The QIA (Quality Innovation Award) is an award created in Finland in 2007 by Excellence Finland, with the objective of promoting and encouraging highly innovative projects among companies and organizations, thus increasing the competitiveness of the participating organizations and countries. Over the years, this association has been gathering partners from different countries, acquiring more and more relevance in the promotion of quality, excellence and innovation.

On Monday, January 25, 2021, QIA announced the companies and organizations that won international awards in the various categories.

While last December TSK won the award for the third consecutive year in its national category, this time it has achieved the highest recognition at international level, winning in the category of Large Company. In this category, among others, it has competed with multinationals such as Dell, which was a finalist.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the traditional awards ceremony has been postponed. The Serbian Association for Quality (SRMEK) will host and organize the gala to be held at the end of April. During the ceremony, TSK will receive an award diploma signed by the President of the Republic of Finland.

In this award competition, more than 416 innovative projects were submitted from countries such as China, Russia, Finland and Estonia, which highlights the high competitive level and therefore the difficulty in winning this award, for which a strict evaluation methodology has to be overcome, where aspects such as added value, usability, learning, customer orientation and effectiveness of the solutions presented are judged.

The initiative presented by TSK, called SIXPERIENCE, is a system based on Virtual Reality for the operation and maintenance of industrial facilities. This solution arises within the framework of the expansion of the Industry 4.0 paradigm, and more specifically, with the growing trend of Virtual Reality (VR) technologies.
SIXPERIENCE is based on the construction of virtual environments that allow, not only to visit the plants and interact with its elements in a similar way to the real one, but also to access a large amount of information about it (corresponding to all its phases: design, construction, operation, maintenance). Starting from natural interaction mechanisms, SIXPERIENCE allows other forms of visualization and movement, such as the possibility of consulting the specific status of an element or flying over the plant to see the general status of the process. Thanks to the use of multimodal interaction modes and voice commands, a fully immersive experience is achieved.

Based on its own industrial plant monitoring system (SISREM) and integrating all the information generated during an industrial process, this new “experience” allows one:

• To virtually visit an industrial plant, by having a new immersive environment, similar to the real one, through which the user can walk, interact with the elements and see the status of each of them. This visit is done in real time, but allows the consultation of past data of the plant allowing the analysis of any situation that may have taken place in it. Through integration with the SISREM monitoring tool, the representation of information acquired from the process itself as well as the whole set of indicators (KPIs) and associated intelligent analytics is performed.

• To consult all the information generated during the design, execution and operation of the industrial plant, being able to access, among others, the characteristics sheets of elements, drawings, design parameters and/or maintenance reports. It also allows access to the plant’s video surveillance and video operation system, visualizing images in real time. This is achieved through the integration of all existing systems in the plant such as CCTV systems, GMAOs, ERPS or other specific tools that can be managed integrally from the new virtual environment.

• To train operators about the operation of the plant through the creation of simulations, where the operator will be able to make changes of elements, operate valves or generate work orders that are integrated with existing systems. Thus, through the creation of simulations in this new virtual environment, the operator will be able to make changes of elements simulating the real behavior before each of these actions and constituting, therefore, a safe learning place which is accessible from any area.

The proposed system has already been validated in part of the facilities that TSK currently operates and maintains.

For TSK, the need to promote innovation in its products, processes and services is unquestionable, especially in the present situation, in which technological development must act as a driving force for the economy. Its profound identity with innovation is part of the company’s long-term strategy, materialized in heavy investment in R+D+i, collaborating with technology centers, universities and companies within the framework of local, national and European programmes. The great diversity of projects and technological areas in which TSK participates, forces it to be continuously innovating and developing in the daily routines of all its activities, since a very significant part of the innovations are produced as a result of the multidisciplinary nature of its projects.

This project has been developed entirely from TSK Digital Innovation, which is the division of the company specialized in digital transformation projects, industrial x.0, cybersecurity, information technology and operation and where they use innovation as the backbone of all its evolution.