Today’s manufacturers are staying competitive by incorporating augmented reality (AR) technology into the selling process, and they are increasing revenue as a result. Here are three ways that AR can help manufacturers of built-to-order products like industrial equipment make more sales.

Accelerate sales cycles

The sales cycle for built-to-order products is a lengthy process that typically involves multiple rounds of re-configurations and quotes before a deal is made. Any speed bumps along the way can impact the customer’s eagerness to buy and potentially derail a sale altogether.

Manufacturers can accelerate the sales cycle by using AR to provide full-scale digital renditions of built-to-order products that buyers can conjure on their own turf. Product demonstrations that use AR technology give customers a better feel for the product and the impact it will have on their business, faster than ever before.

Sales teams can quickly edit a digital AR experience when customers ask for design updates or re-configurations, speeding what was previously a slower process. Additionally, with shorter cycles, sales teams will have more bandwidth to make additional deals that further increase revenue.

Improve customer engagement

Chances are that buyers of expensive built-to-order industrial products are comparison shopping during their search and may be talking to other providers throughout the sales process. Keeping them engaged with the product they’ve expressed interest in is critical—particularly in the early stages of the buyer’s journey.

AR authoring software allows manufacturers to quickly and easily provide highly personalized demonstrations that not only keep leads warm, but also increases their confidence in making a purchase. In today’s global marketplace, interactive AR experiences are a scalable and affordable option for driving better customer engagement, which leads to more sales.

Differentiate products

Lastly, the use of AR technology can be a unique differentiator for built-to-order product manufacturers in a fiercely competitive market. As buyers navigate what can be an overwhelming purchase journey, they will welcome any leading-edge technology or features that make products stand out.

AR experiences are beneficial to both buyers and sellers, as they make the sales cycle smoother, faster, and more affordable. Customers take notice of brands that are using innovative technology because they know they are also bringing that same passion, focus, and energy to their products. Manufacturers that differentiate themselves with technology like AR get more leads and make more sales as a result.

“Imagination Park will utilize Microsoft Azure to power XenoHolographic^TM, our cloud-based augmented reality platform, offering companies the ability to provide enhanced augmented reality experiences to customers on a global scale,” said Alen Paul Silverrstieen, President & CEO, Imagination Park Technologies Inc. “I personally approached Microsoft senior executives last month and now we’re excited to partner with the Microsoft Enterprise Sales and Marketing teams worldwide, broadening our channel to deliver these types of XenoHolographic^TM AR experiences to a wider audience.”

Imagination Park selected the Azure platform as it enables security, reliability and the ability to scale very quickly.  With some of the largest brands and professional sports teams with large audience/fan interaction it is critical that our infrastructure can handle rapid growth, and the artificial intelligence to log and analyze the data captured from these augmented reality engagements.

Imagination Park Technologies Inc. is an augmented reality (AR) platform that enables businesses of any size to create and implement their own AR campaigns with no programming or technology experience. Every organization, from professional sports franchises to small retailers, can develop interactive AR campaigns that blend the real and digital worlds.

Customers simply point their mobile device at logos, signs, buildings, products, landmarks and more to instantly engage videos, information, advertisements, coupons, 3D holograms and any interactive content all hosted in the cloud and managed using a menu-driven portal. Integrated real-time analytics means that all customer interaction is tracked and measured in real-time. The AR Enterprise platform supports both IOS and Android mobile devices and upcoming wearable technologies.

Previous articles have examined other talks such as by Scope AR another AREA member. Joining the list is Atheer‘s work with Porsche to drive 40 percent faster maintenance using AR assistance. This says a lot according to Atheer’s Amar Dhaliwal at AWE, given that Porsche was already operating at an elite level.

“These are some of the most trained, certified and competent auto technicians in the world,” he said (video below). “It can take ten years to actually become a gold-certified technician. Yet when Porsche rolled out AR, it was able to achieve a 40 percent reduction in service resolution time.”

In fairness, this isn’t a new figure. In fact, Dhaliwal is first to admit that Porsche has already publicized the 40 precent stat, and for good reason. It’s a subtle message that they’re investing in AR so that customers are in good hands. This makes AR part operational and part marketing.

“When somebody’s going into a Porsche dealership they probably came from a Mercedes dealership and going to BMW next,” he said. “Porsche wants to be able to tell customers ‘Not only are you buying the best technology, but we’ll look after you once we’ve sold you the technology.”

This message makes sense because Porsche’s point of deployment for AR is at the dealer level. It’s the dealer-centered technicians that are using AR to fix cars that Porsche owners bring in locally. So AR’s presence and value can be that much more apparent to the end customer.

As for how it achieved that 40 percent, the first step is planning and needs-assessment. AR is only successful when applied in the right places. As we heard from Scope AR, it’s not a silver bullet: It can only be successful when used to solve specific problems in specific job roles.

