How would you describe the state of the AR ecosystem today?

It’s a very exciting period within AR. We have big actors like Google and Apple pushing AR in their new devices and new tools like ARCore and ARKit. And from an industrial perspective, we see a lot of companies starting to see the potential AR can bring. But it’s still a challenge to connect these industry actors with providers of software and hardware to create a total solution.

As a technology provider, we play a role in several segments of this AR ecosystem, including device vendors, software vendors and system integrators, where we utilize our gesture control and proximity technology to enable features. It’s an exciting ecosystem but also an ecosystem that’s in an early stage and that need groups like the AREA. The AREA provides a meeting place for the different creators where they can share and jointly develop these new solutions.

What do you think are the major obstacles to widespread AR adoption now?

There are several things. It is largely a matter of getting the industry know-how to where this new technology can make a difference. From a technology solution perspective, we not only need to provide the hardware or software solutions, but also to map them to the needs of the industry, which is a very complex environment. We need to get these two worlds to meet.

Second, it’s still early days from a hardware perspective. We are building these new devices based on components from the mobile world or other electronics areas, rather than designing them from scratch. We will need to come further in terms of battery life, design, performance, and the comfort of wearing these devices. There are a lot of things that need further improvement to really take off and meet the demands of the industry.

From a software perspective, of course, there are improvements needed as well. We are trying to contribute from our end on the interaction part, which I also think is very important, so that you can interact with these new wearable solutions in the way that’s needed. The methods you use, and the way it is done, are very important for the overall uptake on the end user side. At the end of the day, AR will really take off when we can get people to use wearables as part of their working environment and help them to get the “superpowers” these products can provide.

How important is gesture technology to the development and adoption of AR?

It is crucial, because we are providing the user with a new dimension. Designing for immersive environments is fundamentally different than designing for 2D flat screens. We’ve done a lot of studies into the development of user interfaces for AR solutions. To interact in three dimensions, you need a method that provides the capabilities you expect as a user, like interacting with objects and moving them around, and gestures can do exactly that.

Our mobile proximity technology provides another important part of the user experience, by providing contextual awareness – a key technology to secure information relevance and efficient information exchange when performing tasks. We’re looking at a paradigm shift within UI in AR within the next two years. Our contribution is to provide the means for the touchless interaction and contextual awareness part and making that possible in AR.

What can you tell us about the future of gesture technology in augmented reality?

The limitations are hardware currently. We can use a number of different sensors to enable gesture control, but most AR glasses and mobile solutions are based on 2D standup camera sensors. That limits the way in which we interact with gestures, especially in three dimensions. So, looking forward I expect there will come more advanced sensors in these devices that provide you the depth map, the third dimension of information, that is needed to interpret gestures in all three dimensions. With that in place, we can go from having gestures as a menu-driven, pick-and-choose interaction, to manipulating the environment you are working in with AR. That will be a huge change. Back to this paradigm shift, AR is one part of that shift but also the shades of interaction and how you build user experience and the user interface will be completely different in a few years, which will totally change the appearance of these solutions.

How do you expect to benefit from being a member of the AREA, and which AREA activities might Crunchfish be involved in?

We are very much looking forward to being an active member in driving the user experience aspect of AR. I think we can contribute quite a lot in this space. For the last seven years, we have been working with gesture interaction and user experiences in mobile devices, and lately in virtual reality headsets and augmented reality glasses. Since 2014, we have been working on our mobile proximity technology that provides contextual awareness between entities such as smartphones, wearables, machines, physical areas and vehicles. In a defined “proximity bubble,” our technology enables these entities to seamlessly discover, connect and share information with each other. Besides contributing our user experience expertise, we will certainly gain valuable insights about enterprise challenges and barriers for AR adoption from our fellow AREA members. We’re excited about getting to know and work with pioneers and innovators in the industry.

