There are three ways that quality inspectors can benefit from augmented reality-equipped headsets:

Real-time Feedback with Computer Vision

Augmented reality-enabled headsets can provide real-time feedback to quality inspectors. By pairing an augmented reality (AR) headset (assuming it has a camera) with the latest computer vision software, an AI algorithm may be able to spot defects or anomalies in real-time. For example, industrial companies could integrate AI with upcoming AR headsets to automatically find flaws in production.

In layman’s terms, computer vision is the process of making sense of digital images. A computer can understand what is in an image and extract information from it. This can be used to detect objects, recognize faces, and track movement. For the industrial sector, computer vision helps find imperfections on surfaces or different pieces of equipment.

With augmented reality, headsets will provide real-time feedback to quality inspectors on the manufacturing floor. More importantly, AR headsets can superimpose graphics in the quality inspector’s field of view. By overlaying labels or annotations on top of the image, the quality inspector can be given feedback on what to look for and where to find it. This technique of defect superimposition will increase the accuracy of visual defect detection and the speed at which human inspectors do it.

Training and Guidance

New augmented reality technologies can also provide training and guidance to quality inspectors. By providing step-by-step interactive instructions, augmented reality can help new quality inspectors learn the ropes of a job quickly and easily. And for experienced quality managers, augmented reality can provide additional guidance on finding specific types of defects.

For example, automotive inspectors could use augmented reality to help them identify defects on a vehicle door. Additionally, augmented reality could guide the best inspection techniques to examine a product for defects. Such a technology would help ensure that all products are visually inspected in the same manner, thus increasing accuracy.

Training is important for all factory workers, but it is vital for people in charge of quality control, as they are the ones who determine whether a particular product is in or out of tolerance. Therefore, making training and on-the-job education more interactive and enjoyable for quality inspectors should be a priority for many manufacturers.

Data Analysis

Finally, augmented reality headsets can also be used for data analysis. After an inspection is complete, the data collected by the augmented reality headset can be analyzed to look for trends or patterns. This historical data could then be used to improve the quality inspection process.

For example, if a specific type of defect is common in one area of the factory compared to another, a manufacturer could take steps to address this. Or, if a quality inspector discovers that a particular product line has many defects, the inspector could take action to improve the manufacturing process.

It may be necessary to integrate multiple data sources to implement these improvements, but augmented reality can serve as a core visual baseline to bring outside data into the fold. By spatially registering machine-readable data, AR headset location, and on-device defect detection, a recommendation engine could suggest optimizations for production processes.

When Can I Expect to See AR In My Factory?

It is still early for augmented reality in the industrial sphere, but we can expect to see more augmented reality applications appearing over the next few years. For example, one of the first augmented reality headsets to be released for industrial use is the Microsoft HoloLens. Still, we expect major tech companies to also compete in this market.

In short, AR headsets may take a little while to become commonplace in factories, but augmented reality is not a technology to ignore. The benefits of augmented reality for quality managers are too great.

How to Get Started

If you are interested in learning more about augmented reality for the industrial sector, you can do a few things. First, attend some digital trade shows and technology conferences throughout the year. We highly recommend the NVIDIA conferences. These events will give you a good overview of the current state of augmented reality and where it is headed in the future.

Second, read some recently published white papers on augmented reality for industrial use. This will help you understand how augmented reality can be used in a manufacturing setting. In addition, white paper authors often include technical applications and guides, which can help develop a practical augmented reality strategy.

Finally, if you are looking for a more hands-on approach, consider hiring an augmented reality developer. They can help you develop an AR application tailored specifically for your needs.

Conclusion

Augmented reality can help quality managers find defects before they cause a problem. By pairing an augmented reality headset with computer vision, these quality managers will get defect-finding assistance on their augmented reality headsets when visually inspecting products. This technology is still in its early stages, but augmented reality will likely revolutionize the quality inspection process.

AR in Marketing 

With the average person being exposed to between 6,000 and 10,000 advertisements per day, a successful ad has to stand out to gain any traction.

Fortunately, marketing mediums can now be brought to life using AR. Using this technology, marketers can utilize 3D animations in brochures, billboards, and even on storefronts. When ads incorporate AR, it’s almost like the viewer is playing a video game, which keeps them engaged and interested in what’s being advertised.

