From comprehensive VR environments where people can work together remotely over digital twins of products, to AR solutions which allow professionals to access expertise on the move, there’s something for everyone.

Of course, in the industrial and manufacturing landscape, there are specific requirements to consider when choosing an XR vendor.

Some spaces require headsets to be more durable or capable of withstanding dangerous environments or conditions. Some industrial companies also need their technology to work easily in low-bandwidth environments.

Today, we’re looking at some of the XR vendors delivering the kind of custom experiences industrial and manufacturing leaders need.

Kognitiv Spark

A leader in augmented reality tools for industrial remote support, Kognitiv Spark is the company behind RemoteSpark. The intelligent AR ecosystem provides manufacturing and industrial companies with access to a low-bandwidth and highly secure mixed reality platform, perfect for environments where an excellent internet connection isn’t always available.

RemoteSpark and Kognitiv Spark allow industrial companies to empower their teams whether they’re on the production floor or in the field. The company works with everything from Industrial brands to Aerospace and Defence companies worldwide.

RealWear

Bringing the power of hands-free information to manufacturing and industrial companies, RealWear’s solutions are leading the way to a new age of innovation.

Assisted Reality solutions from RealWear make it quick and simple for users in a business environment to access the information they need to make better decisions in the workplace.

RealWear’s tools are designed with the unique requirements of industrial environments in mind, giving all the power of a wireless Android tablet to employees in the form of smart glasses with access to multi-media files, collaboration tools, and more.

Holo-Light

An innovator in the XR space, Holo-Light is building an all-in-one environment where users can easily host and stream any XR application on a range of high-performing mobile devices. The ecosystem supports everything from powerful processing speeds to global availability of AR and VR experiences built for the industrial space.

With Holo-Light, companies can gain access to all the technology they need for endless processing power and high security. Flexible infrastructure and reduced development costs have earned Holo-Light the attention of many leading brands already, like BMW and Danfoss.

Microsoft

Leaders in the world of mixed reality, Microsoft is changing the way we look at manufacturing forever. With Microsoft Mixed Reality software and headsets like the HoloLens 2, companies in the industrial landscape can rapidly transform their workforce, building more agile and collaborative factories, and improving the speed to market for new products.

According to Microsoft, manufacturers can improve revenue by up to 5% with the power of mixed reality, and save an average of 75% on training time when bringing new people into the staff mix. With HoloLens, companies can easily provide their team members with access to subject matter experts and support wherever they are, while ensuring they remain hands-free with their technology.

Taqtile

Taqtile is a leader in the extended reality space for employees on the move. With this innovative company, brands can access a more immersive environment for harnessing information in the industrial landscape and sharing it on a better scale. Tools like the Manifest platform ensure companies can distribute information to deskless and virtual workers wherever they are.

With Taqtile, brands can build more effective training environments for new members of staff, but they can also provide existing team members with more support as they work.

The technology supports real-time streaming of crucial information and guidance from experienced technicians and subject-matter experts anywhere.

Varjo

Offering a range of ways for industrial and manufacturing companies to embrace the world of extended reality, Varjo can support both mixed reality and virtual reality case studies.

With mixed reality, employees in a manufacturing company can leverage real-time guidance, annotations and information from subject matter experts when they’re working in the field or remotely.

With virtual reality, companies can bring entire teams of innovators together to work cohesively on digital twin products, design new ideas, and accelerate the go-to-market process. Varjo’s ease of use combined with the flexibility of the technology makes it an excellent pick for a lot of brands.

Lenovo

Lenovo has stood ahead in the technology landscape for a number of years, providing a wide range of innovative tools and cutting-edge devices to all kinds of industries. In the manufacturing and industrial landscape, companies can now access Lenovo’s extended reality innovations to enhance productivity and enable collaboration on a new scale.

Lenovo is unique in the XR market in its ability to offer technology for virtually all kinds of employees in the industrial space, from developers and product designers to production engineers and testing engineers. If you’re looking for technology to empower your entire workforce, Lenovo has you covered.

Arvizio

Committed to building augmented and mixed reality experiences specifically for enterprise environments, Arvizio is a market leader in the industrial space.

The company offers highly scalable and customizable augmented and mixed reality technologies to help with everything from training, to helping employees accomplish more when they’re on the job.