AREA members Newport News Shipbuilding (NNS), DAQRI, and Upskill and AREA Executive Director Mark Sage are featured in an article on AR at IndustryWeek, the long-running manufacturing industry publication. The article explores the state of AR adoption in manufacturing, weaving in the experiences and insights of NNS’ Patrick Ryan, DAQRI’s Matt Kammerait, and Upskill’s Jay Kim, along with observations from executives of GE Digital and Plex Systems. Find the article here.

The newest member of the AREA is one of the largest companies in the aerospace, defense, security, and technologies industry – and an Augmented Reality pioneer.

It’s Lockheed Martin. The Bethesda, Maryland-based company, which employs 98,000 people worldwide, joined the AREA as a Sponsor member in October. Lockheed Martin will be represented on the AREA board by Christi Fiorentini, a senior manufacturing applications engineer in Lockheed’s Marietta, Georgia Aeronautics organization.

Fiorentini traces Lockheed’s involvement in AR back about 15 years, when the company’s research and development team began exploring opportunities for the technology. Each of Lockheed Martin’s business units — Aeronautics, Space Systems, Missiles and Fire Control, and Rotary and Mission Systems – has experimented with the technology. About five years ago, Fiorentini’s unit, Aeronautics, began looking into augmented reality for remote subject matter expert applications.

“The technology then wasn’t quite up to par for use in a production environment, so it got put on the back burner,” recalled Fiorentini. “Around October last year, Aeronautics gained a new interest in the technology when we observed many start-ups and smaller businesses bringing AR to fruition.”

Lockheed Martin is seeking to incorporate augmented reality throughout the product lifecycle, from the initial design phase all the way through sustainment, with a heavy interest in manufacturing.

“We’ve been investigating the technology, going to conferences, and developing proofs of concept to build business cases, because we need to prove that this technology can work within our own boundaries so that we can make the investment,” said Fiorentini. “If we’re going to shift into this realm of technology, it’s a big move, a big status quo change, and so while I do believe the ROI is there, we need to show that it works on our actual use cases to convince our leadership to invest in it.”

That’s why Lockheed Martin joined the AREA.

“I think more people across our business are starting to realize the potential of the technology and so we’re trying to formalize our approach across the entire enterprise,” Fiorentini noted. “We’re working to bring individual players from our different business areas together and define a more strategic approach to exploit this technology. We have some upcoming pilots that we’re working on with some of the leading AR vendors, and we’re members of DMDII, the Digital Manufacturing and Design Innovation Institute. As we engage more with these vendors and other enterprise members investigating this technology, we saw the AREA as being a good place to start pushing what we think should be best practice. We’re a big player in the aerospace and defense industry, so we’re looking at how we can use our influence to shape what the AR industry for enterprise is going to look like and the AREA is a great place to help convey that message.”

In a previous article, we introduced the University of Sheffield’s Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC), a member of the AREA that develops innovative techniques and processes for high-precision manufacturing. A subsidiary, the AMRC with Boeing, collaborates with a variety of research partners in areas such as informatics, automation, robotics and Augmented and Virtual Reality. Besides aerospace, the results of this research into manufacturing are used in the automotive, construction and other high-value industries.

Earlier this year, the AMRC opened the doors of its newest manufacturing facility, Factory 2050, a glass-walled reconfigurable factory in Sheffield Business Park. The facility investigates and showcases new technologies and processes relating to Industry 4.0, including projects to explore digitally assisted assembly technologies to fill a looming skills gap in the aerospace industry.

Augmented Reality in Digitally Assisted Assembly

The Digitally Assisted Assembly (DAA) project focuses on techniques for delivering work instructions to factory operators, including the use of optical projection AR and wearables. According to the AMRC’s digital manufacturing specialist, Chris Freeman, the project allows partner companies to experience visual work instructions through a number of delivery mediums. Research includes:

• Optimizing AR tracking methods for effectively getting a part’s position to generate a frame of reference.
• Designing user experiences for work instructions that are projected or overlaid onto a part within the user’s field of view. These include instructions that guide users for tasks such as gluing sequences, fastener insertion, inspection, wiring looms, complex routines and more. The aim of this research is to reduce cognitive load and optimize the user experience for delivery across a variety delivery modes (e.g., projection AR) and devices from tablets to smart glasses.
• Using location-based services to add contextualized task and environmental information in relation to the user’s position or progress within a task.

