Augmented Reality for Manufacturing

1. Identify an opportunity: Experimenting with AR is great, but using AR to solve a problem with a specific use case in mind will offer much more value to an organization.
2. Talk to your team: Any AR solution that you employ will best serve your company if your company and its end users are involved in its adoption from the earliest stages.
3. Identify KPIs: Understanding what you want from an AR solution early will help you track the success of your deployment and where there may be opportunities for improvement.
4. Identify a solution provider: Talk to companies that provide or build industrial AR solutions, let them know your needs, and what you want from the solution.
5. Implement the solution: Work with members of your organization and the solution provider to introduce augmented reality to your workforce. Have a plan in place for hardware, software, and user support.
6. Monitor: Continually reference the KPIs you identified earlier to ensure the solution is providing the intended value.

• Tablet / Smartphone AR: Most AR solutions work on handheld tablets or smartphones that are affordable, accessible, and familiar to your workforce. In many cases, employees already have a tablet they use for their job. Depending on the use case within your company, tablet AR technology may be sufficient – or even preferable to wearable solutions. Consider the tasks that the technology will help with, and the environments in which it will be used.
• Wearables: Some AR solutions only work, or work best, on a head-worn device. Even those solutions that work on tablets or phones might provide a better experience when used with an AR headset or smart glasses. While wearable devices can come with a steeper price and adoption time, their intuitive displays and hands-free designs make them the ideal tool for some jobs. Many hardware providers specially craft their devices and accessories to meet safety requirements for rugged work environments.

Because AR overlays digital elements over the user's natural field of view, employees never have to look away from the job they're performing, allowing them to maintain situational awareness. AR can also be used to improve safety, with clear digital warnings overlaid on machines to help inform workers of dangerous parts or tasks.

Consider a situation where a service technician is troubleshooting a problem using a tablet-based AR application instead of physical instructions and illustrations. Instead of looking back and forth from the system to the guide, the engineer can look through the AR feed to see the digital information and the physical system at the same time.

If that same engineer is doing the same job with a wearable AR solution, he or she can access the same information in a hands-free format, with all input in the form of voice control.

Wearable AR devices can even be incorporated into personal protective equipment (PPE) like hard hats and safety glasses.

That depends on the AR software used, the existing business systems, and how those systems are structured.

In a connected workplace, AR software, like Vuforia Studio, can connect to IIoT devices to display real-time performance data, inventory numbers and delivery updates, material safety data sheets, campus navigation aids, and more. Vuforia Studio can also leverage existing CAD or PLM data to help accelerate the creation of AR experiences, or enrich those experiences with the most updated, relevant information for the worker.

Technically, every AR solution is powered by AI that specializes in visual tasks such as image, object, or environment recognition. This is also known as computer vision.

As AI and machine learning advance, there is a growing desire to integrate AR with industrial AI tools that do things like help engineers troubleshoot problems, search for defects during visual inspections, and even automatically file reports. Vuforia Expert Capture offers Step Check, an AI-enhanced visual inspection tool that can quickly determine if a part passes or fails inspection and will alert a worker with clear AR visuals.

AR also promises to make AI and other big data applications more accessible to the average worker, providing them with more intuitive interfaces and graphical layouts.

The initial cost of an AR deployment depends heavily on the AR technology being implemented, the devices required, and the use case.

Beyond the initial cost of the software, data from your existing systems like CAD, PLM, and IoT can be used to create and enhance content. If you decide to implement AR-as-a-service, then there is no need for physical databases or software management.

Hardware costs are highly flexible, as most AR solutions run on hardware that businesses already have in use like tablets and even smartphones. While some solutions will require a head-worn device, these applications can be gradually rolled out through a company as it scales its AR adoption strategy.

Some companies go all-in from the start, while others take a more gradual approach to investing in AR, building up their hardware and software investments over time.