HPC data storage systems rely on parallel file systems to deliver maximum performance and there are two options to choose from: Open source or commercial parallel file systems.

Opinions abound on both, so it’s worth examining what’s hype and what’s real. Jim Donovan explores the following topics:

·         Cost of acquisition – What’s better than free?

·         Confusing customisation with flexibility

·         Elimination of the ‘performance’ gap

Key quotes from the article include:

“Today, the need for high performance data storage infrastructure in commercial enterprise cannot be understated”

 “By the time CIOs factor in the cost of additional staffing requirements to implement and manage an open source parallel file system, there’s quite a price tag associated with the ostensibly ‘free’ purchase”

Today, the need for high performance data storage infrastructure in commercial enterprise cannot be understated. The massive volumes of data generated from emerging technologies such as AI and machine learning is growing exponentially due to the ease of application integration with enterprise business, covering all industries from manufacturing to life sciences.

Fueled by hardware innovations and software-driven services, HPC data storage systems are allowing enterprises to use new technology to achieve greater levels of productivity and operational efficiency than ever before, and it’s the outstanding performance capabilities of parallel file systems that are servicing demand.

Concluding, the author said that when all evidence is considered, enterprise CIOs who want to avoid potential operational and reputational risk of failure will see that the benefits of choosing a commercial parallel file system strongly outweighs the exposure of undertaking the task to finance in-house resources and build the infrastructure required to implement an open source solution.

Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) have the potential to expedite the building process and minimize risks by allowing project team members and clients to see and feel how a finished product will look, and to identify problems before they become worse. Both VR and AR allow users to digitally experience something before physically erecting or transforming it, which saves both time and money. Emerging technology, however, rarely arrives without accompanying risk. As VR and AR products become more prevalent and accessible to all involved in the construction industry, savvy industry leaders must take steps to shield themselves and their teams from the legal quagmires associated with adopting these tools.

The article is a must for anyone in the construction industry but will also be useful to other readers. Key topics discussed:

Uses for VR and AR in the Construction Industry

Legal risks –  design error liability, safety concerns on and off the construction site, data privacy, and intellectual property concerns. These are all discussed in detail. A flavour of the discussions is as follows:

• While construction industry tailored AR and VR applications are frequently geared towards increasing project safety, careless use of these products may increase the risk of accidents.
• Ultimately, responsibility for preparing and enforcing safety guidelines for the use of AR and VR technology on-site should be allocated by contract. 
• Another exposure companies face when using AR and VR is cybersecurity and vulnerability to hackers. Since confidential or proprietary information may be stored in this technology, a cybersecurity attack on a product’s provider or the user could threaten the security of the user or the customer’s sensitive information. 
• Finally, the ownership, licensing, and use of AR and VR technology are intellectual property issues that must be considered by any business using these products. 

The full article outlining legal risks can be read here.

But PTC decided to leave their long-term home to enable them to attract the type of talent required to drive the company forward in this age of emerging technologies.

Since its launch just over 30 years ago, PTC has led the way in CAD and PLM but in recent years that portfolio has grown to include innovative technologies such as augmented reality. “The market now is about AI, AR, VR, 5G, cloud, edge and high-performance computing,” Jim Heppelmann, president and chief executive officer explains. “If you want to play in those areas, you need to get the top graduates. But they do not want to work in a suburban area, we can’t easily pull these people out to the suburbs.

Leading innovation from the Reality Lab

The answer was the 17-story building, 121 Seaport, that became PTC’s home when it opened earlier this year. Aside from the 1,000 PTC employees, a crucial element of the new environment is the Customer Experience Centre (CXC) that takes up the top floor of the building. Tucked in amongst the working examples of Industrial IoT is the PTC Reality Lab.

“In the factory, there are millions of sensors, motors, robots, and machines and problems with humans interacting with machines. There’s such a high density of spatial problems that this is the perfect playground to research the future of augmented reality.”

Read the full article here 

Please note The AREA is not affiliated with publishers of market reports and analysis but occasionally shares the information that may be relevant to our followers in the AR ecosystem.

Augmented reality technology brings information into the line of sight to the user. While most people will experience their first taste of augmented reality using their smartphone’s screen and camera, the real appeal for the enterprise is to bring AR into head-mounted displays to help drive new business processes, train new employees, and enable first-line workers. Companies are utilizing AR technology to streamline age-old processes to save both time and money.