The Immersive 3D enterprise technology from Arvizio can integrate with a wide range of tools and empower business leaders to create a range of training and upskilling experiences for business leaders. If you’re hoping to bring more of the digital world into the real world in manufacturing, Arvizio could be the right partner.

Matterport

A leader in 3D technology, Matterport is ideal for companies who want to provide virtual tours and experiences to both manufacturing clients, and members of staff. In the industrial environment, Matterport’s solutions can allow business leaders to design and implement digital twins of their facilities for other professionals to explore at a distance.

The Matterport environment is perfect for building engagement, whether you’re trying to train and onboard a new member of staff, or you’re looking for a way to build trust with a prospect.

The primary driver is found to be rising adoption of IoT, the total Global Augmented Reality (AR) Market is estimated to reach USD 78.0 Billion by 2028.

The Market stood at a revenue of USD 16.3 Billion in 2021, and is expected to exhibit a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 29.8%.

Furthermore, the growing adoption of artificial intelligence and blockchain technology for risk analytics is also anticipated to augment the growth of the Global Augmented Reality (AR) Market, states Vantage Market Research.

The other Market Dynamics reported upon include increase in adoption of AR technology in healthcare sector to fuel global Augmented Reality market

The increasing adoption of AR technology is expected to fuel the growth of the Augmented Reality (AR) Market during the forecast period. Augmented reality has great potential in the healthcare industry.

With this technology, healthcare can become more affordable and can be extent to millions of individuals. The technology can address health awareness, diagnosis, patient monitoring, patient care, disease outbreak and preventions, medical equipment upkeep and training, treatment and therapy planning, and lifestyle improvement.

Further, with augmented reality, medical professionals can get better at drawing blood, using a handheld scanner that projects over the skin and shows nurses and doctors where the veins are present in the bodies of patients. Thus, AR can be used for wide range of applications in the healthcare sector which has increased its overall demand across this industry.

The AREA does not sponsor such market research – for further details and to request a sample copy direct from the research organization please see the original press release.

Augmented reality is a key connection to the Metaverse era. To meet the specific needs of a new Metaverse generation, Rokid actively enhances the ability of backend computing power. In terms of the agreement, Rokid will create an all-inclusive customized design, verification, and testing solution based on ARM China’s core power XPU intelligent data-stream convergence computing platform, optimizing related software and algorithms.

Mr. Misa Zhu, CEO of Rokid enthusiastically stated: “The evolution of AR glasses is determined by the support of core components and ecosystems, including optics and chips.

Different from the computer and mobile phone chips, AR chips have a higher requirement for computing power and involve high deployment costs and technical thresholds.

ARM China is the one of largest chip design IP development and service providers. We are very thrilled to cooperate with ARM China to build a well-rounded AR ecosystem moving forward.” Mr. Xiongang Wu, Chairman and General Manager of ARM China stated: “A major feature of the Metaverse is its interactivity, which spreads the ‘digitalization’ more comprehensively; and the extended reality technology is one of the core technologies for providing an immersive metaverse experience.

Rokid is an important partner of ARM China in the AR field. We are very pleased to have a strategic cooperation agreement with Rokid. We will fully support Rokid’s product development and joint expansion to the ecological experience of the Metaverse.”

Read Rokid’s AREA member profile 

Visit Rokid’s website

As the only Zoom for smart glasses application listed on the Zoom App Marketplace, the app allows Vuzix smart glasses users to start or join a meeting with face-to-face or see-what-I-see video, screen sharing and more. Zoom for Smart Glasses by Vuzix brings video conferencing, online meetings and other features of the Zoom service into one easy-to-use application on your Vuzix smart glasses.

Zoom is one of the fastest growing cloud video conferencing applications for end-to-end enterprise communications and has more than 191,000 enterprise customers that have at least 10 users. Vuzix has deployed Zoom’s HIPAA/PIPEDA-compliant conferencing application with Vuzix smart glasses in numerous hospitals and healthcare organizations to help streamline their day-to-day business operations.

Interested Zoom users can simply search for ‘smart glasses’ on the Zoom App Marketplace https://marketplace.zoom.us/ or shortcut the following URL: https://marketplace.zoom.us/apps/exz7FlBxQg-Q1M9GFMsLAw.

“After months of collaboration with the Zoom team, it is great to see Zoom for Smart Glasses app being added to the Zoom app marketplace to enhance the overall awareness and distribution of Vuzix smart glasses to Zoom’s enterprise customers,” said Paul Travers, President and Chief Executive Officer at Vuzix.

