We got together with Scott and Dane recently to learn more about the podcast and what they hope to accomplish with it.

AREA: Before we get into XR@Work, could you tell us what you do for a living?

Scott: I’m a Principal XR Product Manager for WestRock, a global consumer packaging manufacturing company. I’m responsible for all things XR-related for our 300 factories and our customer interactions.

Dane: I’m on the business transformation team for INVISTA, a polymer manufacturing company and subsidiary of Koch Industries. I lead XR and digital twin within INVISTA and I also lead the Republic of Science, a community of practice across Koch for XR technologies.

AREA: How did you two meet up?

Dane: We were both on a panel at AWE on real-life practitioners and Scott and I hit it off really well. There’s a fair number of people looking to get into the XR space that don’t have anybody else to reach out to, other than a vendor. Scott and I had conversations about how hard it is getting started and that’s what led to the podcast.

AREA: And when did the podcast start?

Scott: I think it was November of last year.

AREA: What’s the mission of XR at Work?

Scott: What Dane said is absolutely true. New folks starting off in Extended Reality in the workplace are being asked to do something that is still emerging, that can be confusing, and that has a lot of misinformation around it. So our goal is to do two things with XR at Work. Number one, we want to provide insight and guidance to XR practitioners in enterprise. And second, we want to foster and build a community of Extended Reality professionals that work in industrial environments – everything from oil and gas to manufacturing to automotive to logistics. The idea is to get us together to share ideas and best practices.

AREA: So your focus is really complementary to what the AREA focuses on. We’re both serving the enterprise, but XR at Work is more exclusively targeting industrial companies.

Scott: Yeah, I think that’s a fair assessment.

AREA: Where do interested people go to check out XR at Work?

Scott: We have two main places where people can connect with us. Number one is LinkedIn. We have an XR at Work company page where we invite folks to follow us. On that LinkedIn page, we will post when we have a new podcast up or we speak somewhere or we see new opportunities. The second place is YouTube.

AREA: For people who haven’t seen the podcast, what can viewers expect? What’s the range of topics discussed?

Dane: We’ve started with pragmatic discussions around core AR/VR applications and topics, such as remote assistance, guided workflows, and how to scale. More recently, we’ve started doing interviews with people who work in the industry. No offense to vendors, but our goal is to keep it community-focused around the practitioner side of the house. We want to hear from people who are already working with XR – what’s working for them, what’s not, where the field is heading, the whole metaverse concept. We’re also thinking about adding things like hardware reviews, although we want to be careful to keep it community-focused and not be beholden to somebody because they sent us a headset. That’s the key to us – to be authentic.

AREA: It sounds like the range of content really goes from helping people get started in XR to sharing tips and techniques for people who already have some proficiency. What are your long-term goals for the podcast?

Scott: In addition to the stuff Dane talked about, we’re looking at taking part in some larger events, doing a live broadcast from an event this year. We want to be seen as everyman’s XR thought leaders. We live and breathe in the factory and rugged environments, putting devices on the heads and in the hands of industrial workers. Our goal is to be seen as the go-to friendly voice in the wilderness for a community that’s trying to find real answers – not the answers they get from sizzle reels or market videos or salespeople.

AREA: I would presume you’re also hoping to learn from this – so that you can apply new ideas to your “day jobs.”

Dane: XR at Work does give us access to other people who are doing things. A lot of the stuff in the XR space is really hard. How do you manage headsets at 300 facilities like Scott’s doing? How do we go ahead as a business if our favored headset is being discontinued? There are a lot of challenges you run into as you’re managing this across a business. This gives us a chance to talk to other people who have maybe thought differently about it and we can learn from. We also like to understand what’s coming in the hardware space, so my hope is that we can be a partner to people building products to offer them insights to support product development.

Scott: We look forward to building a community and interacting more with the members of the AREA.

