We often debate the role of technology in the field of sustainability. There is no disputing the fact that new advances in technology have led to the use of more energy, which is obviously continuing to have a terrible impact on the environment.

However, new technology can also be advantageous in the fight against environmental problems like the loss of natural resources and climate change in other ways. It can offer newer, more efficient ways to solve existing problems. This can lead to more energy efficient solutions with lower carbon footprints. It can also help products be more durable, which means that they won’t need to waste as many resources.

One of the new forms of technology that can help manufacturers improve sustainability is augmented reality.

In order for the computer to create this environment, it has to use many sensory modalities. Basically, your vision and hearing will be heightened since these are sharpened.

Augmented reality is also combined with artificial intelligence, and this has led to many breakthroughs in a wide range of fields.

AR has greatly improved manufacturing processes. It has made training a lot easier and faster, improved the performance of operators, enhanced throughput and other processes.

Companies that want to embrace sustainability should invest in the right augmented reality technology. Augmented reality can provide instructions for assembly processes, maintenance, machine setup change over and more.  Thanks to these real time visuals, it helps to decrease the amount of time it takes to understand instructions improving workflow and productivity.

The author then goes on to explore the AR Benefits for Sustainable Companies in more detail which can be read on the original article.

1. Avoid wasting natural resources and energy building prototypes by enabling you to make products come to life

2. More energy and resource efficient processes

3. Makes complex processes simpler

4. Visualized workflow for simple troubleshooting

5. Lower cost

Augmented reality is certainly unprecedented in its ability to make processes much clearer and integrate data. This will help users to easily understand problems, fix them and even prevent them from happening.

Augmented Reality Helps Manufacturers Be Eco-Friendlier

There are a lot of new technological breakthroughs that can help drive sustainability. Augmented reality is one of them. These benefits will help manufacturers reduce their carbon footprint and compete against less environmentally friendly companies.

By expanding into the US, the Augmented and Virtual Reality (XR) specialist will increase its proximity to existing local customers and partners and expand its customer base in the United States. Holo-Light already serves a steadily growing number of companies in the US, including BMW Group, Procter&Gamble, Denso and a number of leading aerospace companies.

Chief Executive Officer Florian Haspinger said, „We’re creating a game changer for the Industrial Metaverse: a streaming service for XR applications with an intuitive user experience, compelling 3D experiences and globally available immersive content. The United States is one of the world’s leading markets in Augmented and Virtual Reality, so this expansion is an important milestone for Holo-Light.

“The company’s XRnow streaming-as-a-service ecosystem brings the power of the cloud to mobile XR devices – combining endless computing power and smart orchestration of resources with high scalability. Hosting, running and streaming AR/VR applications from the cloud allows users to access high-polygon, complex 3D content at any time, regardless of location.

“We already serve more than 100 customers worldwide. Now, we´re using the capital from our recent funding round to further expand our business, relationships and competitive advantage globally. The Durham office puts us right in the heart of the Triangle, in close proximity to companies such as Lenovo, Epic Games, and Google,“ said Helmut Gulde, Chief Corporate Development Officer.

In the future, in addition to the Durham location, the company plans to open an office on the West Coast of the United States.

Last December, Holo-Light closed its largest-ever financing round of $6,3 million with EnBW New Ventures, Future Energy Ventures and Bayern Kapital. With XRnow, the young company has combined its two in-house products: the remote rendering software component ISAR SDK and the XR application AR3S for collaborative work on 3D CAD models. Holo-Light is aiming for a Series B financing round with international investors within the next 12 months.

With TeamViewer Frontline Augmented Reality, an SAP endorsed app from TeamViewer and part of SAP’s industry cloud portfolio, customers can further enhance their logistics processes in SAP EWM and empower their workforce with AR-based vision picking that helps to increase productivity and create more efficient processes across their entire warehouse and logistics operations.