Coca-Cola, for example, created a successful AR ad for its Arctic Home Campaign. This campaign focused on protecting polar bears and maintaining their habitats. Through an interactive ad, visitors could attend an augmented reality event at the Science Museum in London and interact with virtual animals. This innovative event took Coca-Cola’s campaign from mere words on a page explaining why saving polar bears was important to creating a connection between viewers and the cause.

Taco Bell has used AR to advertise itself in sillier ways. Using a Snapchat filter, users were able to turn their face into a Taco Bell taco and share it with friends through the app. Other companies like Starbucks have made a game of getting an iced coffee, designing filters that help consumers decide which Starbucks drink to buy.

AR in Manufacturing

Augmented reality has provided excellent solutions for manufacturing businesses everywhere, from spotting errors to assembling a 3D prototype.

Training 

The great part of augmented reality is that there isn’t a need to waste valuable material when training employees. In the past, when a new factory employee came in and, while being trained, had to conduct a repair on a vehicle or equipment, a mistake could cost time and resources.

With ongoing advancements in tech, AR has become a valuable tool for manufacturers to train less experienced employees to reassemble and repair equipment through a realistic simulation. NASA is actively experimenting with using AR to train employees on doing repairs in outer space. The technology they utilize, Microsoft’s HoloLens headset, allows workers to “see” data that simplifies repairs.

Boeing also uses AR glasses powered by Skylight to guide technicians in wiring hundreds of planes a year.

Maintenance 

Augmented reality can also be used to assess the status of equipment, from temperature, potential points of failure, and even rate of vibration. This is especially useful for preventative maintenance and to avoid costly repairs or even business shutdowns. This also makes tracking whether a piece of equipment is due for service more manageable.

GE Aviation reports that by adding AR into their facilities, they have experienced upward of a 12% increase in efficiency. Meanwhile, Caterpillar created an app that uses AR so that technicians can perform maintenance tasks on CAT machines by following sequential instructions.

Product Development  

When developing a new product, it’s important to assess any potential process problems or quality issues before it makes its way to the consumer. Fortunately, with the integration of augmented reality in product development, AR basically lets you “sit inside your design as you’re creating it,” or, truly visualize its inner and outer workings.

While pen and paper will never go out of style, digital visualizations streamline workflows and also make employee collaboration much easier — this is especially true in a time when meeting in person isn’t always possible.

AR technology also allows engineers and designers to make further design changes or variations to a product in real-time using augmented reality before casting it to the entire team. This means different ideas and designs can be tested before a prototype is actually created.

According to Microsoft, the digitization of sales and manufacturing has also reduced delivery times by as much as four times for companies like Thyssenkrupp. Thyssenkrupp, an industrial engineering and steel production company, has used Microsoft’s HoloLens to develop mobility solutions to “help people overcome physical limitations.”

A few other benefits of AR in product development include:

• Walking inside 3D models
• Examining details from all angles
• Providing live feedback
• Making flexible adjustments

Inventory

Inventory management can benefit greatly from augmented reality, as workers can use AR headsets or tools to receive order picking instructions, the location of products, and other useful information.

Walmart announced plans in 2020 to turn four of its brick and mortar locations into “test stores” to prototype and test solutions for products in real-time.

As well, to enhance internal processes, Walmart developed an app to accelerate the time it takes to get products on the sales floor. “Instead of scanning each box individually, associates just hold up a handheld device, and the app uses augmented reality to highlight the boxes that are ready to go,” said a release from Walmart.

AR in Healthcare 

What if it were possible to see bones and organs without having to physically cut open a patient’s body? With augmented reality, surgeons can determine where to make injections, locate veins for drawing blood, perform low-risk surgeries, and save time in emergency situations.

Using AR, surgeons can enter patient CT scans and MRI data into AR headsets before surgery. This allows them to overlay this information and determine problem areas before any physical procedure takes place.