The Masters of Pie team is especially interested in hearing from IT managers and C-level executives knowledgeable about the broad application of XR collaboration use cases across their businesses. They’re seeking input from leading companies in a broad range of industries, including manufacturing/engineering, construction, healthcare, defense, and energy. Even organizations that are just beginning to adopt immersive technologies are invited to participate.

To take part, please visit the survey site and submit your information by April 20. Thank you for helping further the AR ecosystem’s understanding of how XR collaboration is gaining traction.

Tempo brings the transformative power of technology to an industry that is still largely paper-based. It accelerates the entire drug production lifecycle by orchestrating manufacturing across global teams and sites with one shared platform.

Tempo also expands Apprentice’s footprint in the AR space. It enables manufacturing operators to use AR to:

• Reduce human error as operators follow audio or text instructions enhanced with added photo, video, or AR overlay directions that are specific to their work environment or equipment, making each workflow step clear.
• Increase efficiency and overcome production delays by supporting cross-team collaboration and remote support through video conferencing that utilizes AR directional tools such as live drawing, arrows, laser and pointers.

Apprentice leverages AR headsets to empower operators and scientists in the lab and manufacturing to work with greater efficiency and speed, without having to reference cumbersome paper-based procedural manuals or record handwritten documentation. Using voice commands and intelligent data capture, operators can easily access their procedures using their headsets. They can intelligently collect, store or reference critical data as they go, without any interruption to their workflow. With 1,500+ devices deployed, Apprentice believes it has the largest wearables deployment in enterprise manufacturing.

“This recent funding is a testament to the power of Augmented Reality,” says Angelo Stracquatanio, CEO of Apprentice. “AR and wearables have long held the promise to change the way we work. With pharma manufacturing, we’ve found a meaningful application of this technology that truly helps the operator execute better – for the benefit of patients everywhere.”

Apprentice is also expanding into Europe and Asia and continues to grow the company to further fuel its 12-fold revenue growth and sixfold growth in employees. Learn more here.

AREA: What does Human Factors in Augmented Reality encompass?

Kies: Human Factors is the study of humans, from both cognitive and physical perspectives. We investigate how humans interact with devices, applications, and services, and incorporate those insights into the design of systems. In the case of AR, it’s especially important because you may be wearing a device on your head, and interacting via an interface overlaid on the real world.  This is arguably one of the most challenging design problems.

AREA: Do we still have a lot to learn about the Human Factors implications of AR?

Kies: That’s absolutely the case. The technology is still evolving. Many current devices can’t be used for a significant amount of time. It’s going to get there, but there are some technical hurdles that need to be resolved. That’s why it’s super-important that human characteristics become part of the requirements and are factored into the device design process.

AREA: How much of our past user experience knowledge is relatable to AR, and how much is starting from scratch?

Kies: We’re not entirely starting from scratch. A lot of people in the field have experience designing for 2D interfaces like smartphones. But you then have to translate that to a spatial computing paradigm where everything is not only in 3D, but also superimposed on the real world. That’s unlike a smartphone or a PC, where the interface is primarily contained in a rectangle. That’s what makes AR enormously challenging compared to working with other computing platforms. But there has been a lot of research in AR and VR in the military and universities, so there’s a lot to glean from those areas, and established human-centered design processes are still relevant.

AREA: What’s your top priority for the AREA Human Factors Committee this year?

Kies: Our overriding goal is to identify and develop best practices to help ensure the best possible AR user experience. In pursuit of that goal, our number-one priority is to engage more with academic research labs – to invite them to share their findings with the AREA membership. They are often experimenting with or building the latest technologies and they’re learning a great deal from their studies. Another thing we’re discussing is compiling a set of unique human-centered design practices that are pertinent to AR systems. And of course, we always want to get more AREA members involved in the Committee.

AREA: What’s your pitch for why AREA members should get involved in the Human Factors Committee?