AR as a training mechanism is gaining traction as a wide range of enterprise organizations wrestle with huge swaths of employees aging out of the workforce and taking the knowledge with them. Finally, there is a strong interest in outfitting first-line workers who need to work hands-free.

“As more companies explore the opportunities that augmented reality brings to the enterprise, the search for the right hardware for the job continues,” said Tom Mainelli, group vice president of Devices and Consumer Research at IDC. “Large firms such as Microsoft and Epson are often the first place IT buyers look (and for good reason). However, there are also smaller firms doing innovative work to bring products to market that fulfill the needs of IT buyers.”

Kopin is an established display maker whose HMDs feature a voice interface for hands-free interaction. The devices support a wide range of industry use cases and applications, making it easier to integrate into organizations.

North offers a product that looks like regular glasses while offering a holographic display to bring information into view for the wearer and a finger-worn controller that lets the user interact with the information that appears in the see-through lens.

RealWear offers ruggedized HMDs that leverage noise cancellation and voice recognition to drive 100% hands-free interaction for any environment. A suite of services offers help with deployment options, access to partner-created applications, and security.

The report, IDC Innovators: Augmented Reality Head-Mounted Displays for Commercial Use, 2019 (IDC #US45155419), profiles three companies that have developed augmented reality (AR) head-mounted displays (HMDs) for commercial use. IDC currently tracks three types of AR HMDs: tethered, standalone, and screenless viewers. A tethered HMD connects, via cable or wireless connection, to a computing device such as PC or smartphone. Standalone HMDs have all the necessary processing, storage, and networking required (either in the headset, or connected via a purpose-built compute device). Screenless viewers utilize a smartphone for both computing and the display.

More information relating to the report can be found on the Business Wire release.

About IDC
International Data Corporation (IDC) is the premier global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications, and consumer technology markets. With more than 1,100 analysts worldwide, IDC offers global, regional, and local expertise on technology and industry opportunities and trends in over 110 countries. IDC’s analysis and insight helps IT professionals, business executives, and the investment community to make fact-based technology decisions and to achieve their key business objectives.

Friedman writes: “My main point then was that wearable technologies – the body-worn sensors being integrated into organizations’ EHS efforts, exoskeletons taking a load off workers’ backs, and VR headsets being hailed as the future of job training – exhibit coded patriarchy and risk further alienating the female workforce. Wearables that are replacing or supplementing traditional PPE(personal protective equipment) cannot succumb to the same biased or negligent design as have automobiles, office buildings, etc., for the future economy and growth of the workforce depend upon improving job prospects and working environments for women.”

The author takes us through the history of man, why this is more than product ergonomics, the data gap at the heart of the workplace, PPE in the workplace, how designing needs to change in future, and how uncomfortable lead to unproductive which ultimately impacts everyone in the enterprise.

The 6th annual EWTS will be held September 17-19 2019 in Dallas, Texas.  Events page here.

Aircraft manufacturer Airbus has deployed Microsoft’s mixed reality (MR) Hololens devices in a bid to speed production and improve training for new staff. Airbus is also teaming up with Microsoft to sell MR apps to other businesses in the airline industry.

The Netherlands-based company, which competes with the likes of Boeing and Lockheed Martin, aims to build 20,000 aircraft over the next two decades.

The full article can be read here.

What is one piece of advice you’d give to businesses looking to invest in Augmented Reality (AR) technology?

It’s the simple and classic advice, really. If you are an enterprise looking to bring AR into your organization, be very clear on what business problem you are trying to solve. Companies often want to “try out” new technology, to play with the latest gadgets and see what they do rather than focusing on solving a real business problem.

There are many AR use cases that provide real benefit by improving the performance and efficiency of the company operations. It is important to understand your business problem, then pilot a suitable AR solution and measure the outcome. This may include reducing time to complete a task, minimizing errors, and/or lowering costs of interruptions. These are all benefits that improve the bottom line.

The AREA portal offers more information on how to get started.

Can you discuss a few use cases of augmented reality for industrial professionals? Are there any barriers to adoption businesses should be aware of?

Based on my experience of speaking to the many enterprises and providers in the AR ecosystem, the use cases that are currently getting most traction include:

• Remote assistance — being able to discuss with an expert (anywhere in the world) and use AR technology to show how to fix the problem.
• Step-by-step guidance — using an AR-enabled mobile, tablet, or wearable device to show how and what to do when completing a task. This use case works particularly well for infrequent and complicated tasks.

In terms of barriers, the technology is still being developed and will continue to improve.

