Inspection

This use case pertains to the use of AR for inspecting the results of processes, products and workplaces for safety and quality measurement or documentation. It helps detect and/or reduce incidence of a wide range of different types of risks and ensures that all requirements and policies are enforced. This use case includes other activities such as “monitoring” and “measurement” of physical objects and/or processes performed by an AR-enabled employee.

Prior to AR Adoption

• Inspection is defined as having one or more of the following characteristics:
• the different phases of a process or the result must meet criteria before being approved
• the criteria for approving a process completion or final product can be determined visually, through an instrument or haptic feedback
• the status and outcomes of the inspection must be recorded in one or more systems
• a specialist, trained to the criteria and different from the person performing the task or producing the product, may be required to certify the status and outcomes

Many industries and companies have policies concerning the quality and/or completion of a process. Specifically, policies require that prior to advancing or considering the procedure or product complete, an independent and objective inspector review and sign off the work.   A qualified or trained inspector is not always at the location where a task is completed. In some cases, photographs of a product or current status of a procedure may be taken by an employee and sent to a remote inspector for review. While the inspector either travels to the point of inspection, or performs a virtual review and approval, the employee must wait for an independent authority’s approval (signoff) before proceeding.

Business Challenges AR Introduction Addresses

Without Augmented Reality-enabled inspection or remote assistance, the employee may need to wait for an independent and objective inspector to review and approve a task or product before continuing to another work order or repeating the tasks. This lowers employee productivity.   Inspectors are limited in number and are valuable resources which, without automated or AR-enabled systems may spend a portion of their time traveling between sites where they perform inspections for relatively short duration. Despite efforts to be consistent and diligent, inspectors may also differ in their application of criteria between one another or between days and times of review, introducing variability and potential risks. Finally, due to COVID policies, inspectors may not be allowed on site.

Use Case with AR

In this use case, a user’s AR-enabled device is equipped with high-performance cameras and, possibly, other sensors that can perform measurements, record metrics about a product or process, and compare the live data with pre-established criteria in real time. When the target for inspection meets the criteria, the user receives a signal to proceed.   AR-enabled inspection can be performed with wearable, handheld or projection (spatial) technologies and connected with tools or instruments for measuring physical properties. When connected via a network with company policies and certification systems, the results of the inspection can directly be recorded and the employee does not need to interface directly with those services and explicitly log the inspection results. A digital record of the AR-enabled inspection will also be stored and easier to retrieve, if  when and/or when requested.

Common roles of Users

Any professional who needs to receive and to follow precise instructions.

• A professional who works in an industry that is highly regulated and the completed process needs to be inspected
• Inspectors

Business Benefits:

The primary benefits of AR-assisted inspection are the reduction in time and errors when reviewing a task, procedure or product for compliance with policies and criteria.  With inspection use cases, the AR-enabled employee may perform some or all of a review process without experiencing downtime while awaiting the inspector’s arrival or during a manual review. Valuable inspectors time can be assigned to only those sites and procedures that are unsuitable for AR-enabled inspections.  Provided that the conditions where the inspection is performed meet criteria (e.g., excellent, balanced lighting) and the product or process does not require movement or operation, there may be also lower variability in machine vision-based inspection than with human inspectors.