But before we get into that, let’s take a look into how the technology is being used by engineering and manufacturing companies across the world.

How are engineering companies utilising XR?

As the technologies continue to evolve, users of Augmented (AR), Mixed (MR) and Virtual Reality (VR) – collectively known as Extended Reality (XR), are discovering new and more efficient ways to enhance their engineering processes.

Companies are seeing huge reductions in time spent and travel costs, and are using the technologies on a day-to-day basis.

Learn how Valiant TMS and Medtronic got started with their Enterprise-XR journey’s

So, where to start?

Identify your use case

Having the intention to introduce AR, MR or VR into your organisation is fine, but the starting point can often be the trickiest hurdle to jump over.

Before you even think about investing in hardware or software, you should be identifying your use case. After that, you should try to understand how to get the most value from it, and which devices and applications you may require.

Look for challenges and pain points

One of the best approaches is to take a look at your current design cycle. If you’ve already released a product, here are a few questions that you could be asking yourself:

• What challenges were identified?
  • Were there any late design changes in a particular area or department?
  • Were there any recalls? If so, why?
  • Were there limited or out of date physical prototypes?
  • Did you not get chance to test enough?
  • Was there a lack of communication or collaboration between teams?

Try to look at your business cycle, look at where the challenges lie, and understand the pain points. That’s where you’ll want to be focusing on utilizing XR because that’s where you’re going to get the most ROI.

Accepted benefits of XR

For some insight, here are some of the most common benefits that engineering and manufacturing companies are seeing from Augmented, Mixed and Virtual Reality technologies:

Improved inspections – By taking the virtual model and placing it over the physical model, engineers can perform more accurate quality checks by inspecting the tooling and components prior to being shipped. It ensures that the parts are being shipped as they were designed. Some companies have even reduced inspection time by up to 60%.

Reduced travel – By working collaboratively and remotely with colleagues from other locations, engineers can look at a prototype and interrogate it in real time. By simply removing the need to travel (and the costs associated), some companies have seen clear ROIs within months.

De-risking – By seeing your 3D designs in detail, at full scale and in-context, you can be confident that your designs will be going to production as complete as you can possibly make them.

Speed of change – In the majority of cases, there will be a last-minute change to your design, causing delays of weeks or even months. With the ability to simply put on your headset and host a collaborative session, you can get your team together within 10 minutes to iron out the issue.

Here are some useful tools to help understand the value of XR:

AREA ROI Calculator – An easy-to-use tool to understand potential cost savings and other business benefits when deploying AR, MR and/or VR.

Microsoft HoloLens 2 Estimator – Instantly calculate and receive a high-level estimate of the total economic impact of the Microsoft HoloLens 2, including cost savings, productivity hours saved, and more.

Summary

Having a use case with a strong ROI will vastly increase the likelihood of getting your executive buy-in to really kickstart your XR journey. For more advice on the topic, you can listen to the full discussion from Theorem specialists on How to Prepare for Your XR Use Case [On-Demand Webinar].

Augmented Reality (AR) is a subset of Virtual Reality (VR) that is implemented in manufacturing and plant management. The global AR market has experienced tremendous growth in recent years because it relies on existing user environments and displays virtual content over it. These technologies are designed using 3D software programs that allow developers to display digital content over the real world.

Goldman Sachs predicts that AR has “the potential to evolve into the next big computing technology. We expect existing markets to be disrupted and new markets to be created.” What exactly does this mean for automobile manufacturers and other production plants?

It means there are five new ways that you can use augmented reality technologies or machine learning in plant management and manufacturing factories.

How Augmented Reality Tech Helps Improve Plant Management

1. Factory Design

Auto manufacturers looking to expand or set up a factory have plenty to benefit from augmented reality. The planning phase can be time-consuming and costly. Owners must plan to the last details, from the tiniest light switches to the largest pieces of equipment. AR allows them to preview every detail in real-time by offering them the ability to assess their proposed factories. Various builders, engineers, architects and more can make vital contributions to the proposed designs.

Instead of relying on 2D models and other old-fashioned blueprints, augmented reality allows for a greater level of collaboration by allowing designers to make suggestions, as well as express concerns should a problem be identified. AR also offers many other benefits in the design phase, including the ability for owners to view how their production processes will take place in the new factory.