Kies: My bias is toward conversation. Having meetings that act as a forum where people can talk about the challenges they’re facing, the successes they’ve had, and just connect – that’s a compelling reason to participate. By participating in Human Factors Committee meetings, end-user members have an opportunity to hear about other members’ experiences and lessons learned and apply that knowledge to their own efforts. For AR solutions providers, it’s an opportunity to get direct feedback from the AR user community.  We also hope that concrete deliverables, like guidance on design, will enable AREA members to optimize their enterprise AR solutions for their target users.

It’s all about making connections and enabling dialogue – between users and providers, between the AR ecosystem and academic institutions – to everyone’s benefit. We’d like to build out a vibrant AR Human Factors community where people are learning from each other, contributing ideas, highlighting new discoveries, and finding solutions.

If you’re an AREA member and would like more information about joining the AREA Human Factors Committee, contact Jonathan Kies or AREA Executive Director Mark Sage. If you’re not yet an AREA member but interested in AR human factors and design, please consider joining; you can find member information here.

The Augmented Reality Best Practice Safety Playbook discusses:

• Risk factors to consider when using AR systems in work environments
• Risk assessment tools and methods
• Usability considerations
• User medical evaluation criteria
• Cleanliness and disinfection procedures
• Safety awareness training, and more

“Enterprise AR often brings new devices, new working methods, and new modes of user interaction into the workplace. With that in mind, organizations adopting AR need a thorough understanding of health and safety risks and how best to mitigate them,” said Mark Sage, Executive Director, the AREA. “The playbook helps organizations avoid safety issues before they occur and helps ensure AR solution meet an organizations expectation for productivity and cost savings.”

The AREA Safety Committee provided expert input and insight to produce the playbook.

Download the Augmented Reality Best Practice Safety Playbook for more information and a list of contributors. To learn more about AREA membership and the work of the AREA Safety Committee, please get in touch with AREA Executive Director Mark Sage at [email protected].

About AREA

The Augmented Reality for Enterprise Alliance (AREA) is the only global non-profit, member-based organization dedicated to the widespread adoption of interoperable AR-enabled enterprise systems. Whether you view it as the next computing paradigm, the key to breakthroughs in manufacturing and service efficiencies, or the door to as-yet unimagined applications, AR will have an unprecedented impact on enterprises of all kinds. AREA is a managed program of Object Management Group® (OMG®). Visit https://thearea.org for more information.

Note to editors: Object Management Group and the OMG acronym are registered trademarks of the Object Management Group. For a listing of all OMG trademarks, visit https://www.omg.org/legal/tm_list.htm. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Media Contact:

Karen Quatromoni

[email protected]

As part of the AREA’s mission to help accelerate the adoption of Enterprise Augmented Reality (AR) by supporting the growth of a comprehensive ecosystem, we are further engaging with academic institutions to provide feedback on how they can help equip the graduates of tomorrow with the AR skills needed to positively contribute to the workforce.

The AREA, together with our academic partners, has created a very short survey to capture your perspectives on educational needs for future graduates.

We would gratefully appreciate you completing this survey – it should take no longer than 10 minutes to complete.

The survey is available HERE and runs until July 31^st 2020. All contributors will receive a report summarising the findings. If you do have any questions, please contact [email protected].

Thank you for helping shape the educational future of our workforce.

The AREA Team

The AREA seeks to receive proposals for a funded research project that will examine barriers to and recommend approaches for using existing enterprise 3D assets in AR experiences delivered to employees. The project will also test the ingestion and use of enterprise 3D assets in a set of suitably limited but representative environments.

Organizations with relevant expertise in the research topic may respond to the invitation on or before 12 PM Eastern Daylight Time on April 1st.

Industry Context for the Research

One major barrier to widespread adoption of
AR in enterprises is that developer toolkits and frameworks currently in use
and engines for AR delivery do not accept or cannot automatically use the most common
existing enterprise 3D assets. For the many organizations with businesses built
around 3D data this is a significant obstacle.

When 3D assets are generated/captured or
designed, they meet requirements of their specific use cases in terms of
complexity, level of detail, and additional related data. These requirements
are independent of AR system requirements.

