Beyond Communication: Redefining Task Support With Mixed Reality
Though mixed reality can be an advanced communication system, we need to understand it is most effective when used as a multi-faceted performance support tool.
It’s time to think of mixed reality as more than just a communications tool. The plain truth of the 21st-century industrial landscape is that mixed reality is a performance enhancement tool that helps front-line staff work more effectively, regardless of whether they’re communicating with other people.
Let’s imagine a company that services communications systems in remote locations, from the jungles of South America to the North African desert. From its North American headquarters, this company has a network of offices around the world and dispatches operatives to remote locations to inspect and repair its critical infrastructure.
It’s easy to see that a mixed reality solution would be an ideal communications tool for such a company. Mixed reality, or MR, is the blending of the actual and virtual worlds to enhance interactivity and knowledge transfer. It requires the user to don a headset, but unlike virtual reality, the user has full sensory perception of their physical environment. With an MR headset, a repair person atop a communications tower in Colombia can communicate with technical experts at the office in Houston, or put a call through to the original equipment manufacturer in Germany to get help with the machinery.
But a company that views MR only as a communications solution is depriving itself of many of the benefits of this revolutionary technology. It’s time for all industrial organizations – not just market leaders – to embrace the capabilities of MR and think of it as more than just advanced communication. We need to understand that this technology is an essential performance support tool on job sites.
Exploring the Versatility of Mixed Reality
What other tasks can MR perform?
To start with, there’s enhanced interaction with digital assets and knowledge transfer at the point of need. Then there’s task support with holographic PDFs for improved learning and operational efficiency. Along with the practical use of photo capturing and sharing for real-time support and verification, we can add the sharing of assets [such as holographic 3D models] directly into a worker’s field of view for another layer of task support.
What we are talking about is the enhanced training, education, and on-going support of workers, especially those in the field. Not classroom training or textbook training. MR offers transformative capabilities by surrounding workers faced with a task with a library of information and aids (not to mention experts anywhere in the world) so that they can complete their task, faster, and with less cognitive burden. When the job is complete, that library of assets will still be at hand when they carry out the task again, and again, with the information always available for its next use.
Mixed Reality's Expanded Role in Remote Technical Tasks
Let’s consider again a pair of technicians employed by the company mentioned previously. They’re working atop a 300-foot communications tower in Colombia. Despite the low bandwidth, they’re able to effectively communicate with their manager in Houston and the OEM in Germany, but that’s only part of the role MR can play in helping the technicians to upgrade a transmitter.
During the mission to replace a part, they have access to holographic PDFs, 3D assets, and other materials that appear within their view-plane as they conduct their work. The technicians’ hands are free, so they can perform their tasks while referring to the images, or stabilize them if there’s a gust of wind. (In many jobs, being hands-free simply lets a technician work on the equipment while referring to reference material. Atop a communications tower, being hands-free is a basic safety issue.) Technicians have the capability to manipulate assets through simple hand gestures, which allow them to access and view photos, critical documentation, or models, enhancing their ability to determine the necessary steps to complete their task. Should they need more reference material, these can just as easily be pulled up and leveraged in the same manner.
Let’s say the technicians get stuck on a problem and need to consult an expert at the OEM in Germany. The call is made in an instant, and the expert can see and hear what they are working with. He can send them the assets they need to solve the problem. The technicians don’t need – nor want – an entire instruction manual on the transmitter. They only need pages 23 and 24. So that is all that he sends them, allowing the team in Colombia to digest the needed information quickly without sifting through a lot of unwanted text.
Once the job is done, the technicians can photograph the transmitter and share the image for verification with Houston, Germany, or a client that owns the communications tower. They can instantly show that they’ve completed the task. If more work is needed, they can be told of it in real-time, not after they’ve returned to their office. This means they don’t have to trek back to the site and up the tower again the next day.
This is one of many examples of how mixed reality can help field workers master a task. With the help of MR, they had the right tools and information to teach themselves to carry out a key task in their job, with relatively little assistance from managers or instructors. And if it’s a year or two until they have to do the task again, they still have the relevant assets on hand to refer back to at any point.
Think of what a company can achieve if all frontline workers have access to such technology. Organizations are understanding this power today and are unlocking the power of MR now. These groups are deploying the technology to make frontline workers as productive as possible by delivering knowledge to the point of need in even the most challenging conditions.