As the incoming executive director of the AR for Enterprise Alliance, I was very excited to attend my first Augmented World Expo and to meet some of the 34 members of the AREA.

AWE is one of the largest and best-attended events worldwide about Augmented Reality, and typically hosts thousands of attendees and hundreds of companies. This year’s event was no exception and did not disappoint. I was pleased to meet a high number of innovative AR companies from the AREA provider segment and attend demos of their groundbreaking solutions. It’s clear to me that AR in enterprise is here to stay and the AREA occupies a strategic position in growing the entire ecosystem to the benefit of everyone.

Benefits of AR in Enterprise

The event gave me the opportunity to speak with a range of attendees from many companies and markets. It was exciting to be asked so many different and interesting questions on many topics and one conclusion that came up time and again was the importance of AR in enterprise. The potential benefits and savings of AR is getting the attention of C-suite rather than just the innovation and technology teams. The trajectory towards a real reduction in time, costs and errors is a critical for companies as they look to streamline their business and increase the return on investment.

Enterprise AR Track at AWE ‘16

The focus on enterprise was supported by an impressive number of customers and providers presenting their experiences during the Enterprise AR track—sponsored by the AREA. I learned a lot from all the presentations but it was also instructive to listen to the members of the AREA’s customer segment. They were insightful and provided a unique perspective on the benefits and issues they experienced when implementing AR solutions within their companies. It’s clear that there are many lessons to learn and the AREA is well placed to help the AR ecosystem make effective and informed decisions based on shared knowledge and experience.

The AREA at AWE

At AWE we experienced a constant stream of people visiting our stand and asking questions. Many expressed appreciation of the AREA’s work and benefits achieved for the ecosystem. A number of them even mentioned regularly visiting the AREA website when trying to find information about AR, and that the AREA’s content was insightful and informative.

For those who hadn’t heard of us, it was useful to discuss our mission, benefits, membership options and growth. Much interest was expressed and I hope new members will join based on these discussions.

AWE was my first real experience meeting the enterprise AR community and it was a very useful and insightful experience. I look forward to following up with the many attendees I met and help drive the AREA’s development and its role in supporting this nascent ecosystem.

AREA Members Meeting

After AWE, we held an AREA Members Meeting in Palo Alto, California, on June 3. It was an honor to chair my first such meeting. AREA in-person meetings occur around three times a year and they’re a great opportunity to meet with members, discuss progress made, define future strategic plans to further develop the ecosystem and have some fun.

Thanks to Atheer for hosting the event at the beautiful Palo Alto Art Center.

The morning agenda items included:

• Progress updates from the various AREA committees
• Upcoming events in which the AREA can support its members

The afternoon included various brainstorming sessions around the content and the way the AREA positions itself to potential new members.

The day was full of insightful and interesting discussions, and from a personal perspective it was great to interact with many leaders and understand how we can work together as an alliance to support and grow the ecosystem and provide thought leadership to possible new customers and providers of AR.

If you are interested in joining the AREA, please complete this form.

This year’s Laval Virtual conference showcased innovations in Augmented Reality and introduced wide-ranging discussions on the topic of Augmented Realty in enterprise. On the second day, AREA board member Christine Perey hosted a round table session on the use of Augmented Reality to promote productivity. Participants included Manuel Asselot (Robocortex), Sebastian Knoedel (DIOTA), Marie-Julie Pecoult (Diginext), Pontus Blomberg (3D Studio Blomberg), Yann Froger (EON Reality) and Jim Novack (Talent Swarm).

Olivier Larroque of Capgemini provided his impressions and summarized the essential questions and answers discussed by the invited panelists in a post on the blog of RA’Pro, an AREA member. The original post in French is translated and provided in English here.

Which industry currently leads the way with Augmented Reality in Europe?

Among the panel participants there was agreement that aerospace is a leading industry. Adoption of AR in aerospace is driven by reuse of 3D content in its product life cycle management (PLM). AR use cases are most recommended, for example, where they can overcome a technician’s lack of experience in performing a task, or where they can assist in risky or complex operations. Such use cases are being applied in a highly regulated environment where only one error on the assembly line can cause the loss of an aircraft or satellite.

What are characteristics of use cases that are most compelling for investors?

Ideally, you should identify critical points of a business process where human errors generate the greatest cost. The return on investment (ROI) on AR as reported by companies such as Boeing and Newport News Shipbuilding shows how crucial it is for an enterprise to embark on such a project.

Boeing conducted a comparison of three different guidance methods on a satellite assembly procedure of 50 steps using instructions:

• On a stationary PC
• On a table (PDF)
• Overlaid in the field of view (AR) using a tablet

The results were dramatic: during first-time assembly, the AR-enhanced tablet users with no prior experience with the steps committed one error, while those using the PC committed eight errors. During the second time following the steps, those using AR committed no errors.

Which prerequisites should be in place before a company implements AR?

