AMRC Signs Landmark Augmented Reality Deal with PTC
The University of Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC), which works with more than 120 industrial partners around the world to improve productivity, increase competitiveness, develop new products and processes, and upskill talent, has signed an agreement with PTC to implement Vuforia Expert Capture across its three U.K. locations. The agreement, which builds upon the integral role that Vuforia Expert Capture played in retraining employees during the VentilatorChallengeUK Consortium (VCUK), is set to be one of the largest ever augmented reality (AR) deployments in the U.K.
AMRC’s Factory 2050 teams will first leverage Vuforia Expert Capture to upskill and reskill employees with their aerospace partners, with the potential for much wider application into other sectors in the future. In addition to Vuforia Expert Capture, AMRC’s manufacturing partners and SMEs will also use Vuforia Chalk, PTC’s remote assistance solution, to collaborate at a distance, enabling organizational experts to address challenges associated with working remotely and drive increased productivity and efficiency in industrial settings.
“Our involvement in the VCUK gave us first-hand experience of the power of AR in helping to quickly set up new manufacturing lines safely by rapidly transferring production knowledge to different facilities,” said Professor Rab Scott, Head of Digital at the University of Sheffield AMRC. “It has the potential to transform future supply chains and this is something we wanted to explore in more detail by giving researchers, our existing manufacturing partners and SMEs easy access to Vuforia and other PTC technologies. We already have a number of projects where we think it will accelerate the deployment of solutions into manufacturing.”
Recognized by industry analysts for its depth and breadth of capabilities, Vuforia offers some of the fastest, easiest, and most advanced AR content development solutions, enabling increased workforce safety and efficiency, improved customer experiences, and reduced cost. The Vuforia AR Enterprise Platform includes Chalk, Expert Capture, Vuforia Studio, Vuforia Engine, and the newly-released Vuforia Spatial Toolbox.
“The high-profile nature of the VentilatorChallengeUK has really thrust AR into the spotlight and proved that it is a technology that manufacturers can easily adopt and successfully implement now - not in five, ten or even twenty years’ time,” said David Grammer, U.K. Country Manager, PTC. “AR reduced the time taken to create new supply chains by a number of weeks and also protected all the workers involved in the project by ensuring staff were not moving from site to site, thereby reducing the risk of COVID-19 spreading. We look forward to seeing the increased adoption of AR training and remote assistance in other manufacturing environments, and AMRC will provide a perfect gateway to engaging with research projects and new supply chains, as well as in the development of new products.”
About The University of Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre: The University of Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) is a world-class center for research into advanced manufacturing technologies used in the aerospace, automotive, medical and other high-value manufacturing sectors. The AMRC has a global reputation for helping companies overcome manufacturing problems and is a model for collaborative research involving universities, academics and industry worldwide. Combining state of the art technologies with the AMRC’s expertise in design and prototyping, machining, casting, welding, additive manufacturing, composites, robotics and automation, digital manufacturing and structural testing, has created a manufacturing resource far beyond anything previously available in the UK. The AMRC is a member of the High Value Manufacturing Catapult, a consortium of leading manufacturing and process research centers, backed by the UK’s innovation agency, Innovate UK. For more information, visit www.amrc.co.uk.