Windows 7Customer Solution Case Study

Turbo Manufacturer Boosts Engine Test Lab Utilization with Remote Lab Collaboration

OverviewCountry or Region: United StatesIndustry: Transportation and logistics—Transportation

Customer ProfileBased in Morristown, New Jersey, Honeywell International employs 128,000 people. Transportation Systems is a unit within Honeywell that produces engine-boosting systems.

Business SituationAt Transportation Systems, engineers were confined to running tests at their local labs. That situation led to uneven lab utilization and redundant tests being performed around the world, increasing costs.

SolutionTransportation Systems envisioned a remote lab collaboration solution and chose Microsoft technologies for a proof of concept that management endorsed for pilot projects in the field.

Benefits Maximizing existing resources Increasing engineer productivity

“Enabling remote lab collaboration with Microsoft technologies means we can maximize global lab capacity.”

Jerry Ibrahim, Director, Emerging Technologies and Innovation, Honeywell Transportation Systems

Honeywell Transportation Systems employs thousands of engineers who design engine-boosting systems and other automotive products. They develop engine-boosting systems using a global network of test labs. Engineers would primarily run tests locally, as it was difficult to use other labs’ excess capacity. To improve test throughput and lab resource utilization, Transportation Systems envisioned a remote lab collaboration solution and turned to Microsoft technologies to build a proof of concept. The solution features video streamed over the network in real time, for viewing by remote engineers over a Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 portal and by on-site lab techs carrying a Tablet PC running Windows 7. Transportation Systems expects greater test collaboration and innovation with improved engineering productivity to help bring products to market faster and grow the

Works the way you want

SituationHoneywell International is a U.S.$35 billion diversified technology and manufacturing company, serving customers worldwide with aerospace products and services; control technologies for buildings, homes, and industry; automotive products; turbochargers; and specialty materials. Transportation Systems, a business unit within Honeywell, is a leading manufacturer of engine-boosting systems for passenger cars and commercial vehicles. Transportation Systems employs approximately 5,000 people.

The turbochargers that improve engine performance, increase fuel efficiency, lower emissions, and are sought after by auto manufacturers originated in the 1930s. Since then, sustained innovation in the fields of aerodynamics, high-temperature materials, and thermo-analysis has characterized the culture of turbo engine innovation at Transportation Systems. Today, the unit’s research and development engineers continue to push the boundaries of turbocharging technology as they strive to meet increasingly stringent emission regulations for a global auto industry in trouble.

A Global Network of LabsTransportation Systems operates research and development (R&D) engineering hubs around the world, where engineers design and test turbo engines. Each hub is home to a test laboratory, which contain lab cells that house the engines mounted

on rigs for testing. Engineers conduct thousands of tests every year. At each lab, engineers could be running any one of the array of tests, including performance and endurance tests.

Engineers work on-site with lab technicians, inspecting and calibrating the test in progress to optimize results. They monitor test progress and make adjustments in response to the data they view on a PC that sits in front of the lab cell and collects information—such as engine pressure, temperature, and revolutions per minute—from sensors inside the cell. Because the test data is collected at very high frequencies, the resulting data files can be quite large. For example, endurance tests can run for weeks, generating massive data files that reach up to 30 gigabytes in size.

The PCs in the lab cells are not connected to the company network, so the test information is visible only to the lab technician and engineer on-site. The data files are transferred and stored locally on file shares: They are not searchable, and they remain beyond the reach of engineers in other locations.

Addressing BottlenecksTransportation Systems has been conducting lab tests in this way for many years. However, the recent economic downturn provided incentive for the unit to streamline operations and improve resource utilization. “We needed to rethink

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entrenched business processes,” says Jerry Ibrahim, Director, Emerging Technologies and Innovation, Honeywell Transportation Systems. “Our local labs had become a bottleneck. At any time, a lab in one part of the world could be overbooked, while others could have excess capacity. Because the labs operate independently and we have no efficient way to share test data or collaborate with other labs, it’s difficult to utilize remote facilities to distribute test bandwidth equally across the organization.”