2. Automation

Repetitive tasks are crucial in manufacturing, but it’s not mandatory to have actual people perform these tasks. Manufacturers have become aware of augmented reality solutions that can adjust, monitor, and program industrial robots to do many complex and repetitive tasks. Users can program robots to perform a wide variety of tasks from various points of view. On top of this, some of these tasks can be risky, which makes automation a sensible option.

Benefits include generation of detailed reports on remaining and accomplished tasks, reduced risk to workers, ability to operate factories 24/7, and many others. These machines can then all be monitored and managed via AR. Systems such as Aircada allow for AR plant management via Scada / HMI – saving you time, effort and making your place of work safer and more efficient.

3. Automotive Assembly

A virtual auto plant goes beyond Computer Aided Design to assist engineers make crucial decisions about designs through detailed visualizations, thereby eradicating the need for a physical prototype. On top of this, AR can be employed as a tool to find and solve potential issues in assembly. This can all be implemented before the assembly has been completed, or any production process has started.

Benefits of augmented reality in auto assemblies include automated task assessment, easy testing of designs, ability to actualize the assembly process from start to finish, and many others.

4. Training On Augmented Reality

AR provides a convenient way for workers to learn new manufacturing skills without risk to individuals or property. This type of training allows workers to do everything from welding to disassembling an entire engine, all while the augmented reality system records data including, but not limited to; power used, weld quality, time for assembly, and many others.

Benefits of training using augmented reality include ability to training new workers on existing processes to allow them to learn new skills and assess how safe they are working according to information found here.

5. Car Maintenance

Augmented reality provides unique benefits to car maintenance applications. Maintenance for an entire assembly line can be simulated and planned well in advance of the set date. Workers can be familiarized with existing or new equipment before the task. Virtual car maintenance can even be done in virtual factories to evaluate its effects on normal operations.

Other benefits include offering a unique perspective, enabling trial runs, and familiarizing employees with maintenance tasks, all while being risk-free to the factory.

AR Advantages

As you can see, augmented reality technology can make a major impact at plants and factories. As time goes on AR, VR, and machine learning will take manufacturing to the next level. It’s time you master your manufacturing with this new top tech!

The company’s initial purchase of 40 units through RealWear’s Gold partner Allegra AS, will be used for remote after-sales maintenance, remote servicing and remote commissioning of all its heavy agricultural machinery products. Orkel’s research and development team tested a variety of smart glasses before standardising on RealWear’s HMT-1^® head-mounted displays. According to Orkel, RealWear’s rugged form factor, safety features, noise cancellation and long battery life were deciding factors.

How the Solution Works

The innovative solution allows Orkel to connect its customers to its service technicians without the need for unnecessary travel. As part of Orkel’s after-sales support offering, each customer in need of commissioning or a technical service receives a kit consisting of the HMT-1, a branded Orkel hardhat, and mounting clips. The customer simply puts on the device, contacts the Orkel technician using voice commands and, after connecting, the technician can immediately see exactly what the customer sees through the head-mounted camera and easy to use software – VSight. The technician then solves the issue. Once resolved, the customer may then choose to purchase the RealWear device for their own use or return it to Orkel.

The solution solved a number of pain points for Orkel. For instance, typically its service technicians were required to make an in-person customer trip, which involves travel time and environmental costs. A delay in fixing the equipment also has the potential to impact the customers’ businesses.

“Our customers really appreciate the value of the system because we are able to provide a much faster level of support when an issue arises. All too often, our service technicians would travel for what turned out to be a quick fix. Now, with RealWear, many hours of time and CO₂ emissions are saved, and most importantly customers’ machines are operational again quickly, which is imperative during the harvest season,” commented Svein Erik Syrstad, Technician, Orkel.

Headquartered in Fannrem, Norway, Orkel Group is an established supplier of compactors, round balers and transport equipment. With a presence in more than 50 countries across the globe, its biggest market currently is mainland China. As the farming and agriculture sectors are heavily dependent on the harvest season, Orkel’s customer base requires maximum uptime from their Orkel machinery, especially during the busy season.

On the device, Orkel is using RealWear partner VSight Remote, a remote service and collaboration platform powered by AR that helps manufacturing companies conduct maintenance operations remotely with Augmented Reality. The Orkel machine’s telemetry system ensures that details about every aspect of the machine’s operation is sent securely to the cloud, enabling Orkel’s service technicians to read the data and guide their customers to the next step in the procedure. This information enables Orkel to target the specific error more efficiently, and then guide the operator remotely to resolution.