With the technology still in its infancy, one of the aims of DAA is to simply demonstrate what can be achieved with the technology. Although smart glasses and wearables aren’t proven or certified for use in manufacturing, they are nevertheless being baselined for further research and possible future production usage. The AMRC are currently following a strategy of first identifying the “low-hanging fruit” from the current state of hardware and software, which means that research associates want to find some of the most obvious and perhaps least expensive options up front.

Skype for HoloLens

Although the AMRC is studying a variety of smart glasses brands such as ODG and Vuzix, remote collaboration use cases with Skype for HoloLens is an interesting application for meeting the needs of certification processes. This use case includes methods for lineside support and remote verification to complement or replace expensive quality management activities requiring the presence of a supervisor. It may even include assistance by remote colleagues when assembly or repair problems are encountered.

Freeman notes that though such use cases aren’t spectacularly advanced in terms of tracking in comparison with other scenarios such as overlaying geometric 3D models on objects being assembled, they are nevertheless disruptive of current manufacturing practices.

Projecting Work Instructions on Large-Volume Objects

Projected Augmented Reality, sometimes referred to as “spatial Augmented Reality,” features one or more optical projectors projecting a beam of light onto a specially designed work surface or even on the parts being assembled. Thus work instructions are displayed directly on surfaces to guide operators. The DAA is currently researching methods for effectively using projection AR in conjunction with both fixtures and robotic arms in work cells.

For example, an operator assembles aircraft parts with the assistance of robots to present a part at a better angle than if it were lying on a work surface. A robotic arm can swivel or position the part as needed by the operator, and projected AR is able to guide operators through a series of specific manufacturing procedures.

Defining Success

As has been discussed in other industry contexts, return on investment on any new technology can be challenging to define (whether it’s for AR or any other). Typical ROI calculations seek to determine the amount of savings a project can bring and when that investment will pay off. In the case of AR, relevant questions include how to quantify the value of conceptualized data and geometries for its usage in performance metrics.

Further research into AR will eventually uncover such answers, but in the near term, human factors and ergonomic studies can also quantify the technology’s effectiveness. For example, the AMRC is currently conducting AR-related training scenarios to determine a variety of metrics such as memory retention and AR’s overall effectiveness, as well as usability and operator response.

Beyond Aerospace

Although research being conducted at Factory 2050 aims to advance the state of the art in aerospace manufacturing, many of the techniques and procedures derived by DAA and other projects will eventually be used in other industries, such as energy and construction. For example, assembly techniques for large-volume aerospace parts can also be applied to assembling prefabricated homes at a factory as part of modular building manufacture. Having recently opened its doors, it’s apparent that the new facilities of Factory 2050 will have an impact on both present and future manufacturing in multiple domains for many years to come.

In a field as young as AR, organizations seeking to justify investments have had little historical data available to help calculate ROI. The team at AREA member Catchoom have addressed this challenge by putting together a white paper that provides a step-by-step means of calculating ROI for its CraftAR image recognition software based on an actual Catchoom customer in the healthcare industry.

Download the white paper from Catchoom to learn more.

Due to the potential to radically change user engagement, Augmented Reality has received considerable and growing attention in recent months. Pokémon Go certainly has helped and, in turn, generated many expectations for the advancement of AR-based solutions. In fact, the game has provided the industry with a long overdue injection of mass appeal and as a result, significant investment from (and among) tech giants around the world.

From corner shops to large utility providers, the spike in popularity of this technology has everyone buzzing about how it could improve their business. The flexibility of implementation, from improving processes to stand-out marketing solutions, has also altered the expectations of these prospective clients as they seek personalized enterprise-level AR-based solutions. Consequently, the time has come for vendors and suppliers to consider a new model when it comes to managing customer expectations.

