile trades. However, a complementary experimentation on other trades would allow to confirm this and to apprehend the economic model of the deployment of this solution in our sector.

Description of the achieved results & value-chain impact

The expected results were threefold:
1) Preserve four skills in four different companies in order to be able to keep them and pass them on.
2) Start to create the first elements of a skills database.
3) Formalize a method allowing the conservation and transmission of know-how by professionalizing the methodology and accelerating the training process.

At the end of the pilot project, the following results were obtained:

The know-how has been broken down into operating ranges and sequences (k-psules) to be easily used by the operators. A sequence (k-psule) must be of short duration to capture and keep the user’s attention (1 to 2 minutes).

The saved know-how of each company was made available to them on a SPIX Industry server for one year so that they could use it to transfer it to other operators.

All the saved know-how is stored in the form of k-psules by UIT Sud in order to start the creation of a database of textile trades.

At the same time, the methodologies of gesture capture, image capture and sequence manufacturing (k-psules) have been established.

Following this pilot, the next steps envisaged are:

• Supporting five companies in their investment in SPIX Industry’s k-studio solution.
• Completing the experimentation by carrying out other k-psules on other jobs in tension.
• Apprehending the economic model of the deployment of this solution in our sector.

Value chain impact assessment for this pilot:

The evaluation of the impact of the pilot project on the textile value chain is not obvious.
However, the impact could be at the level of customers: by improving the quality and speed of transmission of know-how, better trained operators produce faster and with fewer defects.

Moreover, as many other textile companies have the same problems of training, know-how conservation and recruitment, the implementation of this pilot allows to bring a solution to textile companies, whatever their place in the textile value chain.

Operational assessment

The workplan was structured in several Tasks for meet at the defined objectives. At the beginning, in blue colour, this was the Gantt diagram proposed; in yellow colour, this is the deviations.

Compared to the initial plan, the unfolding was delayed by 2 months mainly due to:

• Project management : Difficult for SMEs to provide a Project Manager to monitor progress
• Industrial ranges: Difficult to organize the preparation and manufacturing of video k-psules without explicit industrial ranges
• Software bugs: A mature technological solution tested against reality: needs, uses, skills, residual bugs

Investment for the pilot and final expenses :

Risk analysis

The main risks identified in the application was:

None of these risks emerged during the project.

However, unidentified risks delayed the good progress of the project in terms of schedule. These are risks related to:

• Project management
• Industrial ranges
• Software bugs

Project impact

The pilot project primarily impacts:

• Jobs saved: by implementing a methodology for preserving and transmitting know-how digitally, which speeds up training times and brings modernity for the younger generations.
• Profitability: more efficiently trained operators (speed of training and quality of training materials) produce faster with fewer defects, which reduces non-quality costs.
• Sustainability: more efficiently trained operators (speed of training and quality of training materials) produce with fewer defects, which reduces the company’s environmental impact (less raw materials, less energy, etc.)