Stefan Krauss, SVP, General Manager Discrete Industries and Energy & Natural Resources at SAP, said: “The effects from the recent disruptions in the global supply chain have been felt by almost everyone. Companies who have adapted the quickest have deployed agile warehouse management applications like SAP EWM, enabling them to rapidly adjust to external shocks and respond to demand, supply and workforce challenges quickly. Now with the integration of TeamViewer’s AR-based vision picking solution, together we can help our customers build more resilient supply chains that are also cost-effective to run.”

Alfredo Patron, Executive Vice President Business Development at TeamViewer, said: “Our partnership with SAP is based on a set of common goals: innovation and disruption through cutting-edge technologies that support companies in their digital transformation. Our vision picking solution significantly improves warehouse inbound and outbound processes, resulting in faster pick rates, better accuracy, and ultimately higher customer satisfaction. Moreover, it reduces the training and onboarding time of workers in a high employee churn environment.”

The integration with Frontline and SAP EWM enables businesses to directly connect warehouse and logistics workers in real-time with the critical data and information they need to perform their tasks. The AR-based workflows provide step-by-step instructions to workers on smart glasses and wearable devices that enable them to work hands-free, improving pick rates by an average of 10-15 percent and dropping error rates close to zero. At the same time, new data insights are passed back into the SAP EWM application right at the point of work to enable continual process validation and optimization that can drive significant cost savings.

This integration is the latest step of the successful partnership between TeamViewer and SAP and adds to the enhanced value already realized with integrations into SAP Field Service Management and SAP Service and Asset Manager, both part of SAP’s Digital Supply Chain portfolio. TeamViewer’s commitment and continuous investment into its partnership with SAP was recently recognized with an SAP Pinnacle Award in the category ‘Partner Application – Industry Cloud.’

The report, shared with ARPost, gives a by-the-numbers look at how hundreds of companies are using AR. It also predicts markets going forward and highlights some specific hardware and software options.

Accelerate Your Organization’s Digital Transformation

“Embracing Augmented Reality Technologies to Accelerate Your Organization’s Digital Transformation” was published by IDC and authored by IDC Group Vice President of Device and Consumer Research Tom Mainelli.

The paper was sponsored by Lenovo which has its own AR technology division, ThinkReality. Working on hardware and software for enterprise and education, this group has been interested in long-term trends and solutions for years.

“We think [XR] is a trend that’s going to stay and Lenovo feels like with the customer base that we already have we need to be a leader in this space, so there’s a lot of commitment in our teams to doing that,” Lenovo AR/VR Lead Nathan Pettyjohn told ARPost back in 2020.

The report talked about Lenovo ThinkReality solutions in particular, but was by no means an advertisement. The report was rich in insights and predictions backed up by data from a 2021 poll of over 400 enterprise companies with over 1,000 employees. All of these companies either have already employed AR technologies, or have at least started that ball rolling.

AR Technologies in a Post-COVID World

“The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the pace of digital transformation for companies around the world,” Mainelli wrote in the paper’s introduction. “As the world slowly looks to move beyond lockdowns and quarantines, AR technologies will only become more embedded and important to many companies’ future success.”

The paper goes on to present a sentiment that many were predicting this time a year ago: AR isn’t just a pandemic solution. XR bloomed during the pandemic out of necessity but the genie isn’t going back into the bottle. Work-from-home, distributed workforces, and hybrid meetings are all staying with us as we move into the “new normal”, and so is AR.

“IDC continues to forecast substantial growth in the coming years across all areas of AR, including hardware, software, and services. While many companies may initially balk at the perceived cost of entry, most realize that investments in AR pay for themselves,” wrote Mainelli. “AR is no longer a technology that will manifest in a few years: it’s here today.”

That growth could lead to $45.6 billion in worldwide spending on AR technologies (AR hardware, software, and services) by 2025, according to the report. Further, that doesn’t include spending related to smartphones and tablets – which is still how many people experience AR.

How and Why Enterprises Use AR

That many companies start out using smartphones or mobile devices to get their feet wet in XR was only one of the gems uncovered in the survey. Depending on the AR technologies your company is using, this might sound archaic but even most AR glasses use (or can use) a standard mobile phone or tablet for their computing power.