Optimization of existing 3D content for Augmented Reality is actually more important than products or toolchains. Maintaining a flexible and modular approach in adopting these new technologies provides the ability to move among varying hardware and software products and packages, and helps organizations to remain a step ahead of the market.

What do you think of smart glasses?

The first step in adopting Augmented Reality is to use an AR-enhanced tablet for testing and then migrate to smart glasses if appropriate.

Smart glasses, of course, have compelling features (hands-free working, portability, etc.), but one should avoid falling into “shiny object syndrome,” or the desire to adopt technology at any price without first examining all its ins and outs. It’s essential to study what’s actually required, as well as the technical limitations.

What are the implications of adopting AR as a disruptive innovation?

The implications are threefold:

• Social resistance to change: unions and conservative individuals within the company may be reluctant to change if AR is seen as an aspect of robotics. Communication should be oriented to assisting humans and what they do best. Moreover people, the employees, should be included at the heart of the discussions.
• Enhancing procedures for Augmented Reality: start with simple tasks in workbooks or manuals. AR takes advantage of our visual processing and operators tend to instinctively apply it to minimize errors as it superimposes instructions to be followed in real time.
• Dealing with technological realities: over-the-top special effects in concept videos have instilled high expectations for AR. We should rather address and educate the customer about the technology’s limitations in terms of hardware (field of view, tracking, etc.) and software. The technology should be thoroughly tested to ensure it matches the use cases that the customer is targeting.

If the best hardware is not currently available, when is the best time to get started with AR?

Ideally right away. AR adoption is a long process with many different aspects (social, technological, security, etc.) that involves deep collaboration among all domains of an enterprise (operational, management, legal, etc.).

Conclusion

Augmented Reality will allow companies to approach the way their employees work more visually, with a new way of representing objects, learning new tasks and transmitting knowledge. Recall the progress made between the first MS-DOS screen and what we have today with personal computers. With new devices such as smart glasses and other products like Microsoft HoloLens, the DAQRI Smart Helmet or Magic Leap, the changes will also be very dramatic.

A hackathon is an event to help groups of people with different skills collaborate intensely over one or two days towards a shared goal. Hackathons bring together people who are passionate about technology with those who have challenges that technology can solve. One of the affiliate AREA members, the AEC Hackathon, organizes such events to address architecture, construction and engineering challenges. Teams of AEC hackers have been gathering in cities around the world under this banner since late 2013.

Hackathons can also be a valuable way to raise awareness and identify new requirements. The goals of the first AR Standards Hackathon, organized by the WEKIT European Project, were to explore the AR standards landscape and attract engineers who are interested in the adoption of existing and emerging AR standards.  The hackathon was hosted by RWTH Aachen University in Germany on April 15-17, 2016.

Kick Off

This was actually my first hackathon although I’ve been using standards and supporting their development through the IEEE Standards Association and meetings of the Community for Open and Interoperable AR. When I arrived for the kick-off on Friday evening, participants were gathered around the registration table. Soon the organizing team (Prof. Ralph Klamma, István Koren and Peter De Lange) welcomed participants and everyone got acquainted. I discovered eager people with many ideas and a high level of enthusiasm, and generally find those with AR experience development skills to be very rare.

The hackathon kicked off with Dr. Fridolin Wild introducing us to the WEKIT project and schedule. Then the organizing team presented the sponsors and explained their donations in support of the event’s goals:

• Vuzix provided their M100 smart glasses
• Atheer provided copies of AiR, their AR software development platform
• Optinvent provided their ORA2 smart glasses
• Epson provided their BT-200 smart glasses
• Bitstars was represented by their HoloBuilder authoring platform

Those with an idea for a project pitched it to the participants in an effort to recruit team members. Some of the proposed projects were very compelling, for example, using AR to help a deaf person to understand what a speaker is saying just by looking at the speaker through smart glasses. Another project proposed to reduce the impact of graffiti by helping artists to express themselves on walls without leaving any trace in the real world. There were also several Augmented Reality games.

The Projects

On Saturday morning, the teams formed and the hackathon officially started. For the next 36 hours, nearly 30 people were busy with coding, brainstorming and troubleshooting.  

Five teams worked on projects that included:

1. #hackWalls : collaborative creation of digital AR-activated artworks and notes on physical walls.
2. #faceglARss : social interaction and people identification using face recognition and AR emotional status tags.
3. #cyclops : two-way interaction in room-sized exercise games based on fiducial markers.
4. #boxingAR : a gesture-tracking experience in boxing-related exergames.
5. #explorAR : architectural presentation and interactive browsing of 3D models using Leap Motion for customer demos.

At the end of the second day, the participants presented their projects while the jury gave them scores based on:

• Originality of the project
• Use of originally developed modules
• Use of open source solutions and standard-based technologies
• The possibility to further develop and expand the project in different contexts

Participants were tired but proud of their projects and achievements.

Results

The #hackWalls team won the award for best project. The creative team developed a web browser-based solution that allows anyone to draw on any wall and to share it with anyone else with a simple URL.