Ibrahim envisioned a whole new way of conducting lab tests: globally instead of locally. His vision centered on the idea of enabling remote lab collaboration, wherein engineers could remotely monitor lab technicians conducting tests at a lab anywhere in the world. Ibrahim wanted the solution for remote lab collaboration to include a video component, to offer engineers a sense of being on-site. The vision required cutting-edge video-streaming, data acquisition, archiving, portal collaboration, and portable computing technologies.

“We needed to bridge the gap between collecting data at the lab cell and making it available to globally dispersed engineers,” explains Ibrahim. “The PCs at the lab are not connected to the network, so they couldn’t contribute to a two-way, collaborative work environment. And we needed to find a way to share the information contained in those huge

data files over the web so that engineers can review information while the test is running. The lab techs needed an intuitive device that they can carry around the lab cell while communicating with remote engineers.” Remote lab collaboration heralds a new way of working for the engineers at Transportation Systems. These professionals are used to manipulating large amounts of structured data and working on-site at their labs. They are not used to viewing videos, sharing pictures on portals, or communicating through portable devices. “We anticipated a certain amount of skepticism but felt confident that we were offering new capabilities and opening up the floor to innovation in test design,” says Ibrahim. “To turn our vision into reality, we needed to work with a technology vendor committed to innovation and creative problem solving.”

SolutionAfter a series of meetings and architectural design sessions at the Microsoft Technology Center in Irvine, California, Ibrahim and his team were reassured that their remote lab collaboration solution would be best supported by Microsoft technologies. “Microsoft has a track record of continual product innovation, and it offered a cohesive set of technologies that encompassed what we needed: new touch technology on portable devices, streaming video, rich media

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"Our local labs had become a bottleneck. At any time, a lab in one part of the world could be overbooked, while others could have excess capacity."

Jerry Ibrahim, Director, Emerging Technologies and Innovation,

Honeywell Transportation Systems

“We needed to bridge the gap between collecting data at the lab cell and making it available to globally dispersed engineers.”

Jerry Ibrahim, Director, Emerging Technologies and Innovation,

Honeywell Transportation Systems

capabilities, and enterprise collaboration tools,” says Ibrahim.

In Ibrahim’s vision of the solution, an engine test could be administered by a lab tech in Brno, Czech Republic, and monitored by an engineer in Skelmersdale in the United Kingdom. The tech would carry a Tablet PC running the Windows 7 Professional operating system and a multi-touch application that would allow him to view video streams generated by multiple cameras mounted around the test rig. The engineer would watch the same video by accessing a Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 site. The engineer could adjust a camera to get a different view, take a freeze-frame of the video, or make annotations. The lab tech could use the multi-touch application to view

and collaborate in real time. Video footage and data acquisition would be stored on a media server, where it could be accessed for viewing through the SharePoint site both during and after the test. (See Figure 1.)

Transportation Systems worked with Microsoft Gold Certified Partner speakTECH to put together a Windows 7 proof of concept (POC) implementing video acquisition and collaboration. At the same time, Transportation Systems assigned the data acquisition element to its development team in India.

“I needed to move quickly and convince management that the vision would work so we could get pilot projects running in the field by April 2010,” Ibrahim says. “The speakTECH team was key in helping us acquire and set up the right technologies to get started.”

Global Video CollaborationFor the streaming-video solution, speakTECH chose IP cameras with built-in H.264 encoder support and Real Time Streaming Protocol support. The cameras were mounded inside the test cells. Next, speakTECH looked for the right streaming solution to deliver the video from the camera to a media server installed in each lab. The media server would serve as a central location for archiving videos and for caching and streaming

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requested content to media players installed on engineers’ desktops and lab techs’ Tablet PCs. Transportation Systems wanted the engineers to be able to watch the video while it was being archived, a capability called the digital video recording (DVR) feature.

To find the right media server, speakTECH reviewed Windows Media Services, Flash Media Server, WOWZA, and Internet Information Services (IIS) version 7.0. A feature of the Windows Server 2008 operating system, IIS provides a platform for developing and reliably hosting web applications and services.

