Augmented Reality is Becoming Authentic Reality for Leading Manufacturers

Summary

Every Boeing 747-8 Freighter contains at least 130 miles of wiring. There are wires overhead, under the floor, through the walls, around the cockpit and down into the wheel wells. Depending on the customer’s needs, Boeing’s cargo planes are also available in multiple configurations, each with its own distinctive wiring scheme.  Getting all those planes wired correctly is critical, and for years the plant’s assembly technicians used heavy printed manuals–their so-called “phone books”–and intricate laptop diagrams to guide them in their work. It was a tedious job.

Several years ago, the company found a better way.  It equipped its technicians with Google smart glasses that use augmented reality software to superimpose wiring diagrams and related information from a remote computer onto real-time images of the plane’s wiring harnesses. And they do it without requiring the worker either to break visual contact or use their hands. The instructions they need are projected directly onto their field of view, and by using voice commands, they can change the display as required. 

Boeing isn’t alone in finding novel ways of improving quality and saving costs through the use of AR. A growing list of leading manufacturers are finding that AR can be applied to a variety of industrial issues.

Thyssenkrupp, for example, uses Microsoft HoloLens, a system that overlays high-definition holograms onto to real world images, to custom design and help customers visualize home stair lift systems. Data from those images is then transferred to the company’s manufacturing facility, dramatically shortening delivery times.

Jaguar Land Rover designed an AR system that uses iPad cameras to train new employees how to recognize the location of wiring and electronic devices obscured behind the vehicle’s dashboard. It uses an app that shows diagrams of concealed wire connections, simply by pointing to the dashboard. And it teaches trainees whatever needs to be learned without the time or cost involved in disassembling an actual vehicle. 

Caterpillar is using an AR app to help its technicians do maintenance. It provides them with step-by-step instructions in how to perform various service and maintenance checks, and it can connect them with experts all over the world.  It also helps newly hired mechanics to learn tractor maintenance much more quickly.  Airbus is using AR in their inspection work, which has enabled them to speed up their assembly process by 40 percent. And Porsche is working on developing a system that uses AR for quality control. 

Augmented Reality is still a nascent technology, and its capabilities are constantly being expanded. But forward-looking companies like those described here are already finding valuable ways to apply the power of low-cost, wearable, voice activated technology to augment the strengths of their workers, improve plant productivity, increase safety, enhance quality, cut costs, and train personnel more effectively. In fact, by 2025 it is estimated that approximately 14 million workers will be using various types of headsets in their workplaces, blending the power of data with real-world scenarios¹. 

Not surprisingly, a growing number of vendors are becoming involved in AR, and the technology is seeing an increasing number of applications, both at work, in the field, and at home. Among its emerging uses are inventory management, prototyping, security, and real-time analysis. But for manufacturing organizations and on the plant floor, it is the company’s industrial engineers, skilled operators, technicians and machinists whose training and work stands to benefit most immediately from this transformational technology. 

1. How Augmented Reality Startups Disrupt The Manufacturing Industry (startus-insights.com)