Hackathons are a great opportunity to meet new, like-minded people that have passion in AR and development skills. The event permitted me to hear and sharing ideas, build useful contacts and I am already looking forward to next AR hackathon!

Have you attended a hackathon? Is there a hackathon in your future?

Augmented Reality will play an important role in the future of manufacturing, but the details about where, how and who will benefit most are still unclear. The University of Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) is an AREA member that, based on the organization’s collaborative research projects, is developing special insights on these topics.

As a faculty-level unit within the University of Sheffield, the AMRC partners with industry to conduct advanced machining and materials research that brings high ROI. The AMRC with Boeing focuses on manufacturing in aerospace, automotive and other high-value industries while, in parallel, the Nuclear AMRC focuses on manufacturing innovation and supply chain development for the civil nuclear and energy sectors.

We asked the AMRC’s digital manufacturing assembly specialist, Chris Freeman, to shed light on the drivers for introducing Augmented Reality in manufacturing and the risks he sees when Augmented Reality is integrated into projects underway or planned at the AMRC.

How do you identify where and how Augmented Reality can offer value?

We don’t propose any new technology unless we believe that it can address a specific operator requirement.  When our research partners come to us with manufacturing challenges, we make sure we study those problems in relation to not just the senior directive, but also the hands-on operator who performs the job day in and day out. They know the problems best and, often they provide the key metric, or problem around which the application needs to focus. For example, a process may need to be completed with fewer concessions or at a greater rate, but the operator will want to focus on how it will make their own life easier. That operator-level buy-in is crucial to having a successful deployment. Their personal experience in processes needs to be considered just as much as the goals of those senior to them. By presenting solutions that serve requirements of both operator and managers, benefits like traceability or the elimination of errors will more likely be realized.

We might recommend exploring AR as part of a solution when the key business challenge (or the opportunity to reduce costs) involves people interfacing with and using complex instructions or information in context.   

In each scenario we need to closely examine the whole process to help build a preliminary ROI model. We are always looking for robust business cases, where technology integration can deliver a step change because going to the effort to introduce something new for small incremental changes is not going to be justifiable. Even if it is innovative, the technology will not be adopted.

Existing data about operator performance is often not available but we may be able to collect indirect metrics or indicators of efficiency such as the number of rework orders or how much scrappage (waste) a company generates. The details may be extracted from the company’s manufacturing execution system (MES) or standard operating procedures (SOPs). These systems have the ability to gather a lot of detail for other purposes that we can use as part of a study to understand the business case.

Do you use or integrate with real time sensor networks or IoT in any part of your projects?

The vision of Industry 4.0 has always included a component of connected machines communicating with, and being controlled by, systems and humans in intuitive and low-risk fashion. We are being requested to do more projects with the Industrial Internet of Things but, at the moment, it’s still exploratory.

Augmented Reality is a great enabler for humans working with IoT but a great deal of potential value of IoT rests in the architecture and systems that sit behind it. Sensor networks are very powerful, especially when combined with real time Big Data analytics, and the use of Augmented Reality will enable new methods of data visualisation and human interaction.

How is data prepared for use in Augmented Reality experiences in an advanced manufacturing environment?

Ideally there’s no need to introduce a new data manipulation step between the source of the data and the AR experience user, but a lot depends on the use case requirements. We recommend that the AR experience system uses the raw data straight from its source, whenever possible, and not duplicate any existing functionality. We also recommend that the digital content be as close to its native format as possible.

The more complexity there is in data handling or mining, the less robust and less repeatable the process becomes. Translation and optimisation is often necessary but it’s not ideal. In situations where access to data sources is not available, any transformation processes need to be as automated as possible.

To determine how suitable a client’s existing data portfolio is we will always work with the customer’s existing data sources to prove out the process. Often there’s a learning process through which everyone goes, which with our help, allows them to understand what can be achieved with their existing data.

Risk management plays a large role in the process, too. When we’re planning an application, we’re always looking for the key challenges and risks. We examine potential issues and document these to ensure we understand the potential pitfalls.

What are the sources of risk (challenges) when using AR in the manufacturing environment and how do you address them?

With Augmented Reality there are many uncertainties about the technology itself, such as how it works in different environments. We have all sorts of challenges around natural and artificial lighting conditions, wireless network connectivity and many other factors that will impact user interactivity. Manufacturing environments have high levels of ambient noise due to industrial-scale machinery. This noise presents challenges with speech-based recognition interfaces. Selecting the right AR interaction mode for the right task is crucial.

We see rapid change in the features of hands-free displays. This raises uncertainty about how long one model will last before being superseded by a new one. Each change introduces new risks and costs. In order to lower the impacts of frequent model updates, it’s important to first implement a robust back end architecture.  Then, once that’s in place, the AR experience presentation hardware (wearables, tablets, phones, etc.) can be quickly removed and changed without the cost and delays of changing the underlying architecture.