When deploying Augmented Reality solutions in an enterprise context, it is essential to build strong partnerships with your customers, and in many cases to take on the role of a trusted advisor. This becomes more important through the stages of delivering a project—starting with defining a proof of concept (POC) to implement bleeding edge solutions with operational teams and ultimately end users, who in fact are the actual users of the technology.

While the primary value of Augmented Reality systems is to allow for the contextual overlay of information to enable better decision making, the visual data overlay and various data sources and devices that trigger location sensors all come into play—converging in the form of a complex mesh. Vendors must note that partnerships are key to solving the pieces of this puzzle.

Service Delivery—Creating Value from the Complex Mesh

This complex mesh is what ultimately garners value as the assimilation of these technologies creates new and innovative social and business ecosystems and associated processes. When addressing enterprise adaptation, one must be aware of the following questions:

• How best can value be driven into workable solutions in an enterprise?
• How well does it integrate with existing legacy systems?
• Would new skills be required to introduce and manage the change?
• Does the solution deliver increased productivity or efficiencies, i.e., better utilization of resources or allow for better decision making through information?
• Does the solution enable new revenue models for the organization that are consistent with the existing product and service offerings?
• In turn, how does this solution affect the profitability of the organization?
• Last, but not least, is the business rationale clear for the implementation of such a solution?

The move towards customer-centric systems means that your customer (or your customer’s customer) is at the center of all decision making. This may be a shift from their existing system practices, meaning it’s even more critical that the chosen change management process be well aligned to the client’s corporate culture.

The Client’s Point of View—Questions to Ask When Going Beyond the POC

Some of the questions that vendors need to consider when it comes to implementing the solution beyond the POC are:

• What is changing?
• Why are we making the change?
• Who will be impacted by the change?
• How will they react to the change?
• What can we do to proactively identify and mitigate their resistance to the change?
• Will the solution introduce new business or revenue models?

Working as one with your customers through innovations to operations is a key factor for success. The complex mesh of AR, VR, IoT and Big Data technologies makes this even more critical as enterprises see an integration of their digital content, systems and processes.

It is essential to take a partnership mindset—where the Augmented Reality innovation solution is built both for and with the customer, and through a customer-implemented change management process—to quickly and easily create ROI as well as tangible, actionable outcomes.

AREA member JoinPad provides cloud-based and contextually aware software that simplifies processes in a number of industries. The company’s BrainPad product integrates enterprise resource systems and sensor networks to add Augmented Reality visualization and contextual computing to existing business processes.

This month we interview Nicolas Pezzarossa, Global Sales and Business Development Director of JoinPad, about the enterprise use cases his company is encountering for its products and services.

In which industries are you finding the greatest interest for your products and services?

We see strong interest from providers of energy supplies and infrastructure. Oil and gas has the largest proportion of such companies. Besides this, we’re finding companies in other industries getting involved with Augmented Reality:

• Energy
• Automotive
• Manufacturing
• IT hardware, infrastructure and services
• Retail
• Tourism

We’ve also provided solutions for use cases in these industries.

What are the reasons for AR’s popularity in these companies?

We believe it’s due to growing awareness of the value that Augmented Reality brings in conjunction with digital transformation. The ROI of individual AR use cases is becoming evident, and there’s an increasing maturity of hardware platforms for this environment.

We’ve also received much interest in our smart glasses SDK, and as well in our Smart Assistance solution that offers guided assistance as an “augmented operator’s manual” and expert collaboration in real time.

With whom do you partner most often?

We partner with well-consolidated players active in the field of consulting to large industrial companies in IT infrastructure for manufacturing processes, where we can supply the AR-related components in an OEM-type of integration.

Has employee performance in the workplace prior to AR introduction been studied by your customers?