“We really adore this technology because as a research & development engineer, I can watch the work being done,” said Magnus Nordås Lervik, Project Engineer, Orkel. “I’m quickly learning better ways to design future machinery as I’ve seen first-hand the common issues that arise, and how they are fixed.”  Lervik continued, “Using this technology enables our research and development team to look ahead to how we might design products in the future from an operator’s perspective.”

“Orkel and its customers are achieving a number of benefits since deploying RealWear’s technology with VSight and Microsoft Teams,” added Jon Arnold, Vice President of EMEA, RealWear Inc. “When looking at the agricultural industry as a whole, machine downtime impacts productivity and efficiency, especially in shorter and shorter harvest seasons. Remote assistance with RealWear is becoming a gamechanger for the farming and agriculture industry when every second matters.”

This represents the award-winning product that integrates design and technology to create a better life experience for consumers through the power of technology and aesthetics.

Rokid X-Craft, the world’s first explosion-proof MR device passed ATEX Zone 1 certificate and received a design award, being applied to hazardous scenarios such as oil & gas and energy & power.

With remote assistance, remote processing is possible immediately, and X-Craft is equipped with 3 noise reduction microphones, and with an AI algorithm, voices can be accurately detected in a 95db noisy industrial environment.

Now, Rokid’s X-Craft has been deployed in over 70 regions. Rokid Air Pro, the Best Portable AR Glasses for Training & Exhibition, has been used in over 60 museums around the world. It’s small enough to fit into a pocket, the AR glasses are foldable, look like regular sunglasses, and have a visor for outdoor use.

It’s not enough to have the toughest product and advanced technology, Rokid is committed to designing the best user experience. By doing so, Rokid has obtained many world-renowned design awards for its home media terminals.

See Rokid’s AREA profile here

AR-enhanced tech support finds solutions faster

The incredibly scalable nature of augmented reality — accessible from dedicated headsets to simple smartphone apps — makes it ideal for remote technical support. For instance, using AR, technicians would no longer have to try to explain a fault in machinery to an engineer since the engineer would be able to see the issue from their own point of view, and potentially diagnose the problem remotely. One of the key metrics for support issues is time to resolution — a measure of how much downtime is lost while equipment is offline. AR can help resolve these types of issues more efficiently.

“We have a factory in South Florida and a partner of ours has a factory in Guadalajara,” explained Magic Leap CEO Peggy Johnson when she appeared on the “Leadership Next” podcast. Due to COVID restrictions, “we couldn’t send engineers back and forth. We were trying to bring up our next-generation product and all travel stopped. So we have our own production engineers in Guadalajara who may not be familiar with this new equipment for the next-gen product. They can make calls back to our engineers in South Florida who can see what they see. It’s gotten to the point where I don’t know that we’ll put engineers on airplanes in the future.”

In a recent webinar, Taqtile CCO Kelly Malone noted that frontline workers no longer have to wait for someone to be available or for a supervisor to free up time. “They can reach out to a colleague who’s familiar with the system. And because it’s integrated, they can see [through the device] who recently worked on the machine, who authored the procedure, and who else performed the job. That information is actually right there, at their fingertips, so they can reach out to knowledgeable individuals instead of making a scattershot call and hoping the person they reach out to knows the answer to the question.”

AR visualization means collaborative design

The ability to create detailed 3D models that are viewable in AR means that design teams can work remotely from the same data with greater confidence. Unlike 2D video conferencing, designers can collaborate in AR on prototypes and products while each sees the model as if it were in their hands. AR solutions, like Magic Leap, augment traditional collaboration approaches by not only enabling deeply immersive remote collaboration, but also adding context and knowledge to in-person communication.

This aspect of AR is at the heart of MakeSEA, a design visualization platform available on Magic Leap. Designers can upload 3D computer models of their work to a library, which can then be shared with their collaborators. As the design evolves, so does the model in the library, ensuring everyone is always looking at the most recent iteration.

As with remote assistance, this collaborative function of AR is now helping to shape our next generation headset, Magic Leap 2. “The 2D experience with our current video conferencing doesn’t quite fit the needs that design teams have. We can now gather our teams in my own physical space here. I do it often,” explained Peggy Johnson. “I can bring my teams in using the Magic Leap headset, and we can look at our next-gen product, make changes, move it around, expand it, walk around. It’s really been a tool that’s going to go on post-pandemic.”

