People who work in manufacturing know how tough it can be to stay ahead. To stay competitive, a lot of manufacturing companies have gone digital in their production processes. This has helped the bottom line of a lot of businesses. As PLM, gamification, and immersive experiences become more popular as ways to transform digitally, now is the perfect time to think about augmented reality (AR) app development services. This is quickly becoming one of the most innovative ways to transform digitally.
Investment companies state that the global AR and VR market will grow from US$3 billion in 2020 to US$28 billion by 2025.
This is a prediction for the future. What about right now? Does any business use Augmented Reality?
Augmented reality is already being used by certain companies like Honeywell Aerospace. Since the company started using AR, training time has been cut by 50%, mistakes made by humans have been eliminated, and productivity has gone up by 30%.
The story of this company is just one of many that we will talk about in this piece. On top of that, we’ll talk about how Augmented Reality is changing the manufacturing business.
Now is a good time to invest in cognitive technologies like Augmented Reality if you want to use them. But what is it? How does it work? Let’s read this story in more depth and learn more about it.
What’s Augmented Reality in Manufacturing?
It was predicted that augmented reality would become prevalent in the manufacturing sector a few years ago, and that time has come.
Indeed, a significant number of manufacturers have implemented Augmented Reality technology within their operations as a means to surmount obstacles including:
- Complex product development and design
- Costly manufacturing expenses
- Preserving integrity
- Safety procedures
- Onboarding and training.
Thus, these are the modifications that Augmented Reality will bring about. If you wish to implement these modifications in your manufacturing facility as well, consult with an expert from an augmented reality app development firm.
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Key Applications of Augmented Reality in Manufacturing
Product Design and Prototyping
Augmented reality (AR) enables workers to virtually experiment with ideas, changing out components and simulating testing to confirm prototype appropriateness. This not only accelerates the design process, but also reduces the costs associated with physical prototyping.
Process Automation
Manufacturers can use AR to access both manual and automated process data simultaneously. This provides real-time insights on cycle times and failure rates, which are extremely useful for finding bottlenecks, increasing efficiency, and minimizing downtime.
Improving safety and predictability
AR helps to improve the safety and predictability of production processes. Augmented Reality in manufacturing can help workers navigate complicated tasks, reduce errors, and increase overall efficiency by overlaying crucial information such as figures, photos, and 3D models onto their real-world view.
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Benefits of Augmented Reality in Manufacturing Industry
Here’s a closer look at some of the key advantages of augmented reality in manufacturing:
1) Improved proficiency and instruction
Acquiring and retaining excellent employees is a critical challenge for many industrial sectors. The current economic climate has exacerbated the situation, as businesses face hiring restrictions or slowdowns despite the ongoing demand for qualified workers.
Furthermore, the remaining labor is usually encumbered with antiquated processes and tools. AR helps to mitigate these issues through a variety of techniques. AR is primarily used to teach new recruits and upskill existing employees by implementing interactive visual aids that accelerate the assimilation process while improving employee retention and learning.
Frequently, these training modules are created using an intuitive augmented reality (AR) expert capture capability, which allows experienced professionals to easily and quickly share their institutional expertise.
2) Increase Productivity in Workplace
The benefits of augmented reality extend beyond training. Personnel can improve their operational performance by using proper augmented reality (AR) software to deal with complex challenges and procedures.
Augmented reality allows employees to access full digital manuals, training videos, schematics, and other resources. These digital assets can considerably improve an employee’s capacity to accomplish jobs more quickly and accurately while decreasing errors, because the instructions are matched to the specific machine they are using.
Rather of striving to comprehend written instructions, individuals gain knowledge by practical application. These are fundamental requirements in all industry sectors, but they are especially important in field service and discrete production.
3) Remoting Expertise Solutions
AR allows employees who are unable to solve a problem on their own to connect with a remote specialist who can help. AR can show a remote expert what the user is seeing in their current location, allowing for immediate problem solutions.
AR adopters continue to see remote collaboration as a critical use case because it facilitates new hire proficiency development, saves time and money on sending a second person, and allows businesses to make their most knowledgeable and experienced employees more accessible to a larger number of people.
The ability of augmented reality to promote efficient remote collaboration extends beyond the simple speeding of time-sensitive tasks. It can substantially help an organization’s efforts to become more sustainable. A reduction in the number of vehicle rolls and airline flights necessary for an expert to reach a remote site saves money and reduces the company’s carbon footprint. As more firms pursue environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals, augmented reality (AR) may play a critical role in aiding their achievement.
A lot of businesses already have a wealth of digital assets in the form of CAD data, which they may use to kickstart the development of augmented reality capabilities and experiences. By carefully linking these augmented reality (AR) applications to their product lifecycle management (PLM) software, businesses can ensure that their employees always have access to the most up-to-date product information and instructions.
4) Enhancing future operator skills
The implementation of AR solutions within the manufacturing facility may have a beneficial impact on team training. The utilization of augmented reality inherently enhances the training and proficiency of operators.
By employing digital work instructions that are either displayed on a tablet or augmented reality spectacles while field teams are performing their duties, they are able to acquire accurate information promptly and resume operations with greater efficiency.
Research has demonstrated that the utilization of a virtual environment enhances the integration of conveyed information and its practical implementation. In this manner, operators cultivate significantly more intuitive motor skills, thereby enhancing their autonomy and ability to effectively address potential challenges.
Furthermore, it promotes the retention of the information that is disseminated among the teams within an organization.
The incorporation of augmented reality technology is an ideal complement to a training strategy. It accelerates the development of operators’ autonomy and facilitates the transmission of knowledge within the organization by virtue of its more intuitive content.
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5) Providing Comfort and Security
Additionally, augmented reality technologies can enhance the comfort and security of a factory. Complex assembly operations or maintenance tasks offer substantial assistance, take into account numerous risk factors, and precisely identify defects with greater precision than any alternative resource (such as documentation or technicians).
A sense of comfort:
Augmented reality solutions are compatible with a wide range of hardware configurations, which facilitates worker adaptation to the workstation. Numerous return journeys to the office are circumvented and they are able to operate without using their hands due to the assortment of hardware. An investment that not only conserves time and energy but also comforts the teams of a business.
Ensuring technician safety:
Assisted and accompanied step-by-step, operators are better informed when AR displays alerts at the appropriate process moment.
The risk of technical or human error is consequently diminished, and field teams gain a deeper comprehension of the organization’s procedures.
6) Enhanced Quality Control
AR can dramatically increase quality inspection efficiency and accuracy by delivering real-time visual feedback on products as they are built. AR can contextualize and localize quality control data, easing the inspection process. AR guides workers through each step of the inspection, lowering the risk of human error and ensuring a more complete assessment.
In sectors where precision is critical, AR can superimpose digital models on real-world parts, enabling for exact comparisons and the quick detection of irregularities or faults. This quick feedback method can help to prevent mistakes in the manufacturing process and assure high-quality output.
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Final Thoughts
Augmented Reality in manufacturing provides several key advantages: increased safety through real-time alerts, improved training through immersive experiences, efficient production by providing real-time data, effective quality control to ensure that equipment functions properly, and knowledge transfer from experienced to new workers.
While there are some hurdles, such as high prices, technical issues, and user adoption, the potential ROI from increased efficiency and safety makes AR a worthwhile investment for manufacturers. Businesses should explore using augmented reality into their processes to remain competitive in an increasingly digital world.