Most of our customers have detailed statistics about performance or time taken to complete specific tasks, and to which we can correlate our solution. In other cases we’ve performed a detailed analysis of their work processes. Our product also contains a module for work order management that enables generation of KPIs for specifically measuring this type of work performance for comparison purposes.

What are common metrics, and do you recommend customers choose their own?

We find that in most cases the most important factor is time to complete a task (for increasing efficiency). But others include the ratio of possible to actual mistakes and the value of avoided damage, as well as the level of fatigue or satisfaction of operators.

As we are discussing the consequences of a disruptive technology, another important factor is the possibility of enabling new work processes. Although this is more difficult to measure, it offers large potential for increasing efficiency.

We always emphasize the importance of evidence for a return on investment in all phases of a project. This is also essential for advocating internally to stakeholders and management for the adoption of AR.

What is your company’s recommended approach to introducing AR in an organization? Are there steps or a model or method you follow?

We take a phased approach and in a preparatory phase offer a workshop for defining possible use cases and analyzing current work processes. We then propose a proof-of-concept phase in which we offer a basic solution with limited functionality. This allows the customer to experience the new solution and see its potential. We subsequently initiate a pilot phase with actual data exchange, followed by a roll-out phase where the application is introduced into actual work processes.

How is data prepared for your customer projects?

All data must be processed to efficiently support the use case. In particular, when connecting to an ERP system it’s important to choose the data sets specifically supporting the use cases.

Do you get involved in the design of the content that will be used in pilot projects?

Normally the customer asks us to provide the content as well as the design of the user interface. In the case of smart glasses this can involve an innovative interaction design. Key to project success is to propose visualizations that help solve the specific problem at hand and improves visual perception.

Our experiences working with customers have allowed us to develop specific templates for smart glasses applications that ensure efficient intake of the relevant information.

What is the profile of the typical person who performs the selected tasks prior to AR, and what are their attitudes?

Augmented Reality, particularly when used with smart glasses, has the major benefit that even untrained operators can perform complex tasks. But also highly trained operators benefit from availability of real time data where it matters.

In most cases operators are satisfied about working with innovative tools that they appreciate as supporting their work tasks. But the impact of new technologies on human resources and work safety must nonetheless be carefully monitored.

Do you study project risks, and do customers perform user studies?

Risk analysis is always part of our use case analysis, just like recommended fallback scenarios.

Although most customers don’t plan user studies themselves, we offer a questionnaire process both before and after a pilot for evaluating improvements for purposes of the roll-out phase.

What are the system components the customer must provide for a successful project?

This is highly dependent on the use case but there is in fact no requirement that customers provide us with system components. However at various times they do provide us with components ranging from full packages of 3D files to databases and API access.

What type of recognition and tracking technologies do you support, and what are the effects of lighting?

We work with all recognition and tracking principles (e.g., image, bar code, natural features, SLAM, depth sensing, etc.), but based on our proprietary core algorithms.

Lighting represents a challenge that in many cases can be overcome, yet it influences tracking stability. It’s always possible to correct this influence using other types of sensors, or to reduce its impact with fallback scenarios.

Do you use IoT, and is AR content locally archived or accessed over a network?

We have specifically developed and deployed an IoT module in our AR platform BrainPad that is used today by one of our customers in the energy industry to retrieve data from sensors on industrial equipment in the field in real time. We thus fully support IoT data integration.

For AR content, there are different scenarios involving both kinds of access and integration, depending on the workflow.

What are the greatest challenges you face in current projects?

One of the largest challenges is in the need to prove ROI on every single use case, which is often complex as many industrial and manufacturing processes are highly intertwined with other processes.

What are the future plans or next steps for JoinPad?

The next steps are to further grow our activity and supply more publishable customer use cases to further support the adoption of the technology in industry. In particular, Joinpad will intensify its education effort to spread knowledge about the value and design of AR applications by conducting workshops offered to technology experts and managers, as well as in academic initiative.

AREA member NGRAIN started in the enterprise training market and today is an AR solutions provider for a range of companies and industries.