In addition, there are risks associated with different recognition technologies. We have to evaluate image, bar code, natural feature recognition, SLAM and depth sensing with respect to the project goals and the environmental constraints. As integrators, we can also combine AR with well-established technologies such as geo-location sensing, RFID and Bluetooth.

Many of our partners are very security conscious and tightly regulated. Systems purely reliant on cloud-based architectures will not even be considered. Local networks are an option but still very much a problem when a number of organizations we work with don’t (or can’t) have Wi-Fi on the shop floor. This drives us to look at solutions that work entirely offline and then can connect with a data infrastructure after a shift or task is completed.

There are also project risks due to excessively high expectations. In other words, hype. We work with all stakeholders to make sure they are clear and realistic about their goals and match those to what the technology can do today.

What are people’s attitudes towards the adoption of AR and how do you manage those?

It varies highly. Most have done some basic user studies prior to beginning any investment in order to understand the potential for adoption of a new technology. However, the exact process investigated is unlikely to be specific to the one you’re working on. They will be keen to learn more but will want to see tangible metrics around value and ROI. At an operator level, they will probably have little awareness of the technology and so may be cautious about its use and how it will impact their day-to-day life. User engagement and trials are crucial in order to get buy-in at a shop floor level. The operators need to be involved to show that the new technology is helping the end user do their work. Then, the feeling is more open and likely to have positive support. If the presentation system is a hindrance in any way it will be discarded, hence the importance of engaging with all sections of the business.

We always work closely with our partners to educate both ourselves about their use cases, and them about any new technology components. Everyone must have an open mind about the opportunities that AR enables and, as we said, the many risks. We will continue to encourage our partners to use a progressive, value-driven approach to adoption of any new technology. And we look forward to working more with our AR technology provider network, including AREA members, to deliver solutions to address existing manufacturing challenges.

AREA member NGRAIN started in the enterprise training market and today is an AR solutions provider for a range of companies and industries.

We recently interviewed Barry Po, NGRAIN’s Senior Director of Product and Business Development, to discover the latest developments about NGRAIN’s offerings for industrial Augmented Reality.

What is your company’s mission and focus in the market?

NGRAIN has been working with customers to prepare and publish training programs and other types of information in rich and engaging ways for over 15 years. We develop solutions using both Augmented Reality and VR to meet the needs of our customers in aerospace and defense, energy and utilities, oil and gas and manufacturing and healthcare.

In each of these industries there are specialists who work with physical objects—whether to deploy, operate or to maintain and service these machines—and who need the right information in the right place at the right time. That’s what Augmented Reality brings: the ability to access information that would otherwise not be readily available or easy to understand, and equipping these people with knowledge they need to make better decisions. As a result, training time is shortened and they can perform tasks quickly and correctly every time it’s required.

A field technician’s work is often more complex than outsiders understand. When preparing and executing some tasks, there is a staggering number of details. Many human errors happen when working with heavy assets, such as maintaining or operating heavy equipment like a vehicle or a complex assembly. The value of Augmented Reality in those situations is to reduce errors, as well as cut down on missteps and omissions of technicians in the field. The technology makes it more practical for someone to do a complex job and ensures that they don’t forget anything along the way.

Another major benefit is that a comparatively less experienced person can use the information without having to spend time in the classroom before becoming productive.

What products and technologies does NGRAIN offer?

We offer a full suite of solutions so that the customer can reach the results they seek quickly. Our AR software development kit allows customers to build custom applications with AR. NGRAIN Producer Pro is what people who want to author their own AR applications with a GUI use. It doesn’t require programming experience. It allows authors to create or import their 3D content and to link it to metadata, as well as display it on Windows, iOS and Android mobile devices. Lastly, NGRAIN also provides customized Augmented Reality solutions tailored to customers’ specific needs.

Are there some use cases that, in your experience, are particularly well-suited for AR?

One major use case that NGRAIN addresses is maintenance training. Our AR-enabled solutions help someone in the field learn on the job rather than just in the classroom. It helps them figure out what they need to do, as well as what’s needed for their work and to get feedback. Having it all on a mobile device such as smart glasses makes it easily accessible.

Another major use case is visual inspection and damage assessment. Our solutions for battle damage assessment and repair are deployed in the field by Lockheed Martin, which has been an NGRAIN customer for eight years. US Air Force technicians use our technology to assess and organize repairs for F-22 and F-35 aircraft. This maximizes the amount of time the aircraft spend in flight and reduces maintenance costs and time spent in the hangar.

Which measurements or metrics for assessing AR’s impact do you prefer?

From an AR perspective, our customers are in the process of defining business cases and metrics, so measurements such as ROI have yet to be defined in a standardized way.

If we take a broader perspective that includes Mixed and Virtual Reality however, we can make a few generalizations about KPIs. Based on NGRAIN’s experience deploying 3D applications for maintenance training, we find the technology can double knowledge retention, which, in turn, brings a variety of benefits. For example, technicians become less prone to missing steps or mixing up the sequence. This increased efficiency also enables them to focus more on the job as a whole and ensure it’s well executed.

