Taken from their statement: “Today is a historic day for our sector: we are proud and excited to announce that Make UK is the new name for EEF.

Manufacturing is changing and so are we.  We’re better placed than ever before to support your business.

For over a century, EEF has championed UK manufacturing and manufacturers.

As Make UK, we will build on this history and legacy, providing unique support for the sector, helping you to inspire the next generation of makers, inventors and creators and grow your business whether that be in your region or across the globe.

We will continue to be the voice of manufacturing – campaigning to make it easier for businesses to operate locally and globally and listened to by Government and the media.”

About Make UK

Everything we do, from business support to championing manufacturing and engineering in the UK and the EU, is designed to help our industry thrive, innovate and compete locally and globally.

We work with and for a whole range of people, including industry leaders, managers, professional staff, apprentices, policy-makers, and the media. No matter their size or field, our members are supported by our array of tools, campaigning and business support services. We believe in UK manufacturing and its contribution to the economy and community.

Their story began with the development of their own AR smart glasses (on which they could develop their AR software), as such things did not exist at the time.  From the blog:

“Back in February of 2012, when Atheer was founded, the world was still two months away from seeing Google Glass for the first time – and a little less than three years away from the initial unveiling of Microsoft’s plans for its HoloLens headset.

But our founder, Soulaiman Itani, had an exciting idea for a new way to pioneer the next generation of computing – one that would change the way that people interact with – and use – digital information.

Soulaiman Itani’s talk from the 2014 Digital Summit at MIT (featured on their blog) he recalls the pioneering work the company did on gesture recognition – which has continued since and resulted in the many patents the company holds today.

The problem he was trying to tackle then was how to create a way for people to recognize the three-dimensional gestures that underpinned his new model for interaction using simple, affordable mobile devices. What he came up with was an inventive way of taking the information from cameras on two mobile phones to provide the kind of 3-D views that would later come to be provided by smart glasses.

“After a year of work, I had this proof of concept where I basically had two Android phones and I was able to create a button that you can click in the middle of the air, in real time, running on an ARM processor,” explained Soulaiman.

We wish all the team at Atheer a very happy 7th Birthday from all at The AREA!

“For decades, knowledge transfer via heads-up display systems has increased situational awareness and saved lives in the military. RealWear brings those increases in safety and situational awareness to industry,” said Andy Lowery, Cofounder and CEO of RealWear.

Lowery continued: “This is why the HMT-1 is the preferred wearable choice for hazardous environments like the utility sector. Having the support of your team right there with you when handling dangerous procedures can help mitigate accidents while speeding maintenance procedures. We’re proud to see the HMT-1 help keep the lights on safely for 1.1 billion energy consumers.” [Editor Note: More images available here and video]

State Grid completed a successful comprehensive pilot in Shanghai, one of the largest cities in China. The goal, with 200 RealWear HMT-1 computers deployed in the field, was to provide real-time remote assistance safely to workers for live-line maintenance without the use of workers’ hands. Hands-free computing is critical to workers as insulated gloves cannot operate touch screens and also will occupy hands required for the work.

At a minimum, the work procedure is a three-person operation, requiring two workers in the bucket of the crane, the second worker holding tightly onto an insulated rope tied to the first worker working with his or her gloved hands, the third worker on the ground in a special insulated cabin watching the procedure on a mobile device, and even a fourth worker or more viewing remotely via laptop as though through the eyes of the first worker. The HMT-1 computer has a high-resolution video camera that the worker operates by voice, even in extremely loud environments due to its sophisticated noise-cancelling technology.

RealWear HMT-1 Tested Suitability of Device for High Voltage Use Case

RealWear, through a certified third-party testing agency, previously performed arc-flash testing of the HMT-1 to determine suitability for electrical generation, transmission, construction and maintenance industries. The agency tested the HMT-1 in its lab, following the ASTM F2621-12, the standard practice for determining response characteristics and design integrity of arc-rated finished products in an electric arc exposure. The testing system standard is used in more than 140 countries and involves exposing the HMT-1 to an open air arc at 8 kA, with a varied duration to attain a target energy exposure level (20-25 cal/cm²). That target level is a severe event that an electrical worker could be exposed to during routine work in the field. Arc Test video available here.

On top of this, there is a vast variety of versions for each vehicle model and type. Quite frequently, the first challenge for the service technicians is to locate the component in question in first place. Bosch supports service technicians by means of innovative Augmented Reality applications thus enabling them to perform service and repair tasks at an increasingly sophisticated working environment both efficiently and with high quality.

The advantage: Important and individual vehicle information is provided quickly and at the right place. Combining Augmented Reality applications with the ActiveSchematics technology, vehicle-specific wiring and block diagrams can now be visualized case specific and in real time. For service technicians, this results in faster repairs and prevention of mistakes during the specific tasks.

Average time savings of 15 percent per step taken

Bosch performed a field study in order to analyze the benefits of using Augmented Reality applications in everyday workshop life. Augmented Reality allows time savings of 15 percent in average per step taken – even on common vehicles and in case of less sophisticated repair tasks such as e.g. removing specific components. Once the service technician points his tablet computer or smart glasses onto an area on the vehicle’s engine compartment featuring AR information, useful information is added to the real image. In this manner, even the location of components hidden behind panels can be displayed visually.