For use in current AR engines and to be
rendered on AR display devices with limited memory and computing resources, 3D assets
“as designed” (i.e., for purposes other than AR) frequently require some
manipulation. In many cases, simplification of 3D assets using pure geometry-based
algorithms does not produce optimal outcomes. For example, for lightweight use
of 3D models in AR experiences, models need to be tessellated. However, once the
complexity of the model has been reduced, there may be loss of embedded domain information.  Linking such information to the simplified
geometry is another challenge.

In some industries and use cases, direct
manipulation of 3D assets is forbidden or prohibitively expensive. This means
that leveraging those 3D assets already available in the customer organization
for AR-enabled delivery of information or instructions is expensive and, in
many cases, not possible.

The lack of “dynamic” or direct 3D asset
ingestion interfaces or processes drives up total cost of AR introductions,
use/ownership and time (e.g., ROI) in enterprise.

Project Goal

The AREA seeks to provide members with
knowledge and resources that will reduce the cost and time necessary to reuse
existing enterprise 3D assets in their AR authoring, publishing, and delivery
systems.

Fixed Fee Project

The AREA Research Committee budget for this
project is $15,000. Organizations interested in conducting this research for
the fixed fee are invited to submit proposals.

More information

Full information on the project needs, desired outcomes and required components of a winning proposal, including a submission form, can be found here.

If you have any questions concerning this project and the AREA Research Committee, please send an email to the Research Committee.

Industry analysts continue to predict that the Augmented Reality (AR) market will exhibit significant growth and will support a transformation of the ways in which many companies run their businesses. However, as with any new technology, early adopters lead the way and many companies have not yet reaped the business benefits promised by AR.

In this AREA editorial, we take a look at some of the reasons why some companies are not yet fully embracing the potential of Augmented Reality and what the AR ecosystem is doing to overcome these concerns.

In short, what are the current barriers to adoption of Augmented Reality?

We break down this topic into a number of subject domains:

• Business barriers
• Use case applicability and deployment
• IT and security
• Human factors
• Content
• Enterprise systems integration

Business barriers

Key to business adoption and success of any new technology is the ability to focus on the business value of a new technology rather than the technology itself. Augmented Reality vendors need to position their offerings in ways that appeal to senior business buyers and decision makers in order to lower the barrier of uncertainty often faced by executives.

The recent publication by AREA member Atheer of a proposed Maturity Model for AR helps companies paint their own vision for a roadmap to AR adoption by building on the work of those who’ve gone before. It is a useful tool to describe the steps required to deploy AR successfully within their businesses. Geof Wheelwright, Director of Marketing Communications at Atheer, comments “The maturity model articulates how to get started and also how to mature enterprise use of AR to the point where it really does provide a competitive advantage. The AR Maturity Model helps organizations understand each of the four distinct stages of AR Maturity – and the clear steps they need to take to move from one stage to the next.”

AREA member Christine Perey of PEREY Research & Consulting adds:

“New technology adoption requires the active support of business managers. In an ideal scenario, the business line managers as well as the senior management are ready to embrace the new technology. However, most AR introductions suffer from one or more of the following shortfalls in management:

• Lack of leadership, either due to lack of confidence in the team or the technology, or, at the other extreme;
• Company leadership that is advocating for technology introductions without full understanding of timing (and perhaps too early or too quickly);
• Imbalances with (or poorly informed) risk analyses and assessments.”

Despite constructing a seemingly sound value proposition for the adoption of AR technology, projects often flounder for a number of reasons. Christine Perey comments:

“Many AR projects encounter financial barriers: either funding is insufficient and/or the resources are not distributed across all the components of a successful AR adoption campaign. There is also a general shortage of information about the costs and components of return on investment (ROI). Finally, AR product and service providers are searching for new and different business models (Data as a Service, Software as a Service, Hardware as a Service) which can be unfamiliar to customers and need to be tested before proven.”

