Rolls Royce's nuclear division works with data analysis, engineering and support services to provide competitive solutions for nuclear power plants. The challenge in 2016…
Rolls-Royce's Nuclear division works with data analysis, engineering and support services to provide competitive solutions for nuclear power plants.
The challenge
In 2016, at the Nuclear Information Technology Strategic Leadership (NITSL) conference, Rolls Royce presented its FDS website. With great success, they generated a strong impression and a lot of interest among customers. However, this also raised expectations to introduce a more feature-rich mobile version at the 2019 edition of NITSL.
The initial version of FDS began as a responsive desktop website that allowed users to access data from the plant's sensors. While promising, it still lacked some of the essential features needed to launch a final product to customers.
An updated version of the FDS has been designed as a mobile application ( mSDS ), including new features and real-time access to system monitoring. The main objective was to take advantage of the latest industrial technologies, in order to add market value and at the same time be accessible on mobile devices and tablets.
During the first 2 weeks Discovery Phase in the Rolls Royce offices with a project manager and a technical lead, the technology stack, scope and backlog of the project were defined together with the RR product owner. Development began with Front-End React, QA, and UX engineers joining the delivery team shortly after the discovery phase was completed.
mSDS has included a new set of intriguing features for accessing real-time sensor data and diagnostics. Some worth mentioning include the ability to select and group different data points where users can access sensitive plant data, create local alerts, and receive mobile notifications when specific setpoints fall within a custom range. Groups and data points can be customized and classified by administrative users, who can also create global alerts to notify all users at the same time.
The technology chosen for this project was React and Xamarin Forms. The latter to support notifications on the IPhone, in addition to allowing the same experience on the web or when downloading the application from the App Store or Google Play. As mSDS evolves in the future, native versions for version 2.0 will be implemented.