This approach, used in enterprise as well as entertainment, cuts the cost of the headset for the end-user. It also allows the headsets to focus on display and audio while offloading the computing power to a nearby device. This makes the headsets lighter, comfier, and safer. One Lenovo device, made with Motorola and Verizon, even allows edge computing.

“One of the critical challenges around AR hardware has been the high cost coupled with the fact that most headsets could offer either a comfortable, lightweight form factor or high-end optics, but not both,” wrote Mainelli.

Here, the report started discussing Lenovo and ThinkReality hardware, which can pair with a laptop computer as well as a mobile device. While some enterprise tasks require more mobility than a laptop can easily afford, others don’t. Using XR devices as “virtual screens” is one of the swiftly rising use cases in enterprise (and entertainment).

Half of the survey respondents use AR technologies for employee training. Forty-eight percent use AR for videoconferencing and collaboration. Further, when asked what they saw as the top benefit to AR technologies, the most common answer was improving collaboration. So, it’s no surprise that 80% expressed interest in virtual desktops – including 67% of healthcare respondents.

As manufacturing and industrial companies continue to deal with ever-growing demands from their customers, the need for innovative technology in the industry is greater than ever. Capable of assisting with everything with crucial training initiatives to faster prototyping, extended reality represents a phenomenal opportunity for brands in the industrial sector.

Already, we’ve begun to see a number of leading companies experimenting with new opportunities in the XR space. Whether it’s bringing teams together in virtual reality to create and interact with digital twins or products, or supporting collaboration through augmented reality, there are no shortage of options out there.

Today, we’re going to be sharing just a few insightful stories from innovators in the XR landscape working with manufacturing and industrial brands.

Microsoft and Airbus

Innovator in the aerospace technology and manufacturing landscape, partnered with Microsoft on their journey into the extended reality landscape. The pioneering company wanted to transform traditional industrial processes involved with the creation of commercial and military aircraft, launch and satellite vehicles through mixed reality.

Using Microsoft’s Azure MR environment and HoloLens 2, Airbus has been able to successfully accelerate and enhance the design of aircrafts, while improving the functionality and safety of the team. Intelligent solutions like Azure Remote Rendering even allows the company to bring team members together for a higher level of collaboration in a mixed reality environment, without compromising on safety and security.

Holo-Light and Thyssenkrupp Marine Systems

In the manufacturing and industrial landscape, the measurement and quality control aspects of dealing with various components can often be a time-consuming process, particularly for companies building submarines. Fortunately, the Thyssenkrupp Marine Systems company discovered a new way to enhance the performance of their teams through augmented reality, with Holo-Light.

The solution from Holo-light gives the Marine manufacturing brand the opportunity to tap into a comprehensive AR package consisting of all the software and hardware required to perform ultra-precise work in an AR environment. According to the case study produced by Holo-Light the new work process is now significantly more streamlined and convenient for the engineers.

Kognitiv Spark and Surepoint

The Surepoint Group, an industrial contractor specializing in construction, manufacturing electrical and instrumentation services, operates in various sectors across the globe. Surepoint has field locations throughout the US and Canada, as well as offering services to client sites on a broader scale. To deliver consistently exceptional support and speed in this space, the Surepoint team decided it was time to upgrade its solution with RemoteSpark.

The RemoteSpark mixed reality remote worker support tool allows subject matter experts and field workers to collaborate and connect securely through an AV connection. Experts can make annotations in the field of view of engineers, share files, and even create animated 3D holograms. All of these tools allow workers to resolve issues faster, while keeping technology hands-free.

RealWear and Total

Total, a leading energy company producing and marketing all manner of fuels, natural gas and low-carbon electricity services across more than 130 countries, engaged with the RealWear team on their strategy for industrial digital transformation. In the past, when complex equipment required repairs or maintenance, Total had to slow its operations to a halt to bring in specialist experts.

Now, RealWear headsets with Microsoft Teams access allow Total to connect their onsite workers to subject matter experts wherever they are, for faster equipment diagnostics and repairs. The result is eliminated travel costs for visiting experts, improved collaboration for multiple teams, and better equipment maintenance and repair times.