To help companies create a robust assessment of the ROI offered by AR, the AREA is currently trialling an ROI calculator.

However, challenges remain. Christine Perey adds:

“Despite tools to calculate ROI, there continue to be challenges due to lack of clarity in:

• Final costs of AR hardware, services and software licenses;
• Unique or unusual recurring costs which greatly impact the total cost of ownership; or
• Benefits other than time savings and error reduction that are not easily measured in pilot projects.”

Use case applicability and deployment

A previous AREA editorial discussed the issues related to the fact that AR investigations often stall after development and demonstration of a “cool demo,” highlighting the critical importance of ensuring that investigations into AR are firmly grounded within an appropriate use case and application of the technology that makes sense for the investigating company.

An appropriate tool to use for such evaluations is the “Opportunity versus Readiness” map which, following a set of weighted criteria definitions of potential positive business outcomes and the technical, infrastructure, and other business readiness aspects, enables the initial mapping of potential AR applications to gain a business-centric view of where to focus initial investigations.

An example analysis is shown in Figure 1 with the most feasible and impactful applications appearing in the upper right-hand quadrant.

Figure 1. Example ‘Opportunity versus readiness’ mapping

IT and security

As AR often relies upon the delivery of an enterprise’s Intellectual Property (IP) to new devices and systems that are logically and physically outside the corporate firewall, there clearly must be sufficient measures in place to protect this IP. A recent article explores many of the issues related to cybersecurity with AR, pointing out the uneasy position of AR-related innovation presenting new and ill-understood challenges to corporate IT leadership.

To support understanding of these issues, the AREA’s Security Committee is focused on studying security topics within AR and proposing best practices for adoption by vendors and users of the technology.

Human factors

Owing to the inherent nature of AR, involving both the delivery of visual and aural content whilst in some cases capturing information about the users, often coupled with doing a job differently, a number of concerns have been raised and studied.

Privacy protection is a common concern both legally and at a more personal level. As AR-enabled devices typically use computer vision technology with video feeds from the device camera(s), in addition to capturing sounds, user location, etc., it’s easy to see why there are concerns. However, industrial best practices provide a way to mitigate many of these concerns by ensuring users are aware of what is being captured and how that information is used.

Resistance to change caused by the transformation of an existing role to one that harnesses AR has been shown to be partially offset by involving those impacted in the process of technology adoption. Christine Perey comments:

“Attention to the worker/technician attitudes about AR is extremely important in all stages of the enterprise AR project.

Common steps to reduce resistance include working directly with end users in the design of user interfaces and proving use cases, providing incentives for participation and feedback in AR proof of concept projects and trials, and making sure that there is a highly respected tradesperson or technician on board with the AR introduction plan.”

The wearing or carrying of AR-enabled devices has safety implications. They can cause discomfort or reduce situational awareness, amongst other concerns. A recently published report by Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) described some key findings and identified areas for further study. Furthermore, the AREA is actively engaged in supporting discussion of these topics, with a number of members participating in the AREA Human Factors Interest Group.

Content

The ready availability of applicable content to underpin scalable deployment of Augmented Reality apps and experiences is an ongoing challenge. Such content spans 3D models, step-by-step sequences for service and manufacturing processes, and more. A typical first foray into Augmented Reality often involves the manual re-modeling of 3D product models to support the AR experience. However, this manual task has inherent cost and time implications, typically raising management concerns about the applicability of AR to support scalable deployment of business processes.

Moreover, within many companies, there are existing 3D CAD files that offer reuse possibilities if suitable transformation, IP protection and optimization could be harnessed within an automation framework.

David Francis, Chief Marketing Officer at Theorem Solutions comments:

 “Many companies will spend absolutely ages re-crafting their 3D CAD into something usable in a games engine, using a product like 3DS MAX. 

However, in doing so, the connection to the initial design is lost.  Moreover, as the correct geometry isn’t even used, the experience may be “representative” rather than actual.”