AR meetings reinvent the idea of the workplace

Over the past few years, all of us have been getting used to connecting with our teams over video calls rather than around the boardroom table, but inevitably there is a frustrating sense of disconnection that comes with it. The shared space and viewpoint that AR business meetings offer means that they are more collaborative and engaging, as attendees can view and interact with objects rather than sitting passively watching a slideshow.

Spatial is one of several companies using Magic Leap for its virtual meeting platform. Among Spatial’s clients are Mattel, Ford, Purina, and international banking group BNP Paribas. “Spatial is the only solution we want to use for meetings from now on,” said Florian Couret, BNP Paribas’ Head of Digital Innovation. “We use Spatial on Magic Leap for real estate development planning across several offices. Being able to review 3D information and feel like we’re actually in the room with colleagues helps us cut down on a lot of travel.”

Augmented reality can truly redefine what the traditional idea of a company “meeting” looks like. The concept of the Gemba walk is well established, and AR has obvious benefits for companies using this technique, something that communications giant Ericsson has been exploring using Magic Leap. Ericsson’s AR-enhanced Gemba walks show managers context-relevant overlays, pulling from back-end data on resource planning, equipment efficiency, analytics, and shop floor performance, as they walk around their smart factory. The headset even allows them to make and receive video calls on the move so that issues that are identified can be raised and shared in an instant.

AR training means upskilling staff faster

Traditionally, rolling out training programs for employees across a large company is time-consuming and often requires hiring specialist trainers and bringing them into multiple workplaces or sending staff out to external sessions. Either way, the cost and logistical requirements are steep. With AR learning, staff can be instantly connected to the best trainers in the world, across all your locations, and benefit from the same hands-on tuition wherever they are.

Magic Leap partner Talespin has not only been creating new immersive platforms to deliver AR training, but it has also conducted an in-depth study of the benefits of extended reality (XR) training solutions in conjunction with PwC. Among their key findings, they found that users of XR training picked up new skills 1.5 times faster than those using online e-learning and four times faster than those in a classroom environment. The same statistics also applied to learner focus; those learning in AR/XR were four times more engaged than class-based learners and 1.5 times more focused than e-learning users.

Most importantly, the PwC study found that the ROI from XR staff training kicks in sooner than you might think. For companies looking to train just 375 staff members, using augmented reality can be cheaper than physical classroom learning. At 1,950 staff members, it becomes more cost-effective than e-learning.

AR is already addressing core business needs

It can be tempting to think of augmented reality as something only relevant to cutting-edge technology startups, but it already has the power to improve any company — particularly at the enterprise level — with practical improvements to essential processes. Those benefits won’t only be felt in the C-suite either. One of the long-term advantages of wearable technology like AR is that it brings data and connectivity to deskless workers who have traditionally not had that access.

“I believe [AR] will be deeply integrated into the workflow processes of companies,” said Peggy Johnson. “Frontline workers don’t usually go back to a desk with a PC on it, and [AR] can be the PC for those workers. I think it will be very empowering for something like 3 billion frontline workers in the world today who don’t have that kind of access and the tools that we take for granted.”

There are already everyday uses of AR that are directly relevant to enterprise companies. Those who aren’t investing in AR right now are not only missing out on immediate benefits, but they risk being left behind as the technology matures.

Safety 2.0

One of the first processes to benefit from CSA’s embrace of the augmented reality is the safety inspection. (While the cause of the recent crash of a Boeing 737 operated by China Eastern Airlines is still being investigated, the incident underscores the importance of using any and all safety inspection tools available.)

After every landing of any passenger aircraft anywhere in the world, a maintenance, repair, and operations (MRO) engineer must perform a thorough aircraft inspection. An inspection on a Boeing 737 typically takes more than 100 steps, and an Airbus 320 takes more than 200 steps. This is a basic but crucial part of airline management, a pressing task that front-line MRO engineers must perform every day, often a number of times. CSA is no exception. As the world’s third largest airline, the airline repeats this procedure over 2,500 times a day, a task that takes CSA’s MRO engineers about 1,000 worker-hours.

In most of the world’s airports, engineers check off each inspection item on a bulky, paper-based job card, a block of 20+ sheets of paper that they have to clutch throughout the entire task. Until recently, CSA’s MRO engineers worked this way too, performing this work while juggling paper, pens, walkie-talkies, and the job card. But now, at 22 airports the CSA flies out of, most of the information, record-keeping, and communications tools are integrated into a single AR display. This display puts a whole range of resources at the engineers’ service – not only text, but images, videos, graphs, and voice, in any combination that is helpful to the engineers.

