Over the past week the consortium has been working hard to investigate production of a range of ventilator design options to meet a high-level specification for a Rapidly Manufactured Ventilator System (“RMVS”) developed by clinicians and the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (“MHRA”).

The consortium has evaluated all requirements to design, manufacture, assemble and test components, as well as finished medical ventilators.

Companies in the consortium have now received formal orders from the Government in excess of 10,000 units.

The consortium will now accelerate production of an agreed new design, based on existing technologies, which can be assembled from materials and parts in current production.  The device combines existing proven clinical equipment and is the clinicians’ first choice for the RMVS.

The regulator has been involved throughout and we anticipate a straightforward and very prompt regulatory sign off after the final audit.

The consortium is now working at full speed to take the necessary steps in order to increase production of this design. Production will begin this week.

The consortium also includes another producer of medical ventilators and it will provide them with additional manufacturing support and assembly facilities in order to scale up production of a second existing ventilator design which has full regulatory approval.

In response to the NHS’ requirements to treat coronavirus patients, there are a range of other projects aiming to increase ventilator production.

The VentilatorChallengeUK consortium is committed to playing its role in delivering both medical ventilator designs to the required specifications and, in conjunction with these other companies, organisations and groups, aid the delivery of additional ventilators to the NHS. The companies involved have taken many of their people from key company projects to do this and serve the national need.

​Dick Elsy, the HVM Catapult’s chief executive, said:

“This consortium brings together some of the most innovative companies in the world. Every day, their highly-skilled staff collaborate to create solutions that help millions of people, and this project is no different. They are working together with incredible determination and energy to scale up production of much-needed ventilators and combat a virus that is affecting people in many countries. I am confident this consortium has the skills and tools to make a difference and save lives.” 

According to PTC, there are five common use cases for AR/VR in field service: identifying parts that need replacement, viewing technical information, remote customer service, employee training, and following complex maintenance procedures. Companies that help employees perform tasks more safely and quickly using up-to-date information delivered to their visor or headset will be rewarded with greater job commitment and motivation.

Another function is sales and marketing. VR and AR can dramatically improve or disrupt outdated processes and engagement models to demonstrate a brand’s unique value proposition. Companies utilizing virtual product models are finding real competitive advantage.

“Interactive applications engage prospects earlier, train sales/channel teams faster, shorten sales cycles, reduce product shipping costs and increases win rates,” said Dana Drissel, vice president of marketing at Kaon Interactive, provider of B2B sales and marketing applications. “Companies need to embrace and adopt new ways of working with the latest emerging technologies if they want to truly differentiate and stay competitive.”

One area with high ROI from virtual sales and marketing is savings in product shipping costs. Large, complex products cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to ship to and from sales meetings and tradeshows. 

Commercial and industrial printing firm, Ricoh USA, Inc., has a strong brand, product, message and customer service ethos. However, it was seeking an innovative, efficient and effective way to convey that strength to its customers and prospects virtually.

Ricoh’s portfolio of production presses and platforms are high-powered, technological innovations that offer high levels of customization and complementing software services that can cost up to $2 million at the highest end of its spectrum. For such a significant investment, potential customers want an in-depth examination of the products. Customers want to see them, watch how they work, and explore the features and benefits.

To ship Ricoh presses to demo sites around the world cost over $150,000 per printer, per event. With between six to 10 tradeshows in a typical year, the marketing team started asking themselves what alternatives could they offer their customers that delivered a similar experience, yet without the physical equipment.

The solution? A virtual product tour that is also available in augmented reality. Having an interactive, photo-realistic, 3-D-animated, virtual tour and AR experience of the printing press suddenly made it possible to demonstrate the capabilities and show the value in sales meetings on the sales rep’s tablet or laptop.

“To me, the application is just a virtual extension of our product,” said Mike Herold, Ricoh’s director of inkjet solutions. “Of course, it doesn’t take the place of visiting one of our Customer Experience Centers, but it’s a good interim step in the sales cycle.”

A digital transformation strategy implies that your focus should be about the “digital”.  However, in the 21^st century the human remains absolutely critical to how your business operates.  Therefore, in the world of connected machines, and through the implementation of XR, we need to digital enable our human workforce.

