International Dog Day is 26 August. Founded 20 years ago by the American animal welfare advocate Colleen Paige, International Dog Day sets out to encourage people to adopt canines from rescue centres, be responsible owners and support animal rescue organisations. It also reminds us of the importance of dogs in the lives of many people. One such dog with a crucial role is SpOTTO the robodog at BMW Group Plant Hams Hall, in the UK. Here’s a run-down on the kind of jobs SpOTTO does and how he helps monitor production and collect data for the plant’s digital twin.

The autonomous robodog was developed by Boston Dynamics and goes by the product name of Spot. At the UK plant, he has been affectionately dubbed SpOTTO, in memory of Gustav Otto († 1926), one of the founders of the Bayerische Motoren Werke. As one of the 1,600-strong team at Hams Hall, SpOTTO is perfectly integrated. Working in maintenance, he scans the plant and ensures smooth production operations. And thanks to his nimble physique, he’s perfect for the job. He can climb stairs and even traverse rough terrain. Equipped with visual, thermal and acoustic sensors, he works autonomously to support the maintenance of production equipment: he monitors the operating temperatures of the systems to ensure they don’t overheat and prevent them from failing well in advance. He also detects leaky pressure hoses to keep energy consumption down.

SpOTTO plays an important role in creating and refining the plant’s fully networked digital twin:

• On the first level a 3D representation of the plant is generated.
• On the second level SpOTTO and the production and IT systems feed the data they have collected across the plant into a large data layer.
• On the third level the data is sorted by dedicated programs. Specialists then evaluate it with the help of apps.

Data collected by SpOTTO is used in areas like quality assurance and production planning.

In the Technical Basement at Hams Hall, tests are currently underway to find other ways of putting SpOTTO to good use. In the future, he will probably be used to read analogue operating controls as well, and perform even more complex movement sequences to gain easier access to hard-to-reach areas of production. Other BMW Group plants are also trialling potential uses for the robodog at the moment.

All in all, SpOTTO represents another important step towards the BMW Group’s digital, connected iFACTORY. “Virtualisation, automation and AI are key cornerstones in this regard,” said Klaus von Moltke, Head of Engine Production with BMW AG.