In its 15th year, the Hermes Award is one of the world’s most prestigious industrial technology prizes, recognizing solutions that are showcased at Hannover Messe (Deutsche Messe) for the first time. Finalists were selected from a pool of nominations by an independent jury under the chairmanship of Dr. Wolfgang Wahlster, who heads the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI).

Released in the fall of 2017, Upskill’s newest version of Skylight is designed to enable faster and broader adoption of AR in the enterprise. It offers more out-of-the-box features that lower the complexity of building, supporting and scaling AR at the lowest total cost of ownership (TCO) in the market.

Brian Ballard, Upskill’s CEO and co-founder, said, “It is a true honor to be a finalist among other innovative, global technology companies at Hannover Messe. This recognition is a testament to Upskill’s commitment to accelerate wider enterprise AR adoption – by putting the power into the hands of our customers to create, test and deploy new AR solutions, our next-gen Skylight is proving to be a critical factor in enabling a more connected, productive industrial workforce.”

The next-gen Skylight’s most notable enhancements include Skylight Application Builder, Skylight Connect, Skylight Software Development Kit (SDK) and Skylight Live, which provides best-in-class “see what I see” remote, HD video collaboration capabilities. Together, these enhancements allow customers to build new AR use cases on a common platform, and quickly deliver real value while keeping deployment and maintenance cost to a minimum. Today, Skylight users report an average performance improvement of 32 percent, with efficiency and quality as the two key metrics.

Dr. Jochen Köckler, chairman of Deutsche Messe’s Managing Board and head of the award’s independent jury, commented, “The nominated entries reflect the trend towards self-learning and autonomous systems that leverage the full power of artificial intelligence and smart sensor technology. It’s solutions like that that are driving the second wave of digitization. At the same time, all five entries have remained faithful to a human-centric approach to development by employing cognitive or physical support systems, such as AR glasses and exoskeletons.”

Upskill’s recognition as a Hermes Award finalist builds on last month’s momentum – the company closed its latest funding round, raising $17.2M from return investors Boeing HorizonX, GE Ventures and New Enterprise Associates (NEA), and new investors Accenture and Cisco Investments, among others. Accenture, with whom Upskill formed a strategic partner alliance, is also a key Hannover Messe exhibitor. As a preferred systems integrator in Upskill’s partner program, Accenture will be one of several Upskill partners that will showcase Skylight in their Hannover Messe booth.

To see the new Skylight in action for the first time at Hannover Messe, visit Upskill in Hall 6, Stand F46/4 in the USA Digital Factory Joint Pavilion. As a Hermes Award finalist, Upskill and Skylight will also be exclusively showcased at the TechTransfer Gateway2Innovation display in Hall 2, Stand C02 on April 23.

Immersive technology and Mixed, Virtual and Augmented Reality are all terms that have analysts and industry visionaries excited, predicting that billions will be spent in the coming years. Virtual and Augmented Reality alone are forecast by IDC to grow to $162 billion in revenue by 2020.

One sector where actual performance, efficiency and bottom line improvements are already being made is Enterprise Augmented Reality (AR).

Mark Sage, the Executive Director of the Augmented Reality Enterprise Alliance (AREA) explains, “Enterprise AR solutions are providing real benefit to organisations right now.” Sage notes that there are many different business problems that can be solved or improved, including:

• Relevant data – presenting only the latest, contextual and useful information to workers, when they need it
• Better resource management – making experts available to the entire workforce
• Real-time compliance – capturing, recording and certifying processes for policy compliance
• Reduced time – improving the efficiency of infrequent and complex tasks
• Minimised errors – preventing human error and miscalculation
• Lower costs – lowering the impact of task interruption and errors

Any new technology requires the ecosystem players to come together. This includes Enterprises (benefiting from AR technology), Providers (developing service, software and hardware AR solutions) and Non-commercial supporting organisations (universities, public research institutes and agencies that deliver research and push the boundaries of AR technology).

Many organisations want and need a better understanding of the AR tools available, use cases, methods of implementation and return on investment (ROI) for Enterprise AR.

This is the goal of the AREA, according to Mark Sage.  The AREA is very grateful to Insight Success for featuring The AREA in their “10 Most Innovative AR/VR Solution Providers 2018” and for all the information on The AREA.