Here, one important distinction according to Dhaliwal is training versus guidance. AR doesn’t really do much for jobs that require training (repetitive, simple tasks). But it can have lots of impact in jobs that need guidance (complex, non-repetitive tasks). Pinpointing this should be step one.

“We’ll start by saying ‘what is it that you’re trying to do?’” he said. “If they’re trying to do something that sounds better for training, we’ll say ‘we’re not the right partner for you, because deploying this technology to solve this problem will not have the ROI that you’re looking for’.”

The next step is to win over end-users, such as technicians — a lesson we’ve heard over and over. And the name of the game is simplicity. For example, when possible, start with simpler forms of AR such as remote assistance, before graduating to things like pre-authored sequences.

“Industrial workers, the people who are the principle users AR, have very low tolerance for complexity.” said Dhaliwal. “Complexity is your enemy when rolling out to the industrial worker. That’s a fact and I think it’s important in terms of how we design solutions as an industry.”

And the simplicity angle works on many levels. Atheer also owes its success with Porsche to simplifying the business model. In its case, it faced an additional challenge of working with individual dealers, so it created an end-to-end offer where it handles all of the logistics.

“All the glasses come into our office,” said Dhaliwal. “We pre-install the software, set up the users, put in all of the manuals and guidance. We package them up with Porsche’s branding and send them out to the dealers, because Porsche is saying “that’s not what we’re experts in.”

Several of these tactics make enterprise AR success factors extend well beyond the technology itself. It’s about speaking the language, knowing the vertical you’re selling into and PR. That brings us back to the first point: AR can boost, and be boosted by, fundamentals in marketing.

“Act like a marketer,” advises Dhaliwal. “Porsche chose to brand everything as ‘Tech Live Look.’ So everything they do, every press release, every analysts briefing, they talk about the program. Internally, the posters and packaging… when glasses go out… everything is branded.”

The talk can be seen by watching here: Amar Dhaliwal (Atheer) How Porsche Transformed Automotive Dealer Service with AR:

See the photos of the Appearition team at the event on LinkedIn.

Congratulations to the Appearition team on what is a fantastic venture and what looks like an incredible day out too!

In a press release dated 26 February 2019 an ongoing negotiation was revealed with a US defense group for an order worth approximately SEK 1.5 million. The negotiations have now been completed and XMReality has received an order covering subscriptions for the initial 12-month period. The order allows the customer to use a limited number of licenses within all five business areas of the group’s international operations.

Defense preparedness is today a very high-tech business. Defense industries are quick to adopt the latest advanced technology in their products. This means that the need for qualified service and maintenance of defense materiel is increasing significantly in both Sweden and globally. Costs and training needs in defense-related service and maintenance are constantly growing.

“It is gratifying to see how our software is coming into use in sector after sector. We see great potential in being able to make field service work more efficient in many of the world’s largest companies,” says Johan Castevall, XMReality’s CEO.

The order revenues will be allocated over a 12-month period.

About XMReality Remote Guidance™

XMReality Remote Guidance is an AR-enabled knowledge sharing tool that lets you communicate with someone in a completely different place using speech, gestures, pointers and still images. It includes:

A unique hands-overlay technology that lets you guide someone else’s hands – as if you were there A web portal to manage teams and users and measure usage Integration through client-side open APIs

Read XMReality’s AREA member profile and visit their website.

Nasdaq First North-listed Crunchfish entered a partnership with the Chinese company Nibiru in 2018, where they will re-sell Crunchfish’s gesture control technology as an integrated part of their system for AR and VR. Nibiru has now signed agreement with Chinese based Shenzhen ARTS-STAR Technology for a Polaroid branded all-in-one AR-HMD.

The Polaroid AR-HMD is initially for the Chinese market but target a global market as a next step. The AR-HMD has a consumer profile but will also target other areas like museums and education.

“The collaboration between Nibiru and Crunchfish enhance the interactive ability of Nibiru AR- system. The convenient and lightweight gesture interaction adds more usage scenarios of XR. Nibiru and Crunchfish mutually benefit from their cooperation and work together to provide more user-operation friendly AR/VR interactive technology”, says Nibiru VP Peter Liu.

“On the basis of not increasing any hardware cost, we make our devices and interaction more convenient and user-operation friendly. As for our products, product strength and market competitiveness have been improved. Nibiru and Crunchfish provide us with an integrated solution that allows us to focus only on production” says Polaroid General Manager Jeff Zou.

“We are very happy to be part of Nibiru’s successful roll-out of their AR-system. Polaroid is a strong brand and will play an important role in the marketing of our joint offer with Nibiru”, says Crunchfish CEO Joakim Nydemark.