In February of 2021, Johns Hopkins performed its first augmented reality surgeries in living patients. The first surgery, which required placing multiple screws into a spine to relieve back pain, and the second surgery, one to remove a cancerous tumor, were both successful. The physicians used a headset with see-through eye displays to see images of each patient’s bones and tissue from previous CT scans, “essentially giving the surgeons X-ray vision.”

During the COVID-19 pandemic, doctors in London also utilized AR technology to keep healthcare employees safe. Using HaloLens, a live feed was streamed onto a computer screen in a nearby room, which let healthcare professionals see what the doctor was seeing when treating a patient.

Tools like Curiscope have also created an immersive experience for children to learn about the body. The “Virtuali-tee Human Body T-shirt” and accompanying app by Curiscope displays colorful and realistic human organs for educational purposes.

Where will augmented reality go from here? Maybe Pokémon Go will get its second wind of mass popularity or perhaps the new big thing will be the Metaverse, which mixes augmented and virtual reality into one.

In a new competitive assessment of enterprise augmented reality platforms, ABI Research identifies which current AR vendors can deliver the most business value – now and in the future – using the following criteria:

• Customers, partnerships, and footprint
• Use case applicability
• Internet of Things synergy
• Machine vision capabilities
• Transformative technology capabilities
• Data visualization capabilities

From the PTC website you can download the full report and discover why PTC Vuforia “remains at the top” of ABI’s ranking with the “most innovation” among AR platforms.

Skilled labor gap

With a generation filled with skills entering retirement, the manufacturing industry is witnessing a looming labor shortage. As a result, manufacturers are struggling to find motivated, knowledgeable employees for the job.

Machine intelligence

The manufacturing industry is increasingly using the Internet of Things. A majority of firms either have already implemented the technology or are on the verge of implementing the Internet of Things machines. These smart machines assist companies in collecting useful information that can aid them in improving productivity and implementing predictive maintenance.

Maximizing automation

COVID-19 has shown us all that this is a critical time to explore the implementation of automation technologies (and all things Industry 4.0, including collaborative robotics, autonomous material movement, the internet of things, and artificial intelligence).

System age and usability

Today’s workers need an updated system. Internal users require updated systems that can assist them in better job performance. Updated systems offer flexibility, greater insight, and speed – permitting workers to perform their tasks more efficiently and effectively.

Growing with increasing demand

• Increasing capacity – having so much demand that you need to increase capacity can force choices, like moving to a new facility or expanding your existing facility.
• Demand-driven manufacturing – many manufacturers are just keeping up with work based on orders from existing customers, leaving little time or money to invest in other critical initiatives.

Trade war effects

Current trade wars affect all industry sectors. Manufacturing is not an exception since finished products and raw materials are sourced and sold across the globe. In the coming year, the industry is considering tactical changes to ease the impact of trade wars that are always heating up.

Supply chain visibility

There must be real-time, granular visibility within the entire supply chain. Manufacturers must be aware of every detail. They must know when products delay reaching the market. Being updated on such situations will give them an upper hand to adjust or rectify the problem.

Reshoring

Businesses are rethinking their global manufacturing strategies. Companies are motivated to participate in reshoring efforts due to rising foreign wages, rising tariffs, and reconsiderations of the total cost of ownership.

Responding to Covid-19

The effects of COVID-19 have impacted manufacturing, top to bottom. It’s hard, even with a business plan, to adequately address the unpredictable and rapid variables of the outbreak: quarantining, restricting travel options, closing schools, disrupting supply chains, etc.

The “Most Admired Companies” list highlights exceptional organizations that are rated on nine reputational attributes. Companies also receive an overall corporate reputation score based on the average of the attribute scores.

The nine reputational attributes that companies are evaluated on are:

• Ability to attract and retain talented people
• Quality of management
• Social responsibility to the community and the environment
• Innovation
• Quality of products or services
• Wise use of corporate assets
• Financial soundness
• Long-term investment value
• Effectiveness in doing business globally

This year, 640 of the world’s largest companies by revenue were ranked, spanning 52 industries and 28 countries. Fortune surveyed approximately thousands of senior executives, outside directors, and industry analysts to determine this year’s top companies.

Companies eligible to make the “Most Admired Companies” list must be listed in Fortune’s Global 500 database, where companies with revenues of $10 billion
or more are tracked.

