An increasing range of new technologies, including Augmented Reality-assisted displays and other wearables, promise to be useful to utility industry workers. In order to help its employees and current or future technology providers get more familiar with one another, leading competitive energy provider Exelon Corporation hosted a special event.

To stimulate exchange of ideas and improve planners’ understanding of the future of utilities participants watched demonstrations and listened to presentations by innovation thought leaders.

The AREA and member organization, EPRI, are co-organizing the AR in Leading-edge Utilities event in Charlotte, NC on July 27 and 28, 2015 to similarly foster mutual exploration and understanding of the industry-wide opportunities to improve processes with AR-assisted systems.

This week at the Paris Air Show aviation companies from around the world made hundreds of announcements and showcased the industry’s latest advancements in exhibition space and out of doors. Leading airplane manufacturers, Boeing and Airbus, have been using Augmented Reality for years in pilot programs but the technology has rarely been integrated in production procedures.

Things are finally changing. According to Bruno Le Moal, Managing Director for Aerospace and Defense at Accenture and the spokesperson interviewed in the video featured on this short post on the EuroNews site, the use of Augmented Reality and wearables is increasing and even having an impact on the bottom lines by dramatically reducing the time to perform some activities without reducing quality.

Boosting industry-wide production of planes from 600 to over 1000 planes per year, says Le Moal, is the measurable goal of adopting Augmented Reality as well as other new technologies introduced at this year’s event, in the factory.

Visualizing designs and drawings in 3D is a skill that is difficult to learn but necessary for architects and others with whom they work on a daily basis when in construction and building projects and trades. Microsoft partnered with Trimble, provider of the popular Sketchup tool, to develop a conceptual video about the use of Hololens by architects and others. In this post on the Architecture Linked blog, the author explains how the Hololens with Sketchup can fit into the workflow of architects and the benefits of various use cases.

Petropars, an Iranian oil company, announced this week that it has introduced 3D Augmented Reality experiences for use by workers in the South Pars gas field phase 12. This announcement published in English on the Shana web site, which is covering news, trends and other developments during the 20th Oil Exhibition in Tehran, and claims to be the first of its kind.

A new report published by consultancy McKinsey & Company, entitled “Industry 4.0 – How to Navigate a Changing Industrial Landscape,” describes the role of ubiquitous sensors and new data analytics. The report predicts that there will be a 30-55 percent drop in knowledge work (healthcare, IT, legal, finance) between 2010 and 2020. Those workers who remain will need to perform specialized and undocumented tasks. These will be supported through remote experts and with Augmented Reality.

Boeing’s CIO Ted Colbert is fully in support of the continued growth of Augmented Reality projects under his watch. The AREA sponsor member is expanding the scope and investment it is making into the technology not only in manufacturing but also in training and maintenance operations. This feature article in InformationWeek explains how the company seeks to advance despite the current technology limitations.

Zurich Insurance is preparing to roll out Augmented Reality-based learning system across 10,000 employees in 170 countries in order to help develop the key skills the managers feel they need to be productive at their jobs in 2016, according to this article on Computer Weekly web site. The $74B insurance giant expects rapid payback on the investment from another use case that will lower IT cost. Using the mobile AR service, employees will have the option to use Augmented Reality to receive support in the place of using the company’s help desk. The full-scale roll out will go live in October 2015.

Defense organizations have been integrating Augmented Reality into their soldier programs for longer than it has been available for commercial deployment, however, people continue to test and prove new use cases. In this expert opinion piece published by DCNS Group, the author examines the use of AR for mission planning, training and support. The NextGen Combat Bridge will integrate more Augmented Reality into military ships for faster decision making and more efficient operations.

Sorting and getting products to the right place without detours or delays is an increasingly competitive business. According to an article in Fierce Wireless, the US Postal Service has announced in a report that it is exploring the possibility of using Augmented Reality in a variety of use cases including but no limited to assisting carriers with their deliveries. Cost and time savings are among the goals of the project.

Preparing data to make it useful in Augmented Reality view can present challenges to some enterprise data managers. Workflows need to be modified in order to ensure that there’s always a physical world “target” or “anchor” that will trigger the AR experience. In this short blog post on Sourceable, the author highlights how architects can be preparing for the future by adding real world geospatial reference to their projects.