Augmented Reality Transitioning To Workplace Floors
Business Insider recently posted an article foreseeing AR’s transition away from apps such as Pokémon Go to the factory floor of the manufacturing sector, beginning with tasks in maintenance and support.
IoT is moving factories and industrial machines to become more automated, and Mike Campbell, Executive VP of industrial software firm PTC’s Vuforia AR segment, says that “the contextualization of IoT data is a big deal”; where Augmented Reality can work in the industrialization of the IoT.
The article refers to sticker labels placed on machines, and gives workers the ability to scan these stickers with their phone or AR headset and obtain all currently available information from that machine part, resulting in factories running with little-to-no downtime. Overlaying graphics showing how pieces fit together and how to disassemble them along with presenting which other pieces of the machine that part might connect.
Microsoft is working on this kind of application too, with its HoloLens goggles. ThyssenKrupp, a multi-billionaire elevator manufacturer, uses HoloLens to allow their field service technicians to look at a piece of IoT-connected elevator equipment and instantly see what went wrong and how they can fix it. ThyssenKrupp employees can use IoT sensors to know when something is going to break even before it does.
In both examples of AR in the workplace, everything becomes quicker, machines are working for longer and there is less downtime, “a business revolution,” says Sam George, Microsoft’s Azure IoT Director.