“This is an exciting step forward in maximising uptime for our customers through the use of augmented reality and remote diagnostic tools,” said Paul Anderson, Service Operations Manager at Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles. “Our ultimate aim is to ensure we can keep the customers’ vehicles on the road for longer and that means reducing the time it takes to repair a vehicle when it’s in one of our centres.”

Using the state-of-the-art wearable device, Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles service technicians will be able to simply clip the head-mounted device onto a safety helmet or bump cap and connect directly with the Technical Support Centre at Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles’ Technical Support Centre at the head office in Milton Keynes. Anderson explained that the device was well designed for loud workshop environments, dark and tight areas which require light and hands-free use in rugged environments.

This virtual assistance could significantly reduce service time, as technicians will be supported throughout the diagnosis and repair of the vehicle.

“The RealWear HMT-1^® device is solving one of industry’s major dilemmas by bringing the right information to every frontline worker in real time, reducing downtime and improving productivity,” said Andy Lowery, RealWear’s Co-founder and CEO in a statement. “We will work closely with Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles to ensure a successful pilot and rollout to allow them to give the best support to their customers.”

Anderson continued, “The new devices allow our team of Technical Support Agents to support our network with a virtual visit which is as close as possible to the agent being in the centre. Factors such as time out of the office, speed to booking and travel time are stripped out leaving only the value of having our technical support agents virtually in the Van Centre to support the diagnostic process. There’s clearly an environmental benefit in this approach, too.”

RealWear’s^® purpose-built platform enables experts to send precise visual instructions remotely to Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles Van Centres and field technicians.

The HMT-1 device serves as a virtual technical support agent, guiding technicians through complex repairs by augmenting images, wiring diagrams and adding repair suggestions into their view while walking them through the necessary diagnostic steps.

The full press release can be read here.

RealWear’s member profile can be read here.

ThingWorx Studio is the AR platform under the ThingWorx portfolio. With ThingWorx Studio, users can leverage the richness of 3D and the insights from IoT to deliver compelling augmented reality experiences that help improve efficiencies, build better products and enable safer, more productive workers. In India, this has been adopted by the following companies

• ARizon Systems, a startup focusing on applications of Augmented Reality in manufacturing. It is an initiative to help the production industry to optimize their performance using the cutting edge technologies in the space of Augmented Reality (AR) and Artificial Intelligence (AI).
• Grind Master Machines is an emerging global player in superfinishing machines manufacturing. They are a pioneer in manufacturing customized metal finishing, deburring & robotic automation machines.

To find out more about PTC, read their member profile.

From BrainXChange: “Determining ROI a key challenge faced by enterprises today in the still-early days of the technology, for it’s not always a simple matter of numbers and percentages.  At BrainXChange’s EWTS events, real end users shared first-hand experiences of and outside-the-box thinking about gauging the ROI of wearables in your business.

When we talk about ROI, we usually talk in terms of concrete numbers. But what we heard from a number of enterprise users is that it’s often not easy to pin down numbers with wearable technology; sometimes it’s more practical – even necessary – to qualify than to quantify the success of these devices in your organization.

Peter Godino, Hershey Company: “There is always an ROI when you’re improving the way you do something [but] there are some things I don’t like to put KPIs to. I know there’s an enhancement. Sometimes it’s improving the quality of life for your engineering team or the people on the floor. A lot of metrics cannot be expressed as a dollar return, but we’ve seen a lot of benefits from wearable technology. Line uptime will be one of the big outcomes, though we cannot claim to have seen a reduction in downtime at this time; but we’re pretty sure we’ll have that information in the future.”

While you might view that as sort of a gamble – banking on the hope that one day there will be numerical data to support the adoption of wearables in enterprise – improving employees’ quality of life is no minor benefit:

Kristi Montgomery, Kenco Logistics: “Improving the quality of life for those end users (warehouse workers) is hard to quantify from a dollar perspective…Employee satisfaction and engagement–if we can improve that [then] we feel like we’ve accomplished something even if there’s no hard dollar amount we can account for.”

Peter also spoke to the idea that sometimes you just know there’s an enhancement:

Dawn Bridges, Jacobs Engineering: “A wearable that recognizes a barcode is an efficiency.” Replacing hand-held barcode scanners with something wearable that frees up workers’ hands is a clear efficiency, supported by sheer logic if not by a percentage.