We recently interviewed Barry Po, NGRAIN’s Senior Director of Product and Business Development, to discover the latest developments about NGRAIN’s offerings for industrial Augmented Reality.

What is your company’s mission and focus in the market?

NGRAIN has been working with customers to prepare and publish training programs and other types of information in rich and engaging ways for over 15 years. We develop solutions using both Augmented Reality and VR to meet the needs of our customers in aerospace and defense, energy and utilities, oil and gas and manufacturing and healthcare.

In each of these industries there are specialists who work with physical objects—whether to deploy, operate or to maintain and service these machines—and who need the right information in the right place at the right time. That’s what Augmented Reality brings: the ability to access information that would otherwise not be readily available or easy to understand, and equipping these people with knowledge they need to make better decisions. As a result, training time is shortened and they can perform tasks quickly and correctly every time it’s required.

A field technician’s work is often more complex than outsiders understand. When preparing and executing some tasks, there is a staggering number of details. Many human errors happen when working with heavy assets, such as maintaining or operating heavy equipment like a vehicle or a complex assembly. The value of Augmented Reality in those situations is to reduce errors, as well as cut down on missteps and omissions of technicians in the field. The technology makes it more practical for someone to do a complex job and ensures that they don’t forget anything along the way.

Another major benefit is that a comparatively less experienced person can use the information without having to spend time in the classroom before becoming productive.

What products and technologies does NGRAIN offer?

We offer a full suite of solutions so that the customer can reach the results they seek quickly. Our AR software development kit allows customers to build custom applications with AR. NGRAIN Producer Pro is what people who want to author their own AR applications with a GUI use. It doesn’t require programming experience. It allows authors to create or import their 3D content and to link it to metadata, as well as display it on Windows, iOS and Android mobile devices. Lastly, NGRAIN also provides customized Augmented Reality solutions tailored to customers’ specific needs.

Are there some use cases that, in your experience, are particularly well-suited for AR?

One major use case that NGRAIN addresses is maintenance training. Our AR-enabled solutions help someone in the field learn on the job rather than just in the classroom. It helps them figure out what they need to do, as well as what’s needed for their work and to get feedback. Having it all on a mobile device such as smart glasses makes it easily accessible.

Another major use case is visual inspection and damage assessment. Our solutions for battle damage assessment and repair are deployed in the field by Lockheed Martin, which has been an NGRAIN customer for eight years. US Air Force technicians use our technology to assess and organize repairs for F-22 and F-35 aircraft. This maximizes the amount of time the aircraft spend in flight and reduces maintenance costs and time spent in the hangar.

Which measurements or metrics for assessing AR’s impact do you prefer?

From an AR perspective, our customers are in the process of defining business cases and metrics, so measurements such as ROI have yet to be defined in a standardized way.

If we take a broader perspective that includes Mixed and Virtual Reality however, we can make a few generalizations about KPIs. Based on NGRAIN’s experience deploying 3D applications for maintenance training, we find the technology can double knowledge retention, which, in turn, brings a variety of benefits. For example, technicians become less prone to missing steps or mixing up the sequence. This increased efficiency also enables them to focus more on the job as a whole and ensure it’s well executed.

A third interesting metric is a statistic measuring how often a job is completed correctly the first time it’s performed. When we deploy the technology, we find customers are able to execute the job correctly nine times out of ten. In the oil and gas industry, for example, correct first-time job execution only occurs 30-40% of the time, so the technology’s impact can be significant.

What is your approach to introducing customers to AR?

We look at the customer’s problems first, focusing on their business environment and organization. It’s important to understand a customer’s pain points in achieving their goals, and one way we do this is by spending time at their sites and observing their operations firsthand.

Recently we spent time with an oil and gas customer’s technicians in the field that was maintaining drilling equipment. We learned that much of the knowledge needed to correctly do jobs isn’t actually documented, but nevertheless is subsequently required by less-experienced people. Our aim, with our 3D guidance solutions, is to provide this kind of tribal knowledge as a virtual mentor might.