The cooperation with Nibiru strengthens Crunchfish’s position further as one of the leading suppliers of gesture control for smart AR-glasses. Over the last year, Crunchfish has entered several strategic partnerships with major global players, which is a key factor for success in a growing market.

For more information, please contact:

Joakim Nydemark, CEO,
+46 706 351 609,
[email protected]

Per the agreement, Verizon Sourcing, the subsidiary that handles procurement of the inventory that Verizon sells, will offer the Vuzix Blade, M300XL, and M-Series smartglasses and accessories, as well as the Vuzix Basics Video software.

Vuzix will deliver inventory to Verizon based on purchase orders, with the initial agreement set for a three-year term. The filing states that orders are expected to commence in the second quarter of 2019.

While AT&T’s strategic partnership with Magic Leap is consumer-facing, Verizon Sourcing’s agreement with Vuzix targets the enterprise sector.

“The initial focus is on business, government, and education to deliver a turnkey solution to Verizon’s largest enterprise customers,” said Paul Travers, CEO of Vuzix, in a statement to Next Reality. “There is a tremendous amount of value that could be delivered through 5G connectivity and smart glasses and as we could see how this relationship could expand to consumers and across the board with 5G.”

So, while augmented reality remains entrenched in the enterprise arena, hardware makers and the mobile carriers who stand to benefit from delivering 3D content and AR experiences to users have their eyes set on the potentially more lucrative consumer realm.

Watch Vuzix video

Component inspections

Customers of a large industrial equipment distributor have to make regular trips to the service center for component inspection of their equipment. These visits often require long drives to, and wait times at, the service center which increases downtime of the equipment. Using Remote AR, customers can call in to the service center and do the component inspection without leaving their office, saving time and money, and enhancing component failure discussions and analysis.

Expert diagnosis and guidance

Broken parts are shipped into a repair center for a manufacturing equipment supplier. Often, the technicians onsite are not capable of diagnosing and fixing the problem, requiring an expert to come in to do the repair. Using Remote AR, the technician now calls the expert to diagnose and provide guidance on the problem, even if it is afterhours, saving the company travel costs and labor time of the expert, and significantly decreasing repair downtime for customers.

Industrial HVAC Maintenance

Field service technicians for an industrial HVAC manufacturer are inexperienced and costly to train. Using WorkLink, the company can train the technicians on the job by having them follow smart instructions for regularly scheduled maintenance procedures. In addition, they can use Remote AR to call an expert for help whenever they run into a new or complex problem, decreasing mean time to resolution and minimizing repeat service visits.

Read more on Scope AR’s website and member profile.

In a recently executed field study it has been confirmed that 84% of users prefer the XMReality AR- solution compared to standard video chats when problem solving.

“We want to enable communication, not restrict it”

The system enables immediate service so that companies can save both time and resources and initiate new revenue streams. The hardware independent system can be used both through a downloaded application or by a direct link, not requiring any pre-installation.

The functional design can easily be applied on B2B, B2C and B2BC. It doesn’t matter if you have the world’s best tools to solve problems if it can’t be integrated with the process stream as a whole. Our system is not dependent on our costumers having a certain infrastructure or using a certain type of hardware. “It works everywhere”, says Marcin Szymanski, Chief Sales Officer at XMReality.

The unique system has had a great impact on some of the world’s largest companies such as ABB, Siemens and the Haas Group, where simplicity and availability play an important role in service, maintenance, practice and documentation.

Simplicity is one of the major factors when choosing a system for remote guidance. Instead of getting help through a video chat, the user is are shuttled through our system straight through the eyes of the expert who can see how the problem should be solved. “It’s just like having an expert next to you”, says Marcin Szymanski.

XMReality takes the lead when it comes to adapting a new approach in the Swedish industry. It changes the line of business and the way we look at how different actors are dependent on each other’s competence and technology to have a well-operating process stream.

“The technological possibilities are many, but first you have to dare to improve and realise the value of the technology, not just follow it. By accepting that we can improve the technological innovation, we will achieve a smarter and more efficient industry through creating integration and collaborating with each other. We are a small piece of a greater context”, says Marcin Szymanski.

The company reports that the new UX/UI design for smart glass Tandem sessions is more intuitive, with redesigned screens, text, and icons for improved navigation. Customized user menus have been incorporated, and voice commands have been leveraged to better guide users through processes. In addition, users receive application feedback during critical interactions.

Interactions are enhanced with new capabilities in the company’s ARKit solution. For example, single- or multi-user drawing annotations can now be made on a captured image. For direct, live support, remote experts can use a laser pointer to assist users as they complete a task. Remote experts can also bring attention to a specific area or a part of machinery by dropping 3D augmented reality arrows in an operator’s real-world environment. Tandem sessions can be conducted between operators and subject matter experts across any device. Depending on an individual’s comfort level or work-flow, users can stream sessions from iOS, phones, or tablets.

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