Two powerful tools: Augmented Reality and ActiveSchematics

Once the service technician identified the vehicle, its equipment and its technical peculiarities by means of the VIN number, he will only receive the information required for the specific vehicle as he continues with the following steps. For this purpose, Bosch combines two of its solutions: ActiveSchematics and its Augmented Reality Platform (CAP).

Once the error pattern has been read out of the fault memory, ActiveSchematics creates the relevant wiring diagrams for the specific error pattern. Doing so, it only takes those components into consideration that are actually installed at the vehicle. This allows displaying a case specific overview while the Augmented Reality application shows the information right at the place where it is needed by the service technician.

For straightforward content generation, Bosch imports the data directly from engineering. This reduces the creation efforts and allows immediate and flexible implementation and release of technical advancements.

Efficient workflow cuts expenses

It eases both the fault isolation and the identification of the components affected. In addition, it saves time as service technicians don’t have to go through various manuals to find the problem resolution, but can start repairing right away. Therefore, focusing on information relevant for the specific vehicle and error pattern, the combined use of Augmented Reality applications and ActiveSchematics also help avoiding unnecessary repair steps, mistakes and thus save costs.

See the full press release.

Bühler Consumer Foods was established in January 2019, integrating the Haas Group and the original consumer foods business of the Bühler Group. The Haas Group has been a customer of XMReality’s since 2016. Bühler Consumer Foods now expands its agreement with XMReality and enables users from other businesses from within the Bühler Group to use the solution in Asia. Bühler Group will do an initial roll-out in Asia to enable their helpdesk staff support both their own mobile workers as well as including XMReality Remote Guidance into their remote service offering.

“Thanks to the positive experience we have made within our Consumer Foods business and the good partnership with XMReality we decided to expand our pilot project and will use the new support tool for customer service in Asia”, says Manfred Götz, CIO of Bühler.

“XMReality highly values existing customer relationship with Bühler Consumer Foods and we are excited to support the expanded partnership with the Bühler Group. International roll-outs, and the extended focus on reselling our solutions as part of customer service offerings is a developing trend we see amongst our customers”, says Johan Castevall, CEO XMReality.

The order includes XMReality Remote Guidance software, XMReality Web Client, and XMReality PointPad™. The software value is approx. 0,5 MSEK annual recurring revenue and will be recognized during 2019. Including this additional order, total order value from Haas Group during last 12 months amounts to approx. 1,0 MSEK.

Production levels of the Vuzix Blade AR Smart Glasses continue to ramp with steadily improving yields; with management’s production target capacity of 2000 units per month expected to be achieved by the end of Q1.  As part of Vuzix’ expanding waveguide production capabilities, the Company will phase in additional production capacity during 2019 for OEM-related smart glasses and waveguide projects commensurate with increased unit demand from expected project customers.

“The Vuzix Blade received a great reception at CES 2019 with thousands of booth visitors that ranged from the C-Suite of major consumer brands and corporations to strategic partners from around the world,” said Paul Travers, President and CEO of Vuzix.

“The assortment of hands-on Vuzix Blade Smart Glasses demonstrations at CES 2019, including the ‘Day in the Life with Vuzix Blade’, provided an opportunity for attendees to understand how Vuzix Blade Smart Glasses can deliver content, alerts and information to consumers without taking their phones out of their pockets.

As a direct result of these CES demonstrations, some of the largest wireless carriers in the world across North America, Europe and Asiahave shown strong interest in deploying our waveguide and smart glass technologies and products for their wireless networks in the near future and see its ability to drive cellular services, including 5G, and provide a competitive advantage.”

In addition to ExxonMobil, new Contributing Members include Dwr Cymru Welsh Water, and Vuzix. The AREA has also welcomed seven organizations to its ranks of Startup members: Apprentice, Augumenta, HART Influencers, LogistiVIEW, Sarcos Robotics, ThirdEye Gen, and Threesixty Reality

“With each new member that joins, the AREA becomes a more diverse, resourceful, and valued organization,” said Mark Sage, AREA Executive Director. “Our activities and resources will be greatly enhanced by the expertise and insights of these forward-thinking enterprises. The AREA is focused on helping to reduce the barriers to AR adoption and helping to accelerate the enterprise AR ecosystem.”

The AREA’s membership benefits include access to high-quality, vendor-neutral content and participation in various programs to help reduce the adoption of AR within organizations, a research framework to address key challenges shared by all members, discounts for fee-based events, and more. Sponsor members have a direct role in shaping the rapidly expanding AR industry and demonstrate their companies’ leadership and commitment to improving workplace performance.

The enterprise sector has already made very real strides whilst other sectors play catch up.  In the past two years, enterprise AR has graduated from experimental tinkering to become a validated implementation that is very much now a permanent best practice for industrial operations.