While the AR glasses are expected to shave 6 percent off those 1,000 daily hours, we have found in our research on the integration of this technology at CSA that the advantages of the AR glasses go far beyond the labor dividend. They aren’t just a new way to get information – they’re a whole new way of working.

CSA’s AR glasses allow engineers to edit and reorganize their job list, change the information they see, and how they want it shown. Their displays can be adjusted by aircraft, season, and even individual preference. They offer the engineers step-by-step multimedia support and immersive experiences during the execution of the tasks, including AI object recognition and collaboration with a remote expert.

“Combined with some [artificial intelligence], the AR glasses can really make our job a lot easier,” one MRO engineer said. “I can now point my fingers to a place, for example, a lubricating oil cap, and it automatically recognizes the object or the key parts and tells me that it’s open but should be closed. It also can show me, in a picture or a short video, how the object looked in normal condition or in its last service.” When the task is done, engineers can even sign off using either voice or even gesture, if it’s too noisy on the tarmac to use a voice command.

Rather than lug manuals big as unabridged dictionaries around or spend valuable time walking to an office to consult one, engineers can instantly access the information they need via the glasses. “I no longer have to go and look for the maintenance manual, which could take an hour walking back and forth. The manual is now coming to me, in front of my eyes!” one engineer told us. The AR glasses even make it possible for experts to advise mechanics on the tarmac in real time and supply them with pictures, videos, voice advice, and graphs.

The glasses also encourage more standardized performance. “It knows where I am in the process and points me to where I need to go next. Everybody is following the same process in the same order,” explained another engineer.

Welcome to the Augmented Operations

Wide-awake engineers, better compliance, a visual diary of the life of every component, and ultimately, safer flights are all benefits of this single pilot project in the 850-aircraft airline. The AR glasses optimize performance not only by bringing more knowledge closer to the machinery but by keeping MRO eyes on the prize. Like most earlier forms of digitalization, the CSA’s experience suggests that augmented operations are less likely to supplant people than to augment their capabilities — a win for companies, employees, and travelers.

Today, the CSA’s first augmented operational system is still a work in progress, not so much in its ability to transfer data to or from the individual — although that presents challenges – as in adapting the technology to meet the capacities of human cognition. The AR smart glasses need to comply to the industry’s safety standards, as well as meeting important objectives for privacy, comfort, display, connectivity, ergonomics, battery lifetime, noise reduction, multi-media interactivity, immersive experience combined with transparency, required infrastructure (5G, edge computing), and a knowledge graph that can provide deeper AI-enabled support.

Only the beginning

And that’s just one application in one industry — imagine the many other ways the technology might be used. Already, thousands of companies around the world are experimenting with various aspects of AR technologies. And we believe this number will rise dramatically once we understand more about the best ways to manage the user interface on all those smart glasses, and the awareness of this new and highly adaptable technology grows. It’s not unlike the moment when something called a website appeared on our desktops or a decade later, when it became clear that apps were “the killer app” of the smart phone.

When the enterprise use of AR technologies has its own Netscape moment, we believe we will see many industries see the dawn of a massive new opportunity. Airlines, for instance, will be able to understand their cost structure in much more detail than they do now, down to the part. Ultimately, this cognitive shift could change the balance of power within the airline business, away from sales and the front office toward the back office and the maintenance hangar (particularly as the carbon footprint becomes more integrated into the price).

And this is only the beginning. As the CSA project has demonstrated, virtualization has no limits. Any person or object in airline operations, from mechanics to the airplanes or the entire airport — can be virtualized, given enough data and enough modeling. By creating a virtual representation of a physical object, plus an ongoing stream of new information about its status, digital twins of physical objects and even people can give airlines unprecedented ability to see how something is performing right now and simulate or predict how it might perform in the future.

CSA’s success suggests that AR is finally becoming part of our working reality. But there are still many unanswered questions. In our work for CSA, for instance, we have been posing many questions about how to bring the best out of people. When do people need reminders? What are the signs that their attention is starting to flag? What’s the most efficient way for mechanics to communicate through their glasses to an expert, who can walk them through a complex repair? At the moment, the questions keep multiplying but, fortunately, so do the answers.