Beyond How and What: The 'Why' of Mixed Reality
In 2020, LeeWay Marine of Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, began to use mixed reality (MR) as a communications solution and has been employing the technology on its vessels ever since.
The company was part of a Royal Canadian Navy trial for the deployment of mixed reality to support marine systems engineering. In these trials, LeeWay Marine was presented with unplanned real-world issues that had the potential to impact its operations. The company used the MR solution RemoteSpark to resolve them.
Founded by President Jamie Sangster, LeeWay operates a fleet of four ships that it leases to clients gathering data in the oceans. These clients range from university researchers to the military to major industries, and LeeWay has to ensure that the vessels perform flawlessly for the duration of each voyage.
So, if there is a mechanical problem aboard the ship, the company needs a low-bandwