General Electric Wearables Challenge
A recent article on IT World Canada discussed General Electric (GE) Corp.’s Wearables Challenge which was launched last year, and led to pilots being made for three use-case scenarios for AR headsets; assembly instructions and metrics, field service applications for calling an expert, and packing.
The projects involve the following AR organisations:
- AREA member DAQRI
- Google Glass
- HoloLens
- Vuzix
General Electric uses the Skylight software platform, built by AREA member Upskill Inc. (formerly APX Labs) to integrate traditional software applications to provide a sufficient platform for AR headset users. The World Economic Forum recognised Upskill as a ‘technology pioneer’ last year.
Using wearables to pilot Upskill’s Skylight platform is GE’s response to the industrial issue of maintaining complex machinery on tight budgets, and GE organised its innovation challenge so that wearables could be integrated into its workforce quickly. The platform increases efficiency from 30% to 50% from first use, and companies that use the technology experience a 30% increase in quality of output in addition to a 20% increase in resource utilisation.
Paul Boris, General Electric’s Vice President of Manufacturing Industries, views the deployment of wearables in three stages of development:
- Instruction
- Confirmation
- A profile of analytics on the machine
AR headsets are used in the manufacturing industry so that employees can access the information that enables them to complete the tasks they need to do. They also allow supervisors to provide assistance through a first-person perspective of their work.