What are the advantages of augmented reality in the industry?
Within the future of manufacturing, augmented reality reshapes many aspects, such as the increased competence of operators and their way of interacting with a real working environment by importing digital data.
Thus, augmented reality guides operators step by step with information in various forms:
- Digital and contextualized instruction sheets
- Images/videos
- 3D renderings
This replaces the time-consuming, manual processes of the past and makes task execution much faster and simpler. In addition, AR brings multiple gains in the industrial environment, whether remote visualization, better information transmission, or field data feedback to the digital twin.
- The response to the main industrial challenges
- Considerable ROI potential
- Become more efficient with augmented reality
- Augmented reality helps you gain in quality
- Get better traceability
Using new technologies such as AR can support the operators in their operational tasks to improve the company’s performance and build the operator of tomorrow.
The choice to deploy an augmented reality solution is to bring the right information at the right time and place and contribute to:
- Increasing the skills of operators
- Reduce the risk of errors or non-conformities
- Get it first time right
- Automate and make the creation of AR content as efficient as possible
- Contribute to making the use of software and/or equipment that use AR intuitive and accessible
- Guiding and accompanying operators
- Improve understanding of the operations performed
- Obtain information that can be imported into the real world while feeding the digital twin with the field data collected
- Collect a considerable amount of data to feed the virtual twin
The data collected with augmented reality can be used to promote the digital transformation of information, optimize industrial processes and contribute to better traceability.
The right hardware to use augmented reality in your industry
- AR applications can be used via various hardware devices:
- Multimedia system like smartphones or tablets
- Fixed or mobile AR workstation with industrial type cameras
- Projection system
- Augmented reality headsets / augmented reality glasses (RealWear and HoloLens)
These connected tools and augmented reality allow digital work instructions to be easily displayed and visualized regardless of the company’s environment. In addition, it develops operators’ skills, helping to build the augmented operator.
Before implementing an AR solution in your plant, you must first identify the right use cases. Download our Top Ten Use Cases eBook to discover solutions that will bring you the most value and ROI in the short term.
Augmented reality in industry: how to choose the right use case?
To choose the right use case, focus your efforts and research on operations that generate costly defects (non-conformances), long or unscheduled downtime, plant safety problems or high customer dissatisfaction.
Before you get started, you should also ask yourself the right questions:
- Which teams to include in the project?
- Which operations are the source of the most significant number of errors?
- Which ones generate the highest costs?
- Which tasks generate a more or less prolonged stop of production?
- Which ones cause safety problems?
Once these questions are answered, you will be ready to determine the best use case for your plant and launch the project. Then all you have to do is find the solution and above all, the right supplier!
What will be the future of augmented reality in industry?
Today, everything deploys and evolves very quickly, and the same goes for these AR technologies that will continually evolve and improve. So what we can say for the future of these solutions is that the new versions will be based on these different axes:
- The evolution of the ergonomics and performance of certain types of equipment (helmets / smart glasses), which today are not always adapted to industrial environments but are evolving and tending to become more democratic.
- The introduction of multi-modalities, such as voice recognition or gesture control.
- New devices and the multiplication of sensors increase the field of possibilities in terms of algorithms (tracking for example) and optimize the performance of algorithms.
- The improvement of cloud-based tools and the arrival of 5G enable network communication performance compatible with cloud-based execution of AR algorithms.
- Longer system runtimes due to reduced battery consumption.
- A more compact and leaner development.
Choose the right augmented reality solution for your industry!
Choosing the most efficient solution best suited to your industrial environment is ideal. Many industrial software publishers are setting up demos or tests of their augmented reality solutions, but the industrial implementation of these technologies often goes no further than the POC.
Dassault Systèmes, the 3DEXPERIENCE® Company, provides businesses and people with virtual universes to imagine sustainable innovations. DELMIA is powered by the 3DEXPERIENCE platform, delivering solutions to collaborate, model, optimize, and execute supply chains, manufacturing, logistics, and service. Our solutions enable you to deploy augmented reality in your factories for production quality and inspection control tool. We connect the virtual and real worlds to enable customers with new levels of intelligence and decision making.
In case you missed it, read part 1 of “What is Augmented Reality in the Manufacturing Industry? ”