George Bowser of DHL gave two sides to the ROI coin: There’s measuring the impact of wearables on productivity and accuracy; and then there are less calculable, even emotional, indicators like ergonomics, impact on workers themselves, and user acceptance. And sometimes it might be necessary to weigh some metrics against others: If it’s not possible to (accurately) calculate an increase in productivity over the short lifespan of a pilot program; talking with users – even handing out questionnaires as DHL does – might reveal other, more immediately observable improvements such as less physical strain or awkwardness for workers using smart glasses to scan items instead of a handheld scanner.”

Other case studies and quotes from the full article can be read here.

This latest financing builds on the momentum of the past 12 months for Upskill, where the company grew its multinational client base by more than 300 percent. In addition, last year Upskill introduced a new release of its flagship Skylight AR platform which added self-service AR workflow creation and data integration features, expanded its ease of use and interoperability with enterprise IT architectures, and helped accelerate adoption to a six-fold increase in usage across its client base. Global industry leaders use Skylight on smart glasses to further increase productivity, cut costs and reduce errors across their operations in more than a dozen countries.

“We are ramping up our use of Skylight and wearables inside our operations. Boeing is seeing multiple aircraft manufacturing lines benefit from the solution, and we now want to introduce AR into the services part of our business so we may service our own, and third-party products, for our end-customers,” said Ted Colbert, CIO of The Boeing Company and SVP of Information Technology & Data Analytics.

“Upskill’s augmented reality platform for smart glasses has enabled greater efficiencies in Ryder’s warehouses—from saving time and improving accuracy, to streamlining the jobs of hands-on warehouse personnel,” said Gary Allen, Vice President of Supply Chain Excellence, Ryder. “The use of wearable, hands-free technology powered by Skylight has decreased the time it takes to pick and scan inventory while improving efficiency. At Ryder, we’re all about investing in technologies that ensure safety and reliability, as well as improved productivity, visibility, and customer service levels.”

“As we continue to invest heavily in our infrastructure to help our customers to connect, our ability to service and maintain network performance is critical to the success of our business,” said Sanjay Rai, General Manager, Strategy and Productivity, Telstra Network Construction & Services. “We believe that trialing Upskill’s Skylight platform for our AR pilot program will allow us to test Upskill’s new technology as a way to connect our field technicians to network equipment in ways we couldn’t before, and potentially contribute to improving productivity and driving down costs.”

Upskill’s growing list of strategic investors, including GE Ventures and Boeing HorizonX, now joined by Accenture and Cisco Investments, points to the increasing importance of AR technology in the market, the connected worker and the Internet of Things ecosystem.

“We saw substantial growth in the last year further amplified by the launch of our new product release. That acceleration is what led our investors to participate in this new funding round,” said Brian Ballard, co-founder and CEO, Upskill. “Upskill’s group of investors now include leaders from all parts of the industrial augmented reality ecosystem, which is an important signal in the market and speaks to how we collectively contribute to digital transformation.”

The full press release can be viewed here.

Upskill’s member profile can be viewed here.

If you’re interested in wearable technology for the enterprise, then AREA member BrainXChange’s round up blog post which assesses the most significant developments and use cases in wearable technology for 2017, is a must-read.

Enterprises which were reported on in 2017 for utilising wearable tech mentioned in the blog include:

• Manufacturing: AGCO, GE Aviation, Boeing, and Airbus
• Automotive: Ford, BMW, Audi, Jaguar Land Rover, Volkswagen, Porsche, and Peugeot Citroën
• Aviation: Cincinnati International Airport, San Diego International Airport, Helsinki Airport, and Changi Airport
• Medical: Stryker
• For training: UPS, Farmers Insurance, Walmart, Fidelity Investments, and KFC

Software released or updated in 2017 mentioned in the blog includes:

• AREA member, Upskill acquired Pristine; released next generation Skylight platform
• AREA member, Atheer: acquired SpaceView (MR app maker); released updates to AiR platform

Hardware released or updated in 2017 mentioned in the blog includes:

• Google: Google Glass Enterprise Edition, Daydream VR headset, ARCore (a new SDK), and Poly
• Vuzix: PTC’s Vuforia platform and Blackberry’s UEM software now support Vuzix M300 Smart Glasses; a tethered, custom version of the M300 is now available; the Vuzix Blade AR glasses now have a developer kit pre-order program; and VUZIX Basics was also announced.
• DAQRI’s enterprise AR smart glasses were launched; Trimble’s Mixed Reality app suite was integrated with the DAQRI Smart Helmet
• Microsoft: Mixed Reality Partner Programme; expanded MR headset sales to Europe; acquired AltspaceVR; Windows 10 powers Acer, HP, Samsung, Dell, and Lenovo VR headsets.

