Augmented reality (AR) is being implemented across a range of industries – and for good reason. By providing clear guidance on how things will look and operate in the real world, organizations are able to optimize and streamline processes. Industrial AR has the potential to save time and money from initial design to maintenance. Explore how implementing industrial AR in manufacturing can benefit your organization.

Industrial AR Benefits for Operations

Productivity and Quality

Eliminate old fashioned work instructions and paper manuals. Implementing industrial AR in manufacturing provides workers with a step-by-step guide. These clear operational instructions can validate that they are performing the right steps in the right order. This helps eliminate mistakes that cause costly reworks and improves product quality.

Ensure that things are done correctly the first time to reduce reworks and increase quality.

Maintenance and Field Service

Implementing AR for field service operations makes it more likely that problems will be fixed on the first call. Technicians can verify that they have the required parts and tools before visiting the customer site and can then use the AR guide to walk them through all the required repairs and updates.

Industrial AR can also be implemented on the shop floor for maintenance. Instead of sending workers to offsite training workshops to become machine-specific experts, AR can help them apply their general skills to the range of machines you have. It can guide them through specific fixes or preventative maintenance tasks. Rather than requiring a certain individual to fix a specific machine, your entire workforce can complete the task, so your machines get back up and running faster to reduce unplanned downtime and improve productivity.

Logistics

Streamline and optimize logistics with tools that guide warehouse pickers to specific locations to retrieve required materials and then verify that the right material was selected with a 3D verification image. This process helps organizations determine gaps in inventory management procedures. It also helps reduce shipping errors, which leads to happier customers and fewer returns.

AR can help optimize logistics by helping to uncover gaps in inventory management.

Design

Implementing AR during the design phase can significantly reduce costs associated with prototyping. Designers can create AR experiences and observe how customers interact with products and design concepts. This can further support development process by providing a clear vision to be approved and discussed by other critical teams. Advanced industrial AR tools get these products to market faster, which helps increase profitability and market share.

Industrial AR Benefits for Employees

Training

Significantly improve and speed up training processes by implementing industrial AR. Organizations can complete training right on the shop floor, rather than pulling employees out of work to complete courses in unrealistic classroom environments. AR can even help new hires get up to speed faster than simply shadowing and watching another employee by walking them through procedures and warning them if something is completed incorrectly.

Use AR to lead employees through training tasks in the real-world instead of classroom simulation environments.

Advanced Skills

As machines get more complicated, it is harder for employees to stay up to date with all the latest maintenance requirements for each machine and variation. Using AR in manufacturing supports employees by walking them through tricky maintenance procedures or calculations. Advanced technology even uses video sharing with markup capabilities so expert employees can walk workers through the entire process virtually. This technology fills the skills gap so organizations can work with their existing workforce or hire new employees – even if they don’t have the exact skill set required.

Safety

Safety is a top priority for any industrial manufacturing organization. AR improves safety measures by providing visual cues when operations or conditions are unsafe. AR can provide warnings if operations are being performed incorrectly that could cause a dangerous reaction. For example, it can alert employees before they enter an area that is too hot or if they trigger something that causes an unsafe pressure change.

Using AR in manufacturing can help warn employees of unsafe conditions or potential problems to help reduce or eliminate industrial accidents.

Implement AR in Manufacturing with Vuforia

If you’re looking for a platform to help you implement industrial AR in your operations – we recommend Vuforia (previously known as ThingWorx). It was designed by PTC specifically for the modern connected operations that are being implemented across manufacturing organizations. Its IoT capabilities make it easy to get up and running quickly. A suite of apps helps connect all of the components. Learn more about Vuforia/ThingWorx, AR, and connected operations by checking out some of our other articles:

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