Taqtile and PBC Linear

PBC Linear, a company committed to making linear motion products, decided to work with Taqtile when they discovered new opportunities for digital transformation in their business. For PBC Linear, Taqtile presented an opportunity to create comprehensive training and instruction experiences for manufacturing staff who needed help getting to know difficult pieces of machinery.

The Manifest AR technology from Taqtile allows the company to capture the specific knowledge and machine instructions from seasoned employees to guide newer members of staff in the industry. The result is an 80% reduction int raining time and a significant reduction in the number of errors made within the manufacturing space.

Varjo and Tenstar

Varjo, a market leader in extended reality solutions for the modern landscape, recently partnered with Tenstar to help teach manufacturing and industrial professionals how to use various pieces of heavy machinery in real-life situations. The immersive virtual reality training experience helps professionals to gain new skills at a rapid pace, without putting them at risk.

According to Varjo’s case study, the solution means that customers can now spend up to 90% less compared to real-machine training, and trainees can repeat tasks more often, leading to fewer accidents and more experiences. Trainees also get to practice in real-life scenarios that would be dangerous to access in the real world.

Unity and the Manufacturing Technology Center

The Manufacturing Technology Center, or MTC is a research and technology organisation belonging to the High Value Manufacturing Catapult. The company has an impact on a number of industrial sectors worldwide, and like many manufacturing groups, is reliant on rapid transformation to stay ahead of the competition.

With Unity’s help, the MTC was able to find cutting-edge solutions for creating high-value manufacturing firm blueprints using innovative real-time 3D projects. The Unity landscape meant MTC could eliminate a host of common project roadblocks, with issue resolution of 24 hours or less.

At the same time, the company also enhanced the product design and development process for clients and opened doors for better collaboration among internal teams.

Matterport and SEACOMP

A company committed to supplying manufacturing solutions for customers across the industrial, consumer goods, and medicals industry, SEACOMP has a huge presence worldwide. Unfortunately, during the pandemic, the company’s employees were no longer able to visit customers and show clients or prospects product demos.

With Matterport, the company was able to create new digital twins of their offices and manufacturing equipment into a digital world. This means SEACOMP can now give prospects and clients a full 3D walkthrough of the factor’s equipment without the time, costs, and risks of travel.

With Manifest, an organization’s frontline workers have instant access to work-instruction content ranging from digitized manuals, step-by-step videos, and detailed holograms, enabling them to complete complex tasks more efficiently, more accurately, and more safely.

At the lab, visitors will be able to interact with these advanced functions, as a well as Manifest’s unique remote-assistance capabilities. For example, deskless workers requiring additional support can connect with a company’s most experienced technicians and trainers anywhere, anytime. With real-time guidance via the Manifest AR environment, including see-what-I-see video, company experts can remotely facilitate problem solving.

“The Oracle Industry Lab provides an unparalleled opportunity to collaborate with enterprise customers and explore new use cases and implementation scenarios for Manifest,” explained Joe Clukey, VP of sales and strategic partnerships, Taqtile.

“Leveraging the power of the Manifest system with proven benefits of Oracle Database technology will deliver advanced functionality to our customers, such as the creation of work order systems that seamlessly sync between technicians in the field and headquarters.”

The 30,000-square-foot Oracle Industry Lab brings customers, technology partners, and the entire Oracle portfolio of solutions and decades of deep industry expertise together to incubate and demonstrate new solutions across industries. Supported by Verizon 5G Ultra Wideband, the Oracle Industry Lab will first focus on use cases in utilities, construction and engineering, communications, and manufacturing.

“Many industries are at a crossroads as they look to navigate increasing regulatory, environmental, and customer-driven demands,” said Burcin Kaplanoglu, vice president, Oracle Industry Labs. “We built the Chicago lab to bring together leading innovators like Taqtile so we can jointly help customers shape bold ideas into powerful solutions that improve productivity, operational intelligence, and sustainability.”

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.