BrainXChange’s AREA profile page can be read here.

Nasdaq First North-listed Crunchfish and Vuzix Corporation enter into collaboration to pre-integrate Crunchfish’s software for gesture control in Vuzix’s smart glasses and thereby make the software available for customers and partners.

Vuzix is a leading supplier of smart glasses and Augmented Reality (AR) technologies and products for the consumer and enterprise markets. Crunchfish’s gesture control in combination with Vuzix’s glasses creates opportunities for efficient and user-friendly interaction, where the user becomes less dependent on touchscreens and buttons.

For industrial use, gesture control can for instance be used to browse through instructions, manage phone calls, check video streaming, and zoom in/out drawings and documents. Nasdaq-listed Vuzix focuses on design, manufacturing and sales of smart glasses and is represented in USA, Great Britain and Japan. Since 2015, Intel is one of the shareholders, who together with Vuzix’s management owns nearly 40 percent of the company.

“As a leading supplier of AR smart glasses for both the consumer and enterprise markets, it is vital for us to secure suppliers with tools that can be easily used by our partners and solution developers on our platform. Crunchfish is an important partner that provides new and effective ways to interact with our devices.” says Paul Travers, CEO of Vuzix. “The market for AR glasses grows and we are very pleased to work with an influential player like Vuzix.

Their market focus is in line with Crunchfish’s and they see an increasing demand for gesture control from customers and partners, which provides a foundation for a successful cooperation, “says Joakim Nydemark, CEO of Crunchfish.

For further information, please contact: Joakim Nydemark, CEO Crunchfish [email protected] +46 706 35 16 09

To read Crunchfish’s AREA member profile please see here.

A 6-minute read piece that appeared on Medium.com this week by Ajay Sharma is a great run through how augmented reality is transforming the aviation industry. Not only that, but the sources of all this fantastic information are: The AREA, Upskill (an AREA member), and Airbus.

For the visual amongst you, there’s a superb infographic that represents all the productivity and efficiency benefits to the aviation industry that AR is making possible.  What’s more, these are based on real life case studies, not pie in the sky dreaming.  Plenty of examples are discussed in this highly readable piece.

A run down on some of the key benefits of AR in the aviation industry are:

• Error reduction
• Improvement in quality and speed when assembling mock aircraft
• Higher quality maintenance work
• Step by step visual guidance
• Faster repairs
• Improved comms between airfield workers and central offices
• Better, more effective training

Crunchfish are one of AREA’s new members.  Their latest press release states that in an interview by British Telecom TV, Crunchfish’s Chairman Joachim Samuelsson talks about how the company is digitizing the proximity with technology enabling touchless gesture interaction in AR/VR and with Crunchfish Connected ARTM technology in m-commerce and social applications.

The 8-minute interview was recently made at the conference Internet of Banking & Payments 2017 in London, where Joachim Samuelsson together with partners, were keynote speaker at the opening day of the conference.

Their full press release as published on their website can be read here and is summarised below:

The two technologies offered by Crunchfish:

Smart interaction for enterprise AR

“Crunchfish offers efficient interaction technologies for enterprise AR solutions. Interaction challenges in industrial environments are driving demand for user-friendly ways to engage with AR smart glasses. We offer touchless interaction by gestures and contextual awareness technology that enable users to interact and handle information faster, easier and safer.”

Convenient and secure m-commerce

“Crunchfish Connected ARTM technology enables convenient and secure mobile proximity payment. It also provides proximity marketing in-store or between people outside the store. This unique offering is digitizing in-store m-commerce and it is our firm ambition to provide the drivers for m-commerce applications and set the market technology standard.”

Crunchfish AREA member profile can be seen here.