Theorem Solutions have developed a range of 3D CAD and hardware neutral, use-case based apps for XR.  These immersive experiences utilize your existing 3D assets, enabling your teams to perform tasks in the most efficient way possible, reducing costs and providing real measurable benefits.

Visit this link to access the whitepaper how to digitally enhance your workforce.

Read Theorem Solutions AREA member profile.

HoloLens 2 validates and expands AR for business

The arrival of Microsoft’s HoloLens 2 signals a tipping point for AR and wearables. This is a second-generation headset that introduces massive improvements in gesture recognition, larger field-of-view, and overall ergonomics. But what’s most significant is who it’s not for, primarily: gamers or consumers.

AR and VR hardware development—and what sometimes seems like an insane amount of venture capital—has followed video games and immersive entertainment concepts.

Microsoft flips that with the HoloLens 2. Microsoft is squarely taking aim at the enterprise market, betting big that developers will create applications and find use cases that will put AR in a broad range of workflows. The company obviously knows how to create entire business ecosystems at an enterprise scale. Expect a bevy of Fortune 100 businesses and even the U.S. military to make waves with HoloLens 2 AR use cases this year.

Who will throw their hat into the ring in 2020?

The arrival of HoloLens 2 will also open the floodgates in the wearables market. You’ll see new AR/VR devices from more blue-chip device manufacturers, and we saw no shortage of hardware-related announcements coming out of CES 2020. While we may have to wait a bit longer for the long-rumored Apple glasses, there’s no way that other electronics powerhouses will stand still. Expect competitive, next-gen AR/VR iterations from Samsung (who already teased the early stages of their AR glasses), Google, Lenovo, Toshiba, and more as they’re pushed to innovate or get left behind. Along with the HoloLens 2, competition and ubiquity will further expand AR’s potential in the enterprise business and beyond.

Niche AR players: Time to take the leap

With 2020 poised to be the year Big Tech gets heavy into AR, what’s going to happen to the smaller players? In tech, we’ve seen this movie before—industry consolidation and intellectual property acquisition. For start-ups, niche firms, or dreamers in AR and wearables, 2020 is the year to prove their technology is viable and compelling enough to compete with the established manufacturers. Launch a compelling offering, get your devices on the heads of business users, and get ready to innovate faster than the giants to prove real ROI. There’s an $80+ billion market out there for AR/VR maturing in the next few years. 

Ready to incorporate AR into your business? What to look for when choosing an enterprise AR device

While many enterprise organizations already implementing AR are seeing great success with the use of smartphones and tablets, there is no question that a hands-free experience is a holy grail, particularly for industrial workers repairing complex machinery or manufacturing products on the factory floor. When trying to determine which head-mounted device is right for its workers, enterprises must think through several factors including use case, the environment in which the device will be worn, the device’s power source and battery duration, security concerns, mobile device management, and more.

First—a word of caution. Enterprises should not dwell too much on the types of hardware used when engaging with AR initially due to the rapidly evolving market. Rather, it’s more important to ensure the viability of the AR content being created and enterprises should look to engage with a software vendor who is dedicated to supporting the best of breed hardware and continuing to update their software when new devices launch. This allows enterprises to take advantage of the software platform that can store their data and content and maintain its long term investment. This also prevents organizations from being pigeon-holed into a particular set of hardware as use cases will evolve and AR deployments often scale beyond the initial scope.

There are generally two categories of wearable displays on the market, each with characteristics that will impact the suitability of the device based on the task at hand: monocular displays such as Google Glass, RealWear and Toshiba’s dynaEdge AR Smart Glasses, and fully immersive displays such as Microsoft’s HoloLens 2 and Lenovo’s ThinkReality A6. Monocular displays boast a longer battery life and allow for lighter-weight applications, such as field service applications. The drawback to this category is that use cases are limited—monocular displays typically only support basic text-based work instructions or limited see-what-I-see remote assistance applications.

Fully immersive hardware such as the HoloLens 2, have much more varied applications of use cases such as field service, immersive training, remote support using shared real-space annotations, remote collaboration, manufacturing work instructions, and maintenance work instructions. With the ability to support more sophisticated use cases, these devices tend to be bulkier and consume much more battery life, which means the headset can’t comfortably be worn as long.