“We’re honored to be ranked among Fortune’s Most Admired Companies,” said Medtronic chairman and CEO Geoff Martha. “This recognition reflects the dedication of 90,000 Medtronic employees, all working to advance our Mission to alleviate pain, restore health, and extend life. And it is particularly meaningful, given the many challenges we have all faced throughout the pandemic. Being named a “Most Admired Company” fuels my excitement and drive to continue to carve our path forward, while reinforcing our commitment to making a positive impact on the world.”

To find out about Medtronic’s work in Augmented Reality, see their member profile page.

Applications now being accepted

Please see the Qualcomm website to enter your application

Manufacturers refer to Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) as the gold standard of productivity for a reason. It’s putting it mildly to say your equipment’s availability to perform at the highest level and output high-quality products are essential to your company’s success. Tracking your equipment’s efficiency is the first step to improving it. Most manufacturers operate at between 60 and 65% OEE.  World-class OEE is 85% or better.

What is OEE?

As was mentioned above OEE refers to Overall Equipment Effectiveness. This productivity score was invented by Seiichi Nakajima, the pioneer of the Total Productive Maintenance system.

Nakajima’s lifelong goal was to try to establish a near-perfect production method. He emphasized the necessity of proactive and preventive maintenance to maximize the productivity and longevity of equipment. The OEE score is derived from three factors: Availability, Performance, and Quality.

“Simply put –OEE identifies the percentage of manufacturing time that is truly productive. An OEE score of 100% means you are manufacturing only Good Parts, as fast as possible, with no Stop Time. In the language of OEE that means 100% Quality (only Good Parts), 100% Performance (as fast as possible), and 100% Availability (no Stop Time).” – OEE.com

OEE helps companies identify losses, benchmark success, find sources of waste in their processes and eliminate them.  This has become even more important in an extremely competitive landscape. Even a 1% lift in OEE can offer companies huge benefits.

It should be noted that the concept of Overall Equipment Effectiveness was created during a different era of manufacturing. Nakajima’s world view considered unreliable machines as the biggest sources of failure on the line, because in the 1980s machines were much more likely to fail or be unreliable. In the last few decades machines have become 20 times more reliable.

The source of errors in factories is now more likely to come from the systems that govern the human element of the equation. As production lines put out more products, work with machines that are more complex, it becomes impossible to hold everything you have to know in your head or even in a three-ring binder.

Nakajima imagined humans as perfect cogs to keep the factory’s machines up and running. He didn’t think that the human element could be optimized and this is because he came up with his calculation prior to the invention of digital Front Line Worker tools.

3 Factors for Determining OEE: Availability, Performance and Quality

OEE Availability

Availability score takes into consideration planned and unplanned stops in production. A 100% availability score means the machines were running during all of the planned production time. What hampers Availability score is the length of planned stops and the frequency and longevity of unplanned downtime.

Machine monitoring and the accompanying service tasks performed by your workforce are what protect against these disruptions. Paper-based monitoring, unfortunately, siloes valuable data and makes it difficult for management to have the necessary visibility to order preventive maintenance and reduce unplanned downtime.

OEE Performance

Performance score takes into account slow cycles and small stops in production. A performance score of 100% means the process is running at the fastest possible speed.  What hampers performance are inefficient idling and minor stops and reduced speed of production.

In most manufacturing shop floors, machine idle time can be as much as 40% – reducing the ROI by 30%.  Paper-based reporting for machine monitoring and related service tasks means much of these losses go unaccounted for because the time in between tasks simply aren’t being tracked. This denies management real-time visibility on what’s happening on the manufacturing floor.

OEE Quality

The quality score takes into account defects and parts that need to be reworked. A quality score of 100% means that only good parts were produced. This is in general the hardest aspect of OEE to improve as most manufacturing companies have by necessity created production lines that create little defective parts.  After all, people aren’t going to buy products that don’t work!

Why Is It Important to Improve OEE? 

You might be thinking OEE sounds cool and maybe a little nerdy. But what does my company get from tracking it?

Return on investment

Manufacturing companies spend massive amounts of money on getting state-of-the-art equipment and need to maximize the return on their investment. By improving OEE a company can increase productivity and get more longevity out of its equipment.