What are the typical customer organization’s approaches with respect to new technology introduction?

Everyone agrees that technology is a valuable part of any organization, but we often find differences of opinion in the degree of intensity that new technologies should be introduced. For example, many people who would benefit from AR really don’t care about the technology itself but are looking for the efficiency gains it provides.

In our view, introducing new technologies is less about imposing an approach on the customer or the end user. We make them a part of the process of discovering what works best for them. This ensures that everyone’s perspective is taken into account in the process, rather than the process being solely about the vision of a person or small group of people at the top.

A successful deployment of AR technology takes effort and is unique to each customer and group. Discovering the right approach for a particular customer is greatly helped by working with stakeholders at all levels.

Wearables are leading the next industrial revolution as enterprises leverage their data and systems and employees work with the physical world in new ways. From sensors in clothing to smart watches and glasses, wearables will connect the modern workforce with data and with one another. Wearables are also becoming a component in the emerging constellation of tools for accessing the Industrial Internet of Things.

One class of wearable devices—namely smart glasses—are also essential to delivering Augmented Reality experiences that promise efficient, hands-free work, without having to switch attention to a paper manual or hold a mobile device. Smart glasses are evolving rapidly so business cases and implementation practices must advance as well.

New forums are offering answers that help executives and representatives of companies put wearables to use and to grasp their full potential. AREA member BrainXchange will organize and present the Enterprise Wearable Technology Summit East, a conference on wearables in enterprise and industrial settings, in Atlanta, Georgia, on June 16 and 17.

Putting Enterprise Wearable Practitioners First

Many events provide vendors the opportunity to present their wares to customers. There’s a lot of value in this, but it’s not the complete picture.

Enterprise Wearable Technology Summit East focuses on real world case studies. By sharing the experiences of pilot projects and production implementations, participants have the opportunity to compare experiences about this new wave of technology and formulate best practices.

This isn’t to say that vendors of wearable products and technologies are not welcome. On the contrary, they need to understand customer frustrations as well as achievements. Indeed, the team at BrainXchange relies, in part, on the vendors of wearable technologies to open the doors to customers who may not feel comfortable in the limelight.

Diversity Fuels Investments

With only pockets of successful wearable deployments in any one industry, any industry-specific solutions can’t be justified. The many industry-specific conditions and opportunities will influence the pace of adoption of wearables within one vertical. However, a healthy multi-industry dialog can create a larger market pull that could be sufficiently big to fuel new investments.

Attendees from diverse industries such as oil and gas, healthcare, utilities, shipping and others will attend EWTS East to discuss and gain insights on the data and lessons learned on the ground and in the trenches.

From the presentations and panels on the stage and the private sidebar conversations that begin in the context of networking functions, patterns will emerge. AREA members will be sharing their insights and opinions.

AREA-Moderated Group Discussion

AREA Executive Director Christine Perey will moderate the second-day group discussion on “Cultural and Organizational Considerations” of wearables, which will discuss business challenges of wearables faced by enterprises, including:

• Privacy and ethics
• Workplace culture and behavioral changes
• Costs and ROI
• Prospects of standardization and regulation
• Safety concerns of wearables by industry

The panelists and audience will gain new perspectives about the rise of wearable computing and how it will promote new human-world interactions and connect us more intimately with the surrounding environment.

Are you going to attend the EWTS East event in mid-June? Join the AREA and promote your participation in this special event in Atlanta.

AREA members have a great deal of experience with implementing enterprise AR projects. We sat down with Niklas Rengfors, VP of Sales at XMReality, to learn how his company’s solutions and approach to AR introduction are helping to improve field service organizations with advanced remote assistance technologies.

What types of companies are using your solutions today?

We have the privilege to work with companies like Tetra Pak, Wärtsilä, Bombardier and Bosch Rexroth who have large, geographically dispersed field service organizations. Service professionals are called upon to perform routine service but sometimes they encounter situations that they don’t expect. Our systems can also be used to help those in two factories or two service centers visualize conditions and support one another using a live video enhanced with Augmented Reality.