AR for Enterprise Alliance (AREA) has also identified business problems that it is working to overcome. These include issues when moving from pilot to full deployment. The members are working to understand and overcome safety, security, and human issues (e.g., convincing stakeholders and ensuring the workers are involved), as well as providing useful tools like an ROI calculator and Safety/Human framework.

What is one myth surrounding this technology, or Industry 4.0 in general, you’d like to debunk for our readers?

That it is complicated and difficult to deploy! This is simply not the case, and the most successful implementers of AR solutions and Industry 4.0 have started with solutions using IoT data, with simple analysis, and using tablets, phones, or assisted-reality devices to display actionable information that brings quick and substantial benefit to the company and worker.

Where do you see Industry 4.0 heading?

For Industry 4.0 to continue to provide benefit to manufacturing, Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), and AR technologies need to interact and work together better to help deliver more actionable outcomes. Benefit will also increase as the concept of the digital twin becomes commonplace, enabling designers to plan, develop, and test more efficient processes and products. These can be tested in the augmented world before being implemented in the physical.

This has been demonstrated by the next AREA research project (voted for by the members), where best practices and the merging of IoT, AI, and AR technologies will be researched.

In the future, you can envisage a self-supporting manufacturing process able to solve its own simple problems allowing staff to see (via AR) issues that need timely intervention.

Link to article

A number of firms have already adopted the emerging technology – which could help to potentially avert oil spills – including Chevron, British Petroleum (BP) and Baker Hughes, among many others.

In 2010, an explosion at BP’s Deepwater Horizon drilling rig resulted in some 210 million gallons of oil and 225,000 tons of methane spilling into the Gulf of Mexico, leading to a massive ecological disaster that caused untold damage to marine life and surrounding areas.

Since then, oil firms have adopted AR headsets and glasses, which superimpose digital images on what the wearer sees in real life to fix problems on rigs, refineries and plants. The technology transmits information in real-time to experts located anywhere in the world, who can then respond with instructions and guidance to a technician on-site.

BP relies on “smart glasses” that use a software platform developed by the Israeli company Fieldbit, whose technology is used by field service technicians via interactive AR-based glasses, mobile devices and web browsers.

“Our software enables field service personnel in remote locations to collaborate with off-site experts and management in real time via smart eyeglasses, smart phones, mobile devices and web browsers,” Evyatar Meiron, CEO of Fieldbit, told The Media Line, adding that a number of businesses had already adopted the company’s software, including BP, Emerson, Enel, and Honeywell.

Meiron said the technology helps these companies “get their personnel in the field the right information at the right time, whether it’s finding a location quickly among acres of oil wells or accessing specifications for well pressures and temperatures.”

He further noted that Fieldbit is working with a number of sectors aside from oil and gas, including the printing, manufacturing and medical industries.

Due to the high costs of flying out specialists to the far-flung places where plants and rigs are often located – which can reach tens of thousands of dollars – a number of other tech outfits have also begun providing similar AR solutions.  General Electric, for instance, has equipped some workers with “Smart Helmet,” a hard hat with a video camera and a Bluetooth-enabled headset that was created by the Italian company VRMedia. The Sweden-based XMReality also offers a similar AR-based solution.

Eric Abbruzzese, a research director at the U.S.-based ABI Research firm, which specializes in AR and virtual reality (VR), told The Media Line by email that these emerging technologies are proving popular because remote expertise is especially sought after in the oil and gas sector.

“Being able to connect with an expert (assuming there’s connectivity) to walk through a procedure/task when a worker needs it is incredibly valuable,” Abbruzzese stressed. “Just the time and cost savings for not having to have an expert travel to a site is significant.”

According to Abbruzzese, among the specific tasks that benefit the most from AR are digital documentation, 3D model viewing and step-by-step instructions.

“With more advanced AR solutions like Microsoft HoloLens, instruction can be directly overlaid on the environment as a worker goes about a task, with rich visualization for content when available,” he specified. “One can even be trained in parallel with accomplishing a task (in situ training), meaning trainee ramp up can theoretically be instant.”

In addition to training personnel, the same technology can lead to error reduction and also prevent oil spills, Abbruzzese continued. Nevertheless, because it is such a new technology, AR has so far only been implemented on a small scale and mostly with pilot phases.

“Outside of oil and gas, implementation is more significant,” Abbruzzese explained. “While there is objective value to AR usage, those difficulties with implementation can be significant barriers. The time and money required to get an oil rig and its workers outfitted and ready with advanced augmented reality is daunting; lower cost and simpler AR headsets, like Google Glass and RealWear, are more appealing today for this reason, capitalizing on some high value use cases (step-by-step instruction, remote expertise).”