Finally, there are concerns around data privacy, security and device management that should be taken into consideration. Enterprises today, and manufacturers working on sensitive equipment in particular, should evaluate what data is being stored on these devices, how the data is protected, and how the devices themselves are managed and protected. Each enterprise AR device has its own strengths and drawbacks and while one type of wearable may be a perfect fit for the needs of one organization, it may not be suitable for another based on how they plan to leverage AR for their business.

As enterprise AR continues to gain momentum and transform the workforce, expect people to become more comfortable with wearing a device as part of their daily routine. In the years ahead, we believe the underlying technology involved with creating a positive user experience—technical aspects such as processing speed, user experience, available compute power and rendering – will continue to mature. This will usher in a new era of devices that boast a smaller form factor, an increased level of wearability and more sophisticated video display, allowing workers to explore a new set of applications where AR can help them do their jobs better than ever before.

Vuzix states that due to the recent addition of a number of remote support applications to its smart glasses product line, including Zoom, Skype for Business, Ubimax Frontline and Librestream Onsight, coupled with the recent impact of travel to certain areas of the world, the company has seen an increase in RFQ’s related to remote support and operations management across the United States, Europe and Japan.

“The ability to deliver expertise from an expert located on one side of the world to a remote technician located somewhere else is proving to be a key market vertical for Vuzix,” said Paul Travers, President and CEO of Vuzix. “Vuzix has a number of compatible remote support applications which are being well received and driving strong ROIs and knowledge transfer for our global customer base.”

Paradigm Shift

Now more than ever, manufacturers are using AR and MR technology in production environments  and bringing it to frontline workers to be used for more sophisticated and demanding tasks, such as quality control, production control and actual manufacturing in assembly lines.

This is especially true when it comes to mixed reality, where improved hardware and software capabilities enable hands free interaction and compliance with safety requirements.

The main improvements on the hardware side compared to previous-generation devices include a wider field of view, better performance and better calibrated optics for improved alignment accuracy–a critical aspect when it comes to production.

In addition, a specialized, production-targeted mixed reality device can address safety requirements like hardhat integration and bone-conduction headsets that keep the user aware of the surroundings. 

Significant improvements on the software side include two-hands interaction as a natural, more efficient interface, eye tracking, and advanced features such as sequencing for improved context-based interaction.  

The market has also matured to the point where technology is being more widely adopted and is expanding to the production floor. Until now, most digital transformation has consisted of changes in the office.

Engineers have embraced 3D modeling solutions and mixed reality for the design and evaluation of projects and products in the office, but workers in the manufacturing facility were still using paper drawings or interacting with models or 2D representations on a computer screen for production. This painful gap motivated companies to look for solutions to improve efficiency by extending the use of mixed reality on the production floor.

Mixed reality can directly translate the time invested in the 3D digital content during the design stage to the production side to improve efficiency. Manufacturers can justify their investment by using the digital data—such as 3D models—not just for the design phase, but also for the manufacturing phase.

New Use Cases

The combination of market maturity and technology innovation has enabled a new set of use cases for the manufacturing industry. including:

Employee Training: Rather than reading a set of drawings or flipping through a manual for passive learning, workers can immerse themselves in the training material while physically interacting with the assets needed for the job. This is especially useful with spatially complex products were traditional training methods take time due to the high cognitive load.   

Visual Sequencing: Visual sequencing provides step-by-step instructions of an assembly process delivered to the line worker during assembly. For complex assemblies, 3D views of each step with accompanying instructions help even experienced workers to avoid potential errors. As an added benefit, the wearable devices allow them to keep their hands free while working. A concrete example for such a scenario is an assembly of rebar cages in a prefab factory. The ability to filter the displayed information based on production sequence helps both novice and experienced team members avoid costly errors.

Quality Assurance: Blending digital information into real world views enables on-site teams to validate the quality of their work, identify discrepancies in real-time, and benefit from a short communication loop with the office team. Mixed reality can help embed the quality assurance in the production process by enabling real-time visual analysis of the assembled product.