What are the reasons these customers have chosen to work with XMReality as a supplier?

One important factor is that we focus on industrial users, mainly asset-heavy companies with a worldwide support commitment and provide all the hardware, software and services they need to deploy for remote assistance. Since our standard solution is truly “plug and play,” they can quickly begin to get experience and results. Then we collaborate with our customers in order to provide additional Augmented Reality functionality.

How has the employee performance in the workplace where you’ve introduced Augmented Reality been impacted?

We always work with a customer to put a business case together before we know the size of the deployment and the investment required. Working with service organizations, they monitor a lot of metrics. For example, they know precisely how much time they spend travelling, how much of the service they provide is under warranty, etc.
The most popular KPIs are

• First time fix ratio
• Travel costs
• Manhours to complete a task
• Uptime on the asset/machine

What is your company’s recommended approach to AR introduction? Are there steps or a model/method you follow?  

It is very important to have a plan and to follow the plan when new technology is being introduced. We have developed our own methodology. XMWork is a project planning framework we provide for both proof of concepts and also roll-outs, on which we collaborate with the customer.

Do you get involved in the design of the content that will be used in the introduction project/pilots?

Yes, that’s part of our full turnkey service. It is important to align the customer expectation with the technical possibilities and sometimes the customer does not have the skills or tools in-house to make the changes that are required.

How is data prepared for your customer projects?

Once the customer identifies the data they want to use, in meetings and sometimes in workshops, they provide it to us. Our engineers will then modify and enhance it for use in remote assistance using our technology. Sometimes this involves breaking the information down into smaller parts. Sometimes we need to prepare an animation or illustration. It depends on the project and the data we are provided.

What is the profile of a typical user who performs the selected tasks using your product? Are they highly trained professionals?

The users of our systems are technicians and field engineers, so-called “blue collar workers.” There’s little training required for our solution so users don’t need special certification for that.

Do you study project risks with the customer or project leader?

Yes, it is important that customers share and decide the risk level that is acceptable. We see in some cases where smart glasses are worn and might require extra precautions. For example, the person using the glasses needs to detect potential danger such as forklifts in the vicinity. Also some technicians need to climb into machines so they must see where they put their feet. These are questions that typically emerge which we are evaluating project risks.

Do your customers perform user studies prior to and following the use of the XMReality system?

Absolutely! Customers prepare a business case to get funding prior to the project but then they must update these calculations once they have more experience with the technology and use cases. It is very important for us and the customer to study acceptance rates and we frequently help the customer in this study or in creating the business case.

What are the attitudes of those in the workplace where AR projects are successfully introduced?

It depends a lot on the personality and age of the user. Younger people tend to adopt new technology more quickly. Others are a bit more conservative when asked to use new technology. When the user sees the efficiency increase, though, even the more skeptical ones are eager to adopt this type of technology.

Considering the three ingredients of enterprise AR (hardware, software and content), what are the components of the system(s) you offer?

Core in our offering is the software. Customers are able to use their own devices but we also offer our own hardware, hands-free displays that we call “video goggles” and also tablets. For some, hands-free operations is of big importance, for some not. We can also provide accessories such as tool belts in order to improve accessibility of all the tools and technologies technicians require.

What are the greatest challenges you face in current introduction projects?

At this time, it’s quite a challenge to find and secure the right project sponsors. Then we have to support them to obtain project funding and a qualified project manager. We collaborate and consult a great deal to make sure everyone is comfortable with the project scope and that the solutions we offer will meet or exceed the expectation of the project.

What are the future plans/next steps for your company?

We are continually developing our Remote Guidance solution and also expanding the type of Augmented Reality projects we can do. Part of this requires our establishing partnerships with manufacturers of smart glasses so that the customer’s requirements are satisfied. We are always interested in meeting new potential partners and working with them to bring more complete solutions to our customers.