The Disruption of Augmented Reality (AR) in the Manufacturing Industry

Augmented reality (AR) is regularly associated with the gaming industry; its popularity rising in recent years with its applications in games like Ingress and Pokémon Go. Smart Manufacturers have tapped into this new-age technology and expanded its applications to industrial processes, proving to enhance efficiency, reduce costs and production downtime.

While AR is still in nascent stages and yet to be adopted for mainstream usage, a few large manufacturing firms have successfully implemented AR applications boosting their performance and productivity.

With the feature to visualize images and texts, manufacturers have adopted AR to enhance workflow productivity, provide seamless communications, and reduce errors. Here is a more in-depth look into how manufacturers have implemented AR to business operations.

Visualization is a significant aspect of product design. Using 3D Augmented Reality applications for product design provides an added advantage and convenience where designers can easily visualize and interact with the design, add or subtract features at the early stages of production, which is more cost-effective.

In a traditional assembly process, technicians would consult multiple spreadsheets or PDFs, which could be out of date. With AR, manufacturers have transferred assembly data to AR glasses, providing an enhanced field of view, hands-free, voice-controlled instructions. Technicians can view simple or complex assembly processes through AR devices instead of consulting multiple spreadsheets. This increases the accuracy by 96% and speed by 30%.  For example, Volvo, in partnership with Microsoft, uses Hololens so that assembly line engineers can see all the various parts and the process to assemble them with AR devices.

With predictive analysis, AR maintenance can help technicians identify faults and services required before it occurs. Mitsubishi has developed an AR-based 3D Model technology used for a variety of operations apart from manufacturing. AR smart glasses for maintenance reduces workload and increases accuracy. Other companies such as elevator manufacturer Thyssenkrupp plans to use Microsoft’s Hololens for AR maintenance.

Quality is one of the critical parameters in the manufacturing sector and one of the prime factors that differentiate businesses from their competitors.