So, if you are planning on using 3D content in your XR app then it is probably best to find a solution that can make best use of your existing CAD assets.  A solution that can read the geometry as it was designed and will prevent someone having to spend hours redoing something that the designer already did.”

Enterprise systems integration and interoperability

A compelling feature of Industrial AR is the ability to present pertinent content over the physical world. Depending upon the use case, this data, in principle, can be extracted from IoT, ERP, CRM, PLM, or other business systems. This systems integration task is often perceived as difficult and costly, if indeed possible at all.

Additionally, there should be systems in place to deliver content that is relevant, up-to-date, secure and correct. David Francis agrees that when such delivery systems are not available, “Any downstream changes to 3D CAD models will need to be manually re-modeled, as these are maintained outside of the PLM process.” 

However, there is growing support for such enterprise systems integration by vendors in the AR ecosystem but more is needed.  The AREA Interoperability and Standards Program is promoting a workshop in January 2020  to specifically focus upon AR interoperability requirements with the aim of sharing the outcomes with Standards Development Organizations and AR vendors to help accelerate adoption of standards within the AR community.

Conclusion

The following summarizes the points made in this editorial article:

We hope this AREA article has explained some of the current perceived challenges and ways in which they are being addressed. As with many new technologies, the AR market of solutions is rapidly maturing to address these challenges and working hard to help global industries embrace the value offered by AR to transform many business processes.

For further reading, we invite you to read a report, commissioned by the AREA, which examines some of these objections which pertain specifically to the manufacturing sector. 

The AREA actively promotes discussion in a number of the domains discussed in this article by supporting various AREA committees. These comprise AREA members with expertise in the various topic areas who meet on a regular basis to help move the ecosystem forward.

We thank the contributors for their perspectives and welcome your feedback.

The sixth annual Enterprise Wearable Technology Summit (EWTS) was recently held in Dallas. The event, produced by AREA member Brainxchange, brings together many of the enterprise AR experts, practitioners and evangelists from around the world.

This year, in my role as Executive Director of the AREA, I was excited to be invited to be asked to moderate two panels:

• Leading Utilities & Energy experts discuss how they’re leveraging AR/VR & wearables
• Ask the Providers, leading solution providers answer your most burning questions

The panels were a great success, both were well attended and the panelists offered real insight and know-how.

The Utilities & Energy experts panel included representatives from leading companies, such as Chevron, Southern Nuclear, Ameren, American Electric Power and Duke Energy.

It was great to hear about the different use cases, returns on investment, and challenges the companies and practitioners have overcome to deliver benefits to their organisations.

The second panel closed day 2 and was slightly different from many of the other panels. This time, the focus was on providers (rather than enterprises). The session allowed for the audience to ask questions to a wide range of provider companies: Circuit Stream, HPE, Iristick, Jujotech, Peregrine and Tobii Pro.

Again, it was a very engaging and wide-ranging conversation focusing on what enterprises need to do to support the deployment of AR solutions. It was great to hear from some of the leading providers of AR technology talk about their approach and engagement with large organisations.

My thanks to the Brainxchange team for allowing the AREA to be part of this excellent event!

Recently, AREA members voted to have the organization’s sixth member-funded research project focus on the challenges and opportunities ahead for those who  use Web-based technologies to create, manage and deliver AR experiences in the workplace. The research will include an in-depth study of the W3C IW working group’s activities, and a comparison of benefits and limitations of using Web-based delivery of enterprise AR content versus the existing native application approach.

The AREA request for proposals for the research project provides additional context for the research and details, including the deliverables that members seek:

• a written report containing the results of research and analysis with recommendations and a bibliography of sources and appendix with list of experts who contributed to the research;
• a working demonstration of Web-based AR delivery and presentation for an elementary enterprise use case; and
• a case study or executive summary of the research to be published on the AREA Web site.

Organizations with relevant expertise in the research topic are invited to respond to the request for proposals on or before 12 PM Eastern Daylight Time on September 16, 2019.