Staying ahead of the competition 

If your equipment breaks down and you can’t meet your customer’s needs, they’ll go to your competitors. With supply chains increasingly strained it’s never been more important to get the most out of what you already have.

Iterate and improve

Once you’ve begun to accurately measure your company’s OEE you can begin to implement process iterations and assess whether the new processes are working through data analysis. Effectively measuring OEE allows companies to push forward innovation projects because they can directly show the financial benefit to upper management.

Discover your process efficiency 

As a rule of thumb, a company’s production efficiency is actually much lower than assumed. By properly tracking production, companies can begin to unearth big gains by finding small inefficiencies and eliminating waste.

Reduce machinery repair costs

By tracking OEE you can optimize your preventive maintenance practices.  It’s much less expensive to proactively repair equipment than it is to wait until systems fail.

Increase process quality

With greater process transparency it is easier to discover where defects can be found in your production line.

Read Atheer’s AREA member profile 

Visit Atheer’s website 

Before 2020, technologies designed for remote work played an important but mostly supporting role. Project teams used simple video conferencing tools to meet over long distances. Digital twin technologies were evolving, guiding teams towards a deeper understanding of their facilities. Project teams who wanted to squeeze more value from their BIM data were turning towards emerging AR and VR applications. No one doubted the momentum behind these advances, but few could have predicted what came next.

As COVID-19 swept the globe, these digital technologies went from nice-to-have to mission-critical almost overnight. That’s when AR and VR started having their moment—a moment that’s quickly become the new way of working.

The article explores what that “new way” looks like, with a particular focus on:

• How BIM data and digital twin technologies drive immersive AR and VR experiences
• How VR drives efficiencies by immersing users in a virtual environment
• How AR supports smart decision-making by integrating real and digital environments
• The future of VR and AR technologies in lean project delivery

Explanations with examples are given on:

• Augmented reality, virtual reality and extended reality
• Relevant tools including digital twin, smart glasses and remote assistance.
• The context of Industry 4.0 and Pharma 4.0

The article goes on to explain how teams build interactive, immersive digital models, and walks through AR in action, as well as providing many of the benefits of AR to industry.

You can read the original article here Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality Improve Project Delivery

In a nutshell, digital twinning is the process of creating a highly realistic model of a device, system, process or product to use for development, testing and validation. Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) come into play as well. For example, AR can show a digital twin on top of a physical machine and provide information a technician wouldn’t otherwise see, and technologists can enter the VR of a digital twin to simulate various issues.

Many folks associate the use of digital twins solely with manufacturing. While it is true that manufacturing has pioneered the use of digital twinning, use cases exist in every industry. Additionally, there are digital twinning use cases in cross-industry applications such as infrastructure and automation.

To better understand the potential uses of digital twinning, AR and VR, take a look at the use cases in a handful of industries.

Manufacturing

Aerospace, automotive and general-purpose manufacturing firms use digital twins as part of overall product development. Here are some common uses:

• creating design mock-ups to show how a finished product will work;
• fine-tuning product features and capabilities;
• defining requirements to provide guidance to component suppliers on component specifications, such as bolt size, shape and strength;
• testing and quality assurance;
• creating customer-requested modifications and other design personalization;
• creating operational and performance optimization; and
• predicting future failure modes so maintenance can be preemptively scheduled, and executing on other predictive maintenance goals.

Healthcare, retail and other human-centric industries

Companies that interact with customers can also benefit from digital twinning, which enables them to optimize patient care and customer service. Some examples include the following:

• improving operational efficiency, such as using digital twinning to optimize the flow of patients or customers through a facility;
• improving user experience by using AR and VR focus groups to test how customers or patients experience a physical facility;
• improving layout and design of facilities; and
• refining products and services for optimal appeal to customers and patients.
• Supply chain and logistics industry
• Companies that are heavily reliant on their supply chain or logistics functions can see particular benefits from digital twinning. Examples include the following:
• pre-testing the performance of packaging and packaging materials;
• optimizing routes and delivery processes; and
• improving handoffs between stages in a supply chain.