“We chose IIS 7.0 because it gave us the DVR feature without too much effort and it is easy to administer,” says Brian Faunce, Engagement Manager at speakTECH. “We implemented our own packet fragmenter, MPEG4-12, so the solution would support Network/IP cameras.”

IIS 7.0 includes IIS Media Services, an integrated HTTP-based media delivery platform that offers Smooth Streaming, which provides an optimal viewing experience by adapting the quality of the video stream based upon changing bandwidth and CPU conditions. And the Smooth Streaming Software Development Kit provides a video player based on Microsoft Silverlight browser technology. This video player would enable Transportation Systems to offer rich, interactive user

experiences for the engineers and lab techs on both desktop and Tablet PCs.

An Operating System for the Portable DeviceWindows 7 offered other capabilities that met key requirements for the remote lab collaboration solution. The combination of multi-touch capabilities, which lab techs can use to manipulate pictures with their fingertips, and a rich Silverlight user experience that incorporates IIS Smooth Streaming capabilities offers an intuitive, interactive mode of communication between engineers and lab techs. Windows 7 multi-touch capabilities include simple gestures for functions such as Play, Pause, and Stop, as well as more complex commands, such as Instant Replay, Multiple Camera Angles, and Fast Forward/Rewind. “Techs are too busy setting up turbos inside the test cell and adjusting sensors to be distracted with using a mouse and keyboard,” says Ibrahim. “Windows 7 is the first mainstream desktop operating system to really take advantage of touch screen capabilities. A Tablet PC running Windows 7 with multi-touch capabilities would be the perfect solution.”

And by using the 64-bit version of Windows 7, which can handle up to 4 gigabytes of RAM, Transportation Systems could take advantage of a desktop operating system with high-performance computing capabilities

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Figure 1 - Turbo Technologies, a research and development unit of Honeywell, built a remote lab collaboration proof of concept solution for globally dispersed engineers. The solution uses Microsoft touch technology on portable devices, streaming video, rich media capabilities, and enterprise collaboration

“Windows 7 is the first mainstream desktop operating system to really take advantage of touch screen capabilities. A Tablet PC running Windows 7 with multi-touch capabilities would be the perfect solution.”

Jerry Ibrahim, Director, Emerging

perfectly suited to the large data files generated by lab tests.

Global Collaboration InfrastructureAfter choosing an operating system for the Tablet PC, speakTECH and Transportation Systems looked for a web browser–based collaboration infrastructure that would offer engineers and lab techs powerful search features, content management, and workflow capabilities. Office SharePoint Server 2007 provided the requisite capabilities. The speakTECH team created different content types—such as locations, test cell, camera, snapshot, and video archive—and assigned metadata properties to each, building up a searchable document library.

Office SharePoint Server 2007 connects to the Honeywell Work Request System (WRS), opening up the possibility for streamlined requests to initiate work. For the POC, speakTECH created a test cell template prepopulated with camera definitions, such as physical location, to significantly reduce the amount of preparation that lab techs must complete prior to running a test.

Streamlined Data AcquisitionTransportation Systems also used Office SharePoint Server 2007 to solve the problem of sharing and viewing the large data files collected by the lab PC. “We created very lightweight representations of this data, pulling test results for a limited

time frame at a rate of one hertz, or one sample per second, into a SharePoint site,” says Ibrahim. “Engineers can use the smaller data sets to create trending charts. The solution offers quick load times, and the engineers can scroll through up to 30 different data channels per test.”

The speakTECH team completed a POC of the streaming-video functionality within 90 days, and the development team in India completed its data acquisition POC in parallel. Presented with tangible evidence of the ability of Microsoft technologies to support remote lab collaboration, Transportation Systems management quickly endorsed the move to phase two: building out the collaborative architecture and the application for Windows 7. First launch is planned for Europe in April 2010 with Asia and Americas planned throughout the year.

