Smartglasses Can Raise Productivity in Manufacturing
Many companies are beginning to group wearable technologies into their mobility initiatives. While this can help leverage common assets and introduce the wearable technology into accepted processes, it may prevent users from accessing the unique benefits of wearable technologies. Smartglasses or personal head-mounted displays are special because they allow employees to “connect to the information generated in an IoT environment while remaining hands-on in the manufacturing process,” Brian Ballard points out in this feature story on the New Equipment Digest web site.
Ballard also promotes in his article the fact that most smartglasses are not only head-mounted displays. By using new user interfaces the worker actually has the opportunity to document deviations or new processes and becomes a digital contributor in the factory’s IoT network.
This article also provides valuable recommendations for the evaluation of use cases and the slow and measured introduction of Augmented Reality in manufacturing. While focusing on automotive and aerospace industries, where Augmented Reality-assisted systems have already gained some attention, the same recommends could be applied to other industries as well.