General applications of digital twins, AR and VR

One often-overlooked use case for digital twins, AR and VR applies to almost every industry: infrastructure performance and automation.

Digital twins of routers, servers, storage appliances and virtual machines can serve as testing grounds to explore performance or security vulnerabilities. The same goes for testing automated processes.

For example, let’s say an organization is rolling out a new automated process for operating system updates and patch management for infrastructure devices. Network engineers can program the automation tool to roll out the update process on the twinned environment first. In this way, they can gather configuration and performance data and share that with technology operations specialists who can revise the process if it results in unforeseen impacts.

Facilities and technology professionals can also use digital twinning to model the physical environments of systems and appliances. For example, if an organization is building out its own data center, a digital twin can model power, heating and cooling systems against rack layout. Facilities professionals can use this to check for hot spots and make sure that all control panels are easily accessible by facility personnel.

While it is true that manufacturing has pioneered the use of digital twinning, use cases exist in every industry.

Finally, organizations can use the digital twin to optimize human operational processes, such as mapping how technicians walk through the data center.

While these applications may seem futuristic, enterprise organizations are deploying them today. The infrastructure lead at a large financial services firm recently told Nemertes Research that the single most important initiative infrastructure engineers can engage in is implementing AR/VR and digital twinning in their infrastructure environments and automation testing.

A digital twin checklist for infrastructure automation

For enterprise technologists looking to get started with infrastructure digital twinning, what are the next steps? The outline below refers to a network digital twin, but the same recommendations can apply to other infrastructure components such as servers, VMs or containers and storage appliances.

Virtualize and automate all changes to the production network; that is, make sure that all changes to the production network happen through scripts and APIs. Stakeholders should allow no manual configuration.

Using this automation, capture all network configurations in a version-controlled repository, such as Git.

Use a tool like Jenkins to develop and deploy a continuous integration/continuous delivery process and workflow that includes forking the repository, proposing changes and having the tool pull down modifications. This creates scripts to implement the changes on the digital twin network, which consists of the configurations in the version-controlled repository. This involves pushing the changes out, testing that the changes are successful and notifying the network engineer that the changes are successful.

Using Jenkins’ capability, merge the repository and implement the changes on the production network.

Review and sign off on the final state — or, if needed, roll back the changes.

Consider conducting predictive maintenance on the digital twin network regularly to get early warning of any performance, security or other concerns. Where appropriate, deploy proactive patching and upgrades.

The companies have partnered to pursue a joint goal: the accelerated growth of wearable software EyeSucceed, an augmented reality (AR) application based on TeamViewer’s enterprise AR platform Frontline.

EyeSucceed has the ability to digitalize processes and address critical challenges in the food industry. The commercial agreement leverages TeamViewer’s technological capabilities and NSF’s industry expertise and global customer base.

NSF has successfully integrated EyeSucceed into the daily operations of customers in the food and beverage industry to empower workers with AR-based workflows. For example, a global fast food restaurant chain has equipped its employees in more than 100 restaurants with the solution to ensure a global quality standard in training and onboarding of new employees.

Furthermore, the software is enhanced with artificial intelligence (AI) features for improving food safety — for example, to automatically detect if hygiene gloves are worn and changed during the food production process.

“TeamViewer’s AR specialists have been dedicated and collaborative partners of ours since 2015, when EyeSucceed was first created,” said John Rowley, vice president of the global food division at NSF International. “Together with TeamViewer, we will help food businesses around the world to reduce risk, improve compliance and strengthen their brands. This collaboration will define the standard for AR applications in the global food supply chain.”

Jan Junker, executive vice president solution delivery at TeamViewer, said, “The use of voice- and eye-controlled AR applications giving step-by-step instructions to workers on smart glasses is game-changing for the food industry. Companies can digitalize their workplaces while keeping their workers’ hands 100% free to perform their tasks faster and better and to stick to all hygiene regulations at the same time. Customers who optimize their processes with our Frontline solution confirm double-digit increases in efficiency and close-to-zero error rates. We are looking forward to teaming up with NSF International to bring these benefits to more customers in the food industry and beyond.”

Read AREA member NSF EyeSucceed’s member profile