How AR Can Boost Worker Effectiveness
An article on Computer Weekly describes a few ways in which Augmented Reality can boost worker effectiveness, benefit productivity and reduce costs in various sectors.
The three major areas listed in the article as aspects of industry which AR can give an advantage to are:
- Product development and design – e.g. AR imaging is used for determining vehicle dimensions in the automotive industry. This enables designers to communicate and test out changes without the time and cost consuming prototyping.
- Manufacturing and assembly – e.g. AREA member Boeing conducted an aerospace assembly trial involving Google Glass. This allowed technicians to query for instructions while completing complex tasks and view them via the AR headset. The results showed significantly reduced error rates and a 25% reduction in wiring production time.
- Support, maintenance, and inspection – e.g. AR applications on digital tablets can be used in a motor workshop to display locations of certain components, and can also provide instructions and requirements for fixing malfunctions.
The article concludes by claiming that AR has the potential to increase worker effectiveness through use of real-time data displays on new machine interfaces. If more industry enterprises invest in AR, then this can lead to increased efficiency, improved worker safety, and reduced rework.