A third interesting metric is a statistic measuring how often a job is completed correctly the first time it’s performed. When we deploy the technology, we find customers are able to execute the job correctly nine times out of ten. In the oil and gas industry, for example, correct first-time job execution only occurs 30-40% of the time, so the technology’s impact can be significant.

What is your approach to introducing customers to AR?

We look at the customer’s problems first, focusing on their business environment and organization. It’s important to understand a customer’s pain points in achieving their goals, and one way we do this is by spending time at their sites and observing their operations firsthand.

Recently we spent time with an oil and gas customer’s technicians in the field that was maintaining drilling equipment. We learned that much of the knowledge needed to correctly do jobs isn’t actually documented, but nevertheless is subsequently required by less-experienced people. Our aim, with our 3D guidance solutions, is to provide this kind of tribal knowledge as a virtual mentor might.

What are the typical customer organization’s approaches with respect to new technology introduction?

Everyone agrees that technology is a valuable part of any organization, but we often find differences of opinion in the degree of intensity that new technologies should be introduced. For example, many people who would benefit from AR really don’t care about the technology itself but are looking for the efficiency gains it provides.

In our view, introducing new technologies is less about imposing an approach on the customer or the end user. We make them a part of the process of discovering what works best for them. This ensures that everyone’s perspective is taken into account in the process, rather than the process being solely about the vision of a person or small group of people at the top.

A successful deployment of AR technology takes effort and is unique to each customer and group. Discovering the right approach for a particular customer is greatly helped by working with stakeholders at all levels.

Wearables are leading the next industrial revolution as enterprises leverage their data and systems and employees work with the physical world in new ways. From sensors in clothing to smart watches and glasses, wearables will connect the modern workforce with data and with one another. Wearables are also becoming a component in the emerging constellation of tools for accessing the Industrial Internet of Things.

One class of wearable devices—namely smart glasses—are also essential to delivering Augmented Reality experiences that promise efficient, hands-free work, without having to switch attention to a paper manual or hold a mobile device. Smart glasses are evolving rapidly so business cases and implementation practices must advance as well.

New forums are offering answers that help executives and representatives of companies put wearables to use and to grasp their full potential. AREA member BrainXchange will organize and present the Enterprise Wearable Technology Summit East, a conference on wearables in enterprise and industrial settings, in Atlanta, Georgia, on June 16 and 17.

Putting Enterprise Wearable Practitioners First

Many events provide vendors the opportunity to present their wares to customers. There’s a lot of value in this, but it’s not the complete picture.

Enterprise Wearable Technology Summit East focuses on real world case studies. By sharing the experiences of pilot projects and production implementations, participants have the opportunity to compare experiences about this new wave of technology and formulate best practices.

This isn’t to say that vendors of wearable products and technologies are not welcome. On the contrary, they need to understand customer frustrations as well as achievements. Indeed, the team at BrainXchange relies, in part, on the vendors of wearable technologies to open the doors to customers who may not feel comfortable in the limelight.

Diversity Fuels Investments

With only pockets of successful wearable deployments in any one industry, any industry-specific solutions can’t be justified. The many industry-specific conditions and opportunities will influence the pace of adoption of wearables within one vertical. However, a healthy multi-industry dialog can create a larger market pull that could be sufficiently big to fuel new investments.

Attendees from diverse industries such as oil and gas, healthcare, utilities, shipping and others will attend EWTS East to discuss and gain insights on the data and lessons learned on the ground and in the trenches.

From the presentations and panels on the stage and the private sidebar conversations that begin in the context of networking functions, patterns will emerge. AREA members will be sharing their insights and opinions.

AREA-Moderated Group Discussion

AREA Executive Director Christine Perey will moderate the second-day group discussion on “Cultural and Organizational Considerations” of wearables, which will discuss business challenges of wearables faced by enterprises, including:

• Privacy and ethics
• Workplace culture and behavioral changes
• Costs and ROI
• Prospects of standardization and regulation
• Safety concerns of wearables by industry

The panelists and audience will gain new perspectives about the rise of wearable computing and how it will promote new human-world interactions and connect us more intimately with the surrounding environment.

Are you going to attend the EWTS East event in mid-June? Join the AREA and promote your participation in this special event in Atlanta.

If you only have a few days to get up to speed about the use of Augmented Reality to improve workplace productivity or safety, then you’ve come to the right website. You’ll quickly pick up the concepts and a working vocabulary of AR by browsing our site and watching our webinars. You’ll also learn about our members, leaders dedicated to providing AR-enabling technologies and solutions who offer a wealth of knowledge and experience.

But, for most people immersing themselves in this exciting new discipline, surfing the web isn’t sufficient. Let’s face it: enterprise AR experiences always involve a physical world component.

Putting hands on the technologies while they’re in use, to see different options and meet people in person, are critical to tapping the potential that enterprise AR offers.