BenefitsWith the remote lab collaboration project, Transportation Systems is poised to enter a new era of turbo-testing innovation throughout its global research and development network. “Enabling remote lab collaboration with Microsoft technologies means we can maximize global lab capacity without building new facilities,” says Ibrahim. “We see the day when we can consolidate testing at centers of excellence to improve test quality. Ultimately, this new way of working will foster engineer productivity and improve

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customer service to drive our competitive advantage.”

Maximizes Existing ResourcesAs soon as engineers can initiate and monitor tests remotely, Transportation Systems expects to solve the bottleneck that occurs when engineers work locally. “Today, if a lab is fully booked and a test is ready, the engineer has to wait even though another lab might be sitting idle. This is a waste of money and resources,” says Ibrahim. “We’ll cut those losses when engineers can utilize a remote lab that has extra capacity. And with rich, interactive media to provide real-time collaboration among engineers, we can reduce the need for travel.”

Building flexibility into testing throughput across the R&D network will help Transportation Systems to save money and weather a tough time in the auto industry. “The way our engineering cycles work is that even if automotive sales are down, we get just as many projects assigned from our customers’ new cars of the future,” says Ibrahim. “Being able to keep our project throughput high without investing more capital is a boon.”

Increases Engineer ProductivityTransportation Systems expects that once engineers get used to collaborating remotely and viewing videos, images, and data through interactive web portals, their productivity will increase. For the first time, they’ll have access to archived

test data through powerful search features, and they’ll be able to share that data with colleagues.

“We are a global organization, and engineers are often on the road, visiting customers or suppliers,” says Ibrahim. “With remote lab collaboration, they can be just as productive on the road as they are in the lab.” Ibrahim is building extra capability in data acquisition by adding a link on the SharePoint portal so that engineers can download high-resolution data on demand, before a test has finished. That would be a novel capability: Currently, engineers have to wait until a lab is finished, which can take a week, before viewing the data.

Although the idea of remote lab collaboration represents a whole new way of working, Ibrahim foresees the time when it will be adopted by other divisions at Honeywell. “We’ve seen other Honeywell units adopt our Microsoft solutions in the past,” he says. “Our aerospace, automotive control solutions, and specialty materials divisions all face the same challenges that we do. I don’t see why remote lab collaboration won’t deliver similar benefits across the company.”

Builds a Competitive AdvantageTransportation Systems anticipates that its remote lab collaboration will improve customer service and thus build a competitive advantage for Honeywell. “Instead of forcing the

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customer to come to us, we could use the remote lab collaboration technologies to offer Ford, Volkswagen, or BMW a private glimpse into the tests that we are running on their projects,” says Ibrahim. “All we need to do is set up a virtual private network in a conference room, and they could view the streaming videos in real time. There are many ways we can extrapolate the business value of this suite of technologies.”

Ibrahim continues, “We wanted a partner to help us bring our vision to reality, and we found one in Microsoft.”

Windows 7Faster and more reliable: Window 7 will help your organization use information technology to gain a competitive advantage in today’s new world of work. Your people will be able to be more productive anyway. You will be able to support your mobile work force with better access to shared data and collaboration tools. And your IT staff will have better tools and technologies to enhance corporate IT security, data

protection, and more efficient deployment and management.

For more information about Windows 7, go to:www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7

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For More InformationFor more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers in the United States and Canada who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to:www.microsoft.com

For more information about speakTECH products and services, call 949 734-4850 or visit the website at: www.speaktech.com

For more information about Honeywell products and services, call 973 455-2000 or visit the website at: www.honeywell.com

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.Document published August 2010

Software and Services Windows 7 Professional Microsoft Office

− Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

Microsoft Server Product Portfolio− Windows Server 2008 R2

Enterprise Services

− Microsoft Technology Centers Technologies

− Internet Information Services 7.0

− Microsoft Silverlight 2

Hardware Server

− Dell R 710 Tablet

− Dell XT2 XFR Latitude

Partners speakTECH

“We wanted a partner to help us bring our vision to reality, and we found one in Microsoft.”

Jerry Ibrahim, Director, Emerging Technologies and Innovation,

Honeywell Transportation Systems