The article next takes a closer look at use-cases and benefits, and how understanding the driving factors and industry trends helps plant managers weigh the pros and cons of investing in mobile and wearable technology.  Nine examples are then given of the ever-expanding use cases for wearable technology and mobile applications continue to expand. Here are nine examples of when and where these technologies provide major benefits:

1. Role-based Workbenches and Dashboards. Modern Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solutions often contain role-based workbenches and dashboards to help personnel manage their own Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and ongoing responsibilities—whether that be maintaining safety stock levels, monitoring resources committed to Engineer-to-Order orders, or optimizing supply chain deliveries for just-in-time strategies. However, these tools only work if they can be used when and where the user needs them. That could be on the shop floor, in the warehouse or at the loading dock. Therefore, remote access through mobile or handheld devices is essential.
2. Empowering Always-alert Executives. Top managers of business units and the shop floor are often vigilant watchdogs. They want to stay connected 24/7 to real-time status alerts, especially when the plant runs three shifts or has global operations in different time zones. Portals for remote access for personnel and partners are increasingly important, as global operations, “work from home” and outsourcing business models are more widely adopted.
3. Internet of Things (IoT) Data Where it Counts. Manufacturers are increasingly embedding sensors in machinery and capturing performance and maintenance-related data points through IoT technology. It is logical that maintenance managers and technicians should have access to the data near the machine. As the user approaches the piece of equipment, a real-time diagnostic view of the machinery and its components can appear on a hand-held device. The screen can highlight key performance stats and red-flag any anomalies requiring attention, giving the technician the vitals needed to perform any necessary maintenance or repairs quickly.
4. Training and Onboarding. As the shortage of skilled workers continues to plague manufacturing, often less experienced, junior-level candidates are brought on board, requiring extensive in-plant training. The complexity and high value of machine assets make plant managers reluctant to assign inexperienced technicians to perform maintenance on those assets. Augmented Reality (AR) can be used for training, giving users the chance to visualize machine issues and “practice” engaging with the high-tech tools and repair tactics. This gives new recruits valuable experience.
5. Supervising Remote Workers. Video cameras mounted on hard-hats can also be used to support junior-level technicians in the field. The video can be streamed to a central locale, where a veteran technician provides advice and supervises activities remotely. This helps the new technician learn the “tribal knowledge” and speeds resolutions.
6. Faster Resolution Rates.Whether field service technicians are dispatched to customer sites or in-plant to perform maintenance or service, the timely access to asset details — like service history, inventory of replacement parts, the status of warranties or service agreements, and previous resolutions—will help technicians make well-informed decisions about repair versus replace.
7. Upsell and Replacement Opportunities.Field technicians with access to account information and inventory details will be able to make in-field recommendations to customers and sell replacement or up-sell equipment on the spot — when the purchase decision is critical. Technicians, seen as trusted advisors, tend to have very high close-rates for on-site sales.
8. Tracking and Monitoring Personnel.Some plants can be massive, covering many buildings, yards, and warehouses. Assets can range from pipelines and rail lines to rooftop exhaust scrubbers and barges for hauling raw resources. That said, personnel can be scattered over a wide vicinity. Some locations may also pose dangers. Wearables, like vests equipped with GPS tracking, can be used to help monitor the location of employees, supporting safety and security, as well as encouraging productivity.
9. Speed Pick-and-Pack in the Warehouse. Warehouse functions are some of the most relevant and valuable applications of wearable devices. Wrist-mounted, glasses-view, or dashboard-displayed screens help forklift drivers to find and fulfill orders quickly. The loading and unloading trucks also appreciate the ability to confirm order numbers verbally rather than trying to type long series of digits accurately.

The latest edition of PTC’s bi-annual report explores how augmented reality solutions are being leveraged to reduce tracking time and costs to bridge the worker skill gap.

PTC research finds industrial enterprises are the highest adopters of AR solutions and are seeing dramatic results in driving worker efficiency and quality, while lowering costs.

The report includes actionable insights on use cases and beneficiaries, as well as detailed real-world examples.

The report authors are: Mike Campbell, EVP, Augmented Reality Products Shawn Kelly, VP, Corporate Strategy Jonathan Lang, Lead Principal Business Analyst David Immerman, Business Analyst.

The full report can be downloaded here