In other words, if you are a leading corporation and you don’t already have AR looped into your business lines, congratulations, you are a dinosaur, particularly because it will be vital in leveraging the advantages of adjacent technologies like IoT. Last week, for instance, a report released by PTC and the Aberdeen Group stated that 67 percent of the enterprise AR users surveyed pair it specifically with IoT in order to conduct remote repairs.

Enterprise AR has gone mainstream

“This can come in both the form of task itemization as well as see-what-I-see remote expert guidance scenarios. Some technology elitist/purist might claim this isn’t “true” AR, but I think of it as existing on a spectrum; with this use case easier to deploy *and* capable of demonstrating value for a wide variety of organizations.” Nguyen said.

Take again the Capgemini “Augmented and Virtual Reality in Operations”report that I showcased in my article on enterprise VR, which details a number of use cases in which AR consistently drives higher productivity and efficiency levels by allowing companies to streamline workflows for a wide variety of manual tasks.

Boeing’s technicians use AR instructions for airplane wiring schematics in their field of view, allowing them to be hands-free, which reduces wiring production time by 25 percent and increases productivity by 40 percent.

Welsh Water uses an AR layer to present process-oriented information and instructions such as direction information for valves and switches, or ideal operating ranges for gauges and dials, which minimizes risk and informs the decision-making process.

Ford utilizes AR tech by allowing designers and engineers to dynamically peruse through digital designs and parts as if they were part of a physical vehicle, reducing the time to analyze designs to a matter of hours or minutes.

Siemens enables their employees to inspect circuit boards by augmenting their view and alerting them to various elements they could have missed, which has hiked quality up by 20 to 25 percent.

GE Transportation’s Global Services group leveraged AR to drastically increase the number of maintenance tasks per hour by 59 percent by allowing workers to view maintenance instructions and sign-off tasks when performing maintenance on locomotives.

The word “sensor” has become inseparable from the internet of things (IoT), where sensors detect environmental conditions and communicate these signals bidirectionally as data, whether it’s an industrial machine reporting its operating condition or your home thermostat being turned on remotely. This data is a key driver of the IoT’s global economic impact, which McKinsey estimates could reach up to $11.1 trillion per year by 2025.

Before the IoT, the two key functions of a sensor — to detect environmental change and to communicate that data — were largely carried out by humans. Today, as augmented reality (AR) technology gains adoption, humans will soon be equipped with sensors through various AR devices, such as phones and headsets. This augmentation provides uncharted opportunities for organizations to use these data insights to drive operational effectiveness and differentiate their products and services for consumers.

The AR market today is similar to where the IoT market was in 2010, generating considerable buzz and proving early value from new capabilities for users. AR’s capacity to visualize, instruct, and interact can transform the way we work with data.

Based on the lessons learned in the early days of the IoT, enterprises should be asking the question: What’s the best way to plan for AR device data and see its value, so we can build better products and processes from user insights?

The following areas are addressed:

• Smart, Connected Reality Means More User Data
• Assessing the Business Opportunities From New AR Data
• The DIKW Model (data, information, knowledge, wisdom)
• Early Use Cases for AR Insights

The article concludes with Connecting the Strategic Dots

What about the impact to a broader data strategy? Taking a step back to this level, the implications are potentially significant. The value of many data initiatives hinges on the ability to connect the dots. While IoT, digital engagement, voice of the customer, and other initiatives continue to create significant opportunities to optimize products and processes, many enterprises are running these projects in siloes because of technological or organizational constraints.

As AR emerges as a new source of context-rich data, companies that connect the dots between multiple sources from smart, connected products to CRM data, digital engagement, and other sources of insight will create the greatest opportunities.

Enterprises that want to capitalize on these opportunities should create cross-functional leads or tiger teams dedicated to the desired outcome — improving the customer experience — rather than by the traditional functional or technology-oriented alignments.

In this new data-driven world, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, and AR just might be the missing piece you need to complete your vision.

1. How do you view the VR / AR year 2018? Are you satisfied with the past technology year? 
   – This year we have done many good things at XMReality. Our new software features within the company’s Remote Guidance, based on AR technology, have been well received by our customers. We generally have an increased interest from both existing and new customers around our company.
2. What was your personal highlight? 
   – I am very proud that we won a prize at the AWE fair in Munich in October. It was a team effort where the whole team contributed.
3. What do you think of the VR year 2019? 
   – I hope that VR technology can find its way back to consumers and businesses, as it was a few years ago. As far as AR technology is concerned, I believe in a continued increased interest from both companies and consumers and that many new exciting opportunities emerge.
4. Anything specific you’re looking forward to? 
   – Extra exciting would be if Apple chose to release their AR glasses in the spring / fall of 2019.
5. How do you generally view VR / -AR development in Sweden in the future? Is it going in the right direction? 
   – There are many interesting companies in Sweden within AR / VR and I see the potential potential for them to grow further in coming years.
6. Best VR-AR game / experience for the year? 
   – I think our own demo at AWE in Munich was this year’s AR experience. Here we demonstrated how we collected real-time IOT data from a mini version of a steam engine. In a live AR video call, we visualized the data. It was really cool!