The Internet of Things (IoT) is increasingly becoming an integral part of companies—their strategies, their day-to-day activities and their futures. In fact, when 500 executives were recently surveyed by Forbes Insights, more than 90% said IoT would be important to the future of their companies.

Nowhere will IoT be more disruptive than in the industrial sector. Forbes spoke with Rich Rogers, SVP, product and engineering, industrial IoT portfolio at Hitachi Vantara, to learn more about the future of how IoT will affect this broad and influential sector of the global economy – and, for readers interested in augmented reality, Rich Rogers discusses how the IIoT will work with other technologies.

Questions covered include:

• Why is IoT so important for businesses in the industrial sector?
• Where in the industrial sector will IoT likely have the greatest influence?
• How will industrial IoT impact product development?
• How will IoT work with other emerging technologies?
• What’s the “killer application” for industrial IoT?
• How should industrial companies prepare for IoT?

A couple of quotes that may resonate include the following;

“Marc Andreessen nailed it when he famously said that software is eating the world, and right now, every single company needs to become a software company.”

“While the future of IoT is bright, it seems there is still much work to be done. Given the size of the industry now, and projections going forward, IoT has the potential to create a lot of value for organizations that embrace it.”

• Dodge Data & Analytics’ newest SmartMarketReport, Safety Management in the Construction Industry, shows that technology, including BIM, drones and wearables, is having a positive effect onsite in regards to improving safety.
• Produced in partnership with the Center for Construction Research and Training and United Rentals, the report also shows that investment in safety initiatives has positively impacted project budgets, schedules, quality and ability to contract new work.
• In addition, the study addresses leading indicators of a positive safety culture and climate on the jobsite.
• One indicator, safety and health training for supervisors and workers, is up from 2015, whereas recognizing the importance of good communication, another indicator, is down.

Previous indications that augmented reality is being used in construction can be found in previous articles:

1. AR building a better future in construction here 
2. AR’s role in designing and constructing commercial buildings here  

Readers may be interested in the effects of ageing on the use of handheld augmented reality. This study is the first empirical study that examines older adults’ interaction with augmented reality.  This could potentially have an implication in the workplace and when resource planning and deploying AR technology.

Highlights

A first empirical study that examines older adults’ interaction with augmented reality.

Older adults did not show relative performance deficits in using AR.

No learning effect was found for AR for both older and younger participants.

Older adults expressed a high level of appreciation and satisfaction from the AR application.

Older adults preferred the AR application over a similar, non-AR application.

AR Research

As more AR technology is piloted and deployed, there will be a greater requirement for research. The AREA is conducting research into various key aspects of enterprise Augmented reality technology on an ongoing basis.  Find out more about the last research project that we undertook on security in enterprise wearables here.

Taken from an article that appeared on Mobile AR.  The same approach to augmented reality that some companies use to improve workforce productivity could also make it easier for car owners to operate and maintain their vehicles.

Mercedes-Benz is driving down that new path by releasing an augmented reality owner’s manual called Ask Mercedes for iPhones and iPads.

The app uses image recognition to align the user’s device with the interior of a 2018 E-Class Mercedes-Benz and AR beacons to identify various features. The app then provides additional information about selected features, including video tutorials.

“We are creating a personalized customer experience that goes well beyond the vehicle,” said Britta Seeger, a Daimler AG/Mercedes-Benz marketing executive. “With innovative services such as ‘Ask Mercedes,’ we are further expanding our digital ecosystem.”

While the app is currently only available for iOS in the US, a company spokesperson revealed that an Android version will follow early next year. The app is also scheduled to launch in Malaysia before the end of 2017, and in India and Hong Kong by early 2018, with a version in German expected to follow soon thereafter.

Genesis at Hyundai, also released a virtual guide earlier this year.  There are many ways in which AR is being used in the automotive industry. Why not take a look at The AREA case studies for further examples?

W3C has partnered with the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) to define an Augmented Reality Pilot project. The aim is to enable the seamless integration of real world, geospatial, and web data — as part of the OGC Innovation Program.

The W3C says that I”n this program, we expect to validate existing W3C Standards and to lay foundations for future standards work by gathering sponsors and participants to develop models, interfaces, and architecture descriptions. This preliminary work, helping to build prototypes and systems, should highlight the interoperability challenges that standards can address.”

Source article link here

Lenovo Group Ltd. has teamed up with China Electronics Standardization Institution to launch an Industrial Big Data Application Alliance to support the utilization of industrial big data.

Under the alliance announced Friday in Beijing, over 80 companies from the fields of artificial intelligence, big data, Internet of Things, cloud computing, augmented reality, virtual reality and robotics have joined the alliance, including Tencent Cloud, TCL Corp and Haier Group Corp.

The alliance will aim to standardize industrial big data, push digital data modelling of the industrial chain, develop professional algorithm to meet corporate demand for high accuracy data analysis, as well as focus on the visualization of data.

Lenovo’s CEO, Yang Yuanqing, said that the establishment of the alliance will help upgrade and transform the manufacturing sector.

At the same time, Lenovo also launched its Industrial Internet Platform, aiming to support over 100,000 companies in the next five years.

Industrial big data is considered the foundation of smart manufacturing, and the newly established alliance is in line with the Chinese government’s policy to develop the smart manufacturing sector. In 2015, the state council issued the China Smart Manufacturing 2025 plan, with an emphasis on the application of smart manufacturing, especially for smart devices and smart products. Later in the same year, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and Standardization Administration issued a guideline saying the smart manufacturing standardization system should be completed in five years.