Production Control: Prefabricated construction elements are becoming more complex. Mixed reality provides manufacturers with the ability to monitor the production process in the context of the physical assembly and determine whether production is ahead, according, or behind schedule.

Look for integration of mixed reality with advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence, computer vision and machine learning to further increase its value.

But this kinesthetic one-off pairing approach can be expensive, taking experienced workers off the production floor to train. Also, paper-based work instructions may make training outdated or ineffective.

The article’s author states that Augmented reality can help resolve these challenges and provides four ways AR delivers information throughout the learning and development lifecycle, and the advantages of each, including a case study.

These are:

1. Visualization & demonstration for training: Interactive guided instructions, procedures, and digital content are delivered in 3D within a simulated context.

•      Lowers material and prototype overhead costs through digitally delivered content

•       By delivering only relevant content on demand, it reduces cost of worker downtime and ramp-up time.

•       Captures expert workflows to educate and quickly on-board junior-level staff with augmented instructions using AR headsets or a mobile device.

While learning management systems have made relevant information digitized, training through AR provides a 3D format and kinesthetic-friendly approach, which capitilizes on a mix of learning methods that improve knowledge retention. AR is also more cost-effective than planning downtime for training on real-world equipment or using physical materials for training prototypes.

Case Study: GSI (an AGCO brand), a manufacturer of grain storage systems, found it unfeasible to bring its massive equipment to its weeklong training class for new hires and, instead, presented hundreds of slides. It combined this with paper manuals to deliver information to its field workers, including new features and models. By moving to augmented reality for immersive training of its field workers, GSI reduced installation time of new grain system designs by 60%.

2. On-the-job work instructions: Overlaid in-context digital information including step-by-step sequences and work instructions.

•       Increases productivity by delivering accurate necessary guidance

•       Improves retention with 3D content in context

•       Reduces paper bottlenecks to improve scalability and lower cost

•       Improves manufacturing processes, including assembly, machine setup and  changeover, and maintenance, by getting accurate and up-to-date hard metrics and other work information to the right worker.

These updateable and scalable digital capabilities are increasingly valuable to be flexible and agile and manage the information overload from rapidly changing markets and product/service complexity.

Case Study: Volvo Group is accommodating for custom configurations and customer requirements while maintaining the highest quality of its engines by equipping its quality assurance (QA) operators with on-the-job work instructions through AR. Each engine requires 40 QA checks, with 200 possible information variants, to be completed in eight minutes. AR gives Volvo flexibility to manage this complex process and its workers agility by providing operators the accurate ‘just-in-time’ quality checklist in context.

3. Remote assistance: Instantly connects remote experts to field personnel through a live video feed for over-the-shoulder support where both the expert and end user can collaborate in real time and quickly solve complex or unexpected problems.

•       Reduces travel costs for experts

•       Increases scalability and accessibility of expertise

•       Reduces cost of worker downtime

•       Helps quickly solve complex or unexpected problems

4. Expert Capture and Knowledge Transfer: Content creation by capturing expert workflows enables rapid documentation (such as standard operating procedures) to new or existing workers for hands-on training or task guidance.

·         Increases scalability and accessibility of expertise

·         Can improve training on-ramp times and knowledge retention

·         Helps ensure safety and compliance in regulated environments

Remote assistance and knowledge transfer both present an effective way to capture and scale worker expertise residing in industrial companies.

Case Study: GlobalFoundries was plagued with production bottlenecks due to a lack of detailed standard operating procedures across its facilities. This inhibited worker productivity and drove up training costs. The semiconductor manufacturer implemented augmented reality as the standardized and scalable platform to deliver work instructions. This implementation reduced scrap and rework by 25%, accelerated training on-ramp time by 40%, reduced documentation authoring time by 50%, and decreased unscheduled downtime by 25%.

Augmented Reality for the Learning Lifecycle

People are pivotal assets on companies’ financial statements, yet empowering them through technology hasn’t proliferated for many organizations. With organizations facing substantial macroeconomic issues like rapidly changing markets, the aging workforce and looming skills gap, they must consider how to best teach and enable their employees. In an increasingly complex world, learning and skills development is more an ongoing progression and less a checkmark on an HR competency sheet.