AWE Brings the AR Industry Together

The upcoming Augmented World Expo (AWE) on June 1 and 2, 2016, in Santa Clara, California, is an important event for AREA members. Over four thousand AR practitioners and enthusiasts will experience the latest technologies when gathering important data for decisions on behalf of their companies and projects.

Organized annually since 2010 by industry mover-and-shaker Ori Inbar and his team, the event has both a conference and a trade show. These bring together customers, vendors, researchers, investors and many others who are important to the continued expansion of this industry in a variety of formats. 

Whether you’re looking for something specific or just exploring, AWE provides an opportunity to get to know the experts, such as AREA members, and to try out the latest Augmented Reality technologies and products first hand.

AREA Members at AWE

The AREA and its members will be leading and speaking during the AWE 2016 enterprise AR track of sessions, as well as demonstrating solutions on the exhibition floor.  

In order to provide the greatest impact to our diverse audiences, we’ve divided the enterprise AR sessions into vendor-neutral insights and recommendations from a range of technology providers on June 1, followed by customer case studies and testimonials on June 2.

Chaired by Paul Davies, Technical Fellow at Boeing, an AREA founding sponsor member, our June 1 speakers will provide a lot of practical advice based on their experience across many industries. Since it is frequently the first major barrier to success, the day will begin with speakers sharing recommendations about how to select and prioritize enterprise AR use cases.

Then AREA members will offer their suggestions for how to prepare and deliver digital content for enterprise AR experiences. In this session, I will provide the results of a research project on different AR authoring platforms. David Marimon of Catchoom will describe the results of recent studies with 3D sensing platforms for real world object recognition and Alex Hill, CTO of CN2 Technologies will offer guidance on how to optimize 3D assets for use in AR experiences.

The rest of the day promises great talks on enterprise AR wearable technology strategies and the use of AR as a human interface to Industrial Internet of Things.

On June 2, Bob Meads, CEO of iQagent, another AREA founding sponsor member, will chair three hours of sessions during which customers will share their experiences working in pilot and proof-of-concept projects. These sessions will feature case studies and testimonial presentations. The afternoon will offer round tables and panel discussions with customers, and we’ll hear the results of recent projects and lessons learned throughout the day.

AREA members will also be exhibiting in record numbers and many will have their booths in the AR for Enterprise Pavilion.

Will you be there? Stop by AREA member booths to introduce yourself to us and let us know how we can help you to get the greatest value from attending AWE 2016 and your enterprise AR investments.

In a previous post we described how, by developing a new framework that leverages Augmented Reality, IoT, social networking and advances in hardware, the members of the European SatisFactory consortium seek to increase productivity in manufacturing.

After a period of design and development, SatisFactory solutions and technologies will be validated at three pilot manufacturing facilities.

Each of the three pilot sites corresponds to a different industry:

• Chemical Processes: The Chemical Process Engineering Research Institute (CPERI) is a non-profit research and technological development organization based in Thessaloniki, Greece.
• Industrial Automation: Comau S.p.A is a global supplier of industrial automation systems and services based in Turin, Italy.
• Energy: Systems Sunlight S.A. headquartered in Athens, Greece, is a manufacturer of energy storage and power systems for industrial and consumer applications.

Installation and validation of the SatisFactory framework at each of the sites is an iterative process, with Augmented Reality devices (with technology partner GlassUp) and other technologies to be implemented in the coming months.

While this article focuses on plans for Augmented Reality at each of the three pilot sites, there are many more technological aspects bringing together innovations for streamlining efficiency in the factory. A publicly available project report sheds light on the use cases described below.

Continuous Production in Chemical Processing

CPERI is an institute that performs research and provides services to industries related to chemical engineering, energy and materials. CPERI is an ideal site for testing and improving continuous processes. In contrast to batch manufacturing of goods, continuous processes for chemical, pharmaceutical, food processing and other types of plants impose different challenges. As the facilities use equipment that must run continuously, any downtime can be costly. When shutdowns occur, incomplete products must often be disposed of, and the corresponding infrastructure (e.g., pipes, vessels, etc.) thoroughly cleansed of remaining materials.

Startup and shutdown procedures must be validated and documented to prevent all unwanted impacts. Typically such procedures require several hours to complete. CPERI is pioneering Augmented Reality in a use case for plant startup procedures, in which an operator using an AR device completes a task normally requiring many sequential steps done in several hours for starting up a plant.

The AR-enabled system incorporates a human-machine interface to display real time feedback to the operator from the Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) automation system and other process control systems. Without AR, such tasks must be performed by an experienced operator referencing a manual, while the new AR solution proposes a workflow with reduced attention switching and can be performed by someone with less prior experience.

Additional use cases for AR are being designed and discussed with other SatisFactory pilot sites. CPERI, along with its partners, are also authoring a set of standard operating procedures for enabling and using Augmented Reality to improve productivity and compliance in continuous manufacturing and other chemical industrial processes.