Read the whole news item here.

An article on Tech Republic shared the new tech trends to watch out for in 2018. The article, entitled “Why 2018 will see the rise of the ‘no collar’ workforce, blockchains, and enterprise VR”, takes its findings from research by Deloitte, who say that IT will continue to transition into a unit that drives business value in the new year.

IT’s role within the enterprise will continue to evolve in 2018, as core systems continue to digitally transform and new technologies build upon existing ones, according to Deloitte’s annual Tech Trends report, published Wednesday.

Bill Briggs, CTO and principal of Deloitte Consulting LLP, said in a press release. “We now see many forward-thinking organizations approach disruptive change more strategically. Instead of launching separate, domain-specific initiatives, they are thinking about exploration, use cases and deployment more holistically. Increasingly, they are focusing on how multiple disruptive technologies can work together to drive meaningful and measurable impact across the enterprise.”

The 8 tech trends to watch in 2018 are:

1. Reengineering technology
2. No-collar workforce
3. Enterprise data sovereignty
4. The new core
5. Digital reality (including AR and VR)
6. Blockchain
7. API imperative
8. Exponential technology watch list

What the tech trends report had to say about AR:

While augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) products were first aimed at consumers, their more valuable use cases may be in the enterprise, where adoption is increasing. “Driven by a historic transformation in the way we interact with technology and data, market leaders are shifting their focus from pilots and niche offerings to strategies anchored in innovative use cases and prototypes designed for industrialization,” the report stated.

Addressing issues such as integration experiences, cloud deployment, connectivity, and access will lay the groundwork for broader deployments. “These early adopters recognize a shift in the AR/VR winds: The time to embrace digital reality is now,” according to the report.

A press release dated December 6, 2017 revealed that Novarad Corporation’s OpenSight Augmented Reality system received the Business Intelligence Group’s BIG award for Business and was named 2017 New Product of the Year in the category Healthcare. The organization’s annual program was launched to reward companies, products and people that are leading their respective industries.

Novarad Coproration is a developer of medical imaging software.  They created OpenSight to render patient studies into 3D and present them in an interactive manner accurately overlaid directly onto the patient’s body. This leverages a host of advanced technologies including 3D imaging, advanced segmentation and rendering, registration, motion correction, virtual tools and 3D annotation technologies.

“The ability to used mixed reality where we can merge imaging data with the actual patient is a revolutionary concept that will have a major impact on training, preoperative analysis and intraoperative care,” said Dr. Wendell Gibby, Novarad CEO and practicing neuroradiologist. “This is a rapidly emerging technology—earlier this year, we performed the first surgery using augmented reality.

The OpenSight software has proven beneficial in overcoming certain obstacles with surgical operations, and has the potential to improve accuracy, increase operational efficiency and to decrease mistakes in surgeries.

Congratulations go to AREA member Atheer for their work with Porsche. As stated on the Atheer website:

This week’s announcement by Porsche Cars North America, Inc. (PCNA) of “Tech Live Look,” an Augmented Reality (AR) technology designed to improve technical services at Porsche dealerships in the United States, is making an impact.

“Tech Live Look” uses Atheer’s AiR Enterprise – and it has gained the attention of the business press as well as automotive and augmented reality media.

Atheer has rounded up the best of how this has been reported on the internet and by the media. See the full round up on their blog here.

Key takeaways are below:

• Instead of a dealership employee being forced to contact the team about troubleshooting issues by way of phone and email, Tech Live Look allows both parties to view the car simultaneously together in real time
• Hoping to shorten diagnostic times, Porsche has developed a system to help factory engineers see what dealer technicians are seeing even from thousands of miles away.
• Next year, the sports car importer will deploy Atheer AiR Enterprise AR software to its US dealerships under the name Tech Live Look

In a visionary piece on Forbes, Jay Samit, Independent Vice Chairman at Deloitte, discusses AR and its power to revolutionize customer experience in every industry.

Technology has changed and improved the customer experience over time, but the most recent transformation with the growth of augmented reality is sure to lead to greater change than ever before.

AR in enterprise

As more businesses become aware of AR’s potential to transform customer experience, AR becomes pushed in front of a larger audience of business decision makers who can potentially start to learn more about the ways in which AR can make business transformation internally, with cost savings and productivity efficiencies.

If you’re looking for ways in which AR can help with a variety of operations within the business, take a look at our resources section of our website, and a variety of use cases from a range of industries.

From Forbes – AR transformation for customers

Our modern world has connected us with devices like smartphones, which puts a world of possibility right in our pockets. But even with smartphones we still have to search for answers. Instead of customers having to seek out information, that knowledge can now be embedded in the environment in a way that anticipate customers’ needs and helps them find solutions where they already are.

The author invites us to imagine a world where you can wear glasses that look just like normal glasses but that have AR technology that can be customized to match your lifestyle and provide the most applicable information.

According to Jay, these glasses are right around the corner and will make it much easier to incorporate AR. Instead of getting lost in a store, AR could light up a path on the ground to get you to the item you need.  Other credible examples are given of AR’s potential to revolutionize the way they bring products and services to market.

Augmented reality is immersive learning that hits customers at a different level. It is the extra things that anticipate needs, improve problems, and make interactions with customers just a little bit better. AR is being able to get what you need when you need it and creating seamless experiences that make life easier, more efficient, or more enjoyable.