Discrete Manufacturing in Heavy Industry

Part of the Fiat Group, Comau provides industrial automation systems for manufacturing in the automotive, aerospace, steel and petrochemical industries. The company specializes in:

• Body welding equipment for a variety of vehicle types
• Manufacturing systems for engine powertrain components
• Robotic systems for a range of manufacturing use cases

Comau is developing an Augmented Reality-enhanced system to help a user assemble a robot wrist, a process that normally requires four hours and over 290 individual steps to complete. The proposed AR solution, to be provided on a device that’s either fixed or wearable (e.g., smart glasses), uses animations that appear over the real world to guide the technician through steps to complete the task in less time and with fewer errors than existing methods.

As with CPERI, the AR solution will eventually be integrated into the site’s IT infrastructure, including warehouse management, enterprise resource planning and manufacturing execution systems to provide real time data and support.

Remote operator assistance and technician training are other use cases being evaluated. Operators will be able to request live help and collaboration from remote experts for tasks, as well as choose training scenarios from online repositories for on-the-spot examples and guidance. Comau is also evaluating how AR can be used to record processes performed for verification and future training purposes.

Augmented Reality in Power System Manufacturing

Systems Sunlight’s integrated energy products span a range of industries from vehicles and consumer electronics to utilities and defense. The company operates a manufacturing facility where assembly lines produce batteries, transforming raw materials into ready-to-use products. Battery production requires continuous monitoring of variables such as cell temperature, which is measured with a thermal camera.

Augmented Reality is being evaluated for producing “motive batteries” for powering machinery: in a two-hour assembly process of six major steps, an operator places battery cells in a metal box whose sequence depends on battery type. The cells are then connected by means of a battery string and later checked whether they need additional electrolyte filling. They are then sealed with regular or water-filling plugs. In the next two stages, the terminal plugs and labels are installed and the batteries are checked for quality. Finally, the batteries are transported to a warehouse for dispatch to customers.

Systems Sunlight will implement Augmented Reality guidance on a fixed or wearable device so the technician can work hands free. Besides the expected benefits that animated steps overlaid on the field of view can provide, the company anticipates the technology will increase the overall motivation of technicians and operators. They plan to measure this increase with surveys after the conclusion of pilot testing.

If the pilot is successful, the company will explore use of Augmented Reality on further production lines and create a training system combining AR and gamification, along with quizzes to reinforce knowledge.

A Template for Manufacturing Efficiency

The lessons learned in these three pilot project sites will allow the SatisFactory solutions to be fine-tuned and demonstrate their value for the manufacturing sector.

In 2017, they will be made available to the European manufacturing industry to improve efficiency through novel interaction and collaboration technologies. The solutions also aim to improve the quality of life and overall working experience of factory operators, and mark a major step forward in European manufacturing competitiveness.

Industry watcher and analyst firm Gartner has been studying emerging technologies for over 20 years. The company has become widely recognized for publishing its annual Hype Cycle, the chart that captures Gartner analysts’ assessments of the maturity of emerging information and communication technologies.

Interpreting the Hype Cycle

As stated on Gartner’s website, the chart is designed for the firm’s clients : “Clients use Hype Cycles to get educated about the promise of an emerging technology within the context of their industry and individual appetite for risk.”

The sidebar on the same page goes on to suggest that the Hype Cycle:

• Separates hype from the real drivers of a technology’s commercial promise
• Reduces the risk of your technology investment decisions
• Compares your understanding of a technology’s business value with the objectivity of experienced IT analysts

In my slides introducing the March AREA webinar on the topic of forecasting the growth of enterprise Augmented Reality, I provided 15 Hype Cycle figures of the years between 2000 and 2015 showing where Gartner placed Augmented Reality. These figures were compiled by Dr. Robin (Rab) Scott of the AMRC, an AREA member, and used in the webinar with Dr. Scott’s permission.

The figures show how this influential firm has followed Augmented Reality for over a decade. I pointed out in my remarks that readers should not interpret the position of any technology on the Gartner curve as highly definitive.

Looking at Gartner’s positioning of Augmented Reality over the years, and anticipating the 2016 Hype Cycle to be published, I am recommending in this post that Gartner consider treating Augmented Reality and its associated technologies as separate nodes on the cycle. By giving more attention to AR’s enabling technologies Gartner will help its clients better achieve their goals and better serve our industry.

Augmented Reality Isn’t One Technology

My primary concern about Augmented Reality appearing as a dot on the Gartner 2015 Hype Cycle is that it suggests that Augmented Reality is one technology. I don’t think this was ever the case in the past and it certainly isn’t today.

In its press release about last year’s Hype Cycle, the company stated that more than 2,000 technologies were studied. It would be helpful if the firm pointed out which of the hundreds of AR-enabling technologies it considered in positioning the “whole AR” on its cycle.

In my opinion Gartner needs to begin explaining how technologies are treated differently. For instance, some technologies on the cycle are “general” (representing many enablers at different stages of evolution), and others are not. In 2015, for example, brain-computer interfaces are in the first phase. Gesture control technologies, another relatively precise technology label, are on the slope of enlightenment. Another example is natural language question answering (very specific technology, in my framework but probably also composed of many enablers), which is positioned on the line between Peak of Inflated Expectations and the Trough of Disillusionment. And, by the way, when will the questions asked be answered correctly all the time?

On the other hand, Augmented Reality is not the only example of the ambiguity and confusion caused when a general category is represented as a dot on the cycle. For example, wearables and Internet of Things are other labels (represented as dots) on the 2015 Hype Cycle that could benefit from being represented by an array of enabling technologies (or are they enablers?).

In my opinion, the company would better serve its clients and readers by tracing the progress of some of the important enablers or components for AR and other technologically-powered systems, such as autonomous driving vehicles. A few components that I have recently studied for a technology maturity assessment, and that I believe should be added to the Hype Cycle, include:

• Depth-sensing technologies
• Computer vision-based 3D target object recognition and tracking
• Optics for use in wearable displays
• Gaze detection and tracking technologies

Enlightenment Is a Process

Enlightenment about the benefits of a technology does not happen by simply turning on a light. The processes by which technologies move from barely understood to mainstream use differ widely.

Twenty-five years ago I began reading and writing about the future with multimedia information. Multimedia was not on the Gartner curve in 2000 because it had already reached something approaching maturity; now it’s an archaic term. I have been an outspoken proponent for the adoption of mobile technologies for over 12 years. Mobile technology was not a dot on the Gartner curve in 2004 but its enablers such as MMS and 802.11 g certainly were.

Would it not be better to leave Augmented Reality off of the 2016 and future Hype Cycle figures and, rather, to point the spotlight on the state of dozens of key enablers?

Do you feel the Gartner Hype Cycle correctly portrays the state of Augmented Reality? What would you like to see added or removed from the Gartner Hype Cycle in 2016?

For decades, telephones have been a mission-critical business tool for reducing the need for close proximity of experts and those they support. Internet- and web-based videoconferencing is known to contribute to lower travel-related costs and delays in delivering training and technical support.

As the quality of connectivity, cameras and other components have improved in recent years, the use of personal or company-issued mobile devices by employees for technical support has flourished. In some industrial and enterprise settings, mobile devices are required for rapid access to work orders and instructions, as well as capturing issues and documenting conditions. In many situations, capturing one or more high-resolution photographs when documenting an issue is faster and more complete than composing a written description. When a question or problem is quickly grasped by an expert who is not physically nearby, the expert can avoid travel but not delay the rapid resolution of the issue by proposing the most appropriate steps.

While photos of issues in the field can be beneficial, they aren’t always sufficient to describe a problem fully. And experts reviewing the photos are unable to clearly communicate their findings in a visual manner.

Researchers in academia and industry have studied these problems for over a decade and developed a variety of prototypes to enable clearer communication. Some commercial solutions were proposed prior to 2015 but they were not successful for a variety of reasons.

Needs and Technologies Align in 2016

Customers’ needs and a maturing array of enabling technologies are creating the conditions for AR-enhanced remote assistance to take off in 2016. In the past 12 months alone, dramatic improvements in AR-enriched annotation capabilities in real time for mobile devices and even wearables are visible.

Customers who have implemented pilots in 2014 and 2015 are beginning to share positive results and rapid return on investment with few significant obstacles. They also have increased their abilities to capture tribal knowledge and to train new operators in best practices without sacrificing productivity.

In response to this trend, investments have also markedly increased. Today there are dozens of suppliers in this segment, with solutions ranging from prototypes to battle-tested commercial packages. Matching options to needs will be more challenging in the future without a clear understanding of trade-offs and benefits.

A Vendor-Neutral Technical Report

The AREA’s new technical report is designed to support the dialog between customers and suppliers, and for suppliers to better understand where they can offer the most value to partners.

The AREA report begins with a snapshot of a typical AR-enhanced remote assistance system architecture and describes four generic use cases that apply to hundreds of specific scenarios across dozens of industries. It offers a simple landscape of companies in this area, separating those currently providing technologies for possible integration into a complete AR-enhanced remote assistance system, to those providing complete solutions for remote assistance. In addition, the report’s appendix summarizes the literature published in engineering journals on the topic of remote assistance with Augmented Reality.

Although some of our members provide solutions for AR-enhanced remote assistance, the study is impartial and neutral. AREA members have exclusive access to the full report. On this date, it will be available publicly for use by anyone seeking further insight and understanding of the opportunities and providers.

A Rapidly Changing Market

The AREA’s technical report aims to be an introductory tool for those who are getting familiar with the segment rather than an exhaustive and detailed buyer’s guide. As the level of investment and attention to this segment continues to rise in coming months, the technologies and suppliers are rapidly evolving. New features are emerging with each release. And, although the report does not examine this aspect, new and different business models are being proposed and tested.

Have you implemented projects that introduce AR-enhanced remote assistance to improve collaboration between experts and field technicians? Are you performing research to compile all up-to-the minute details about precise solutions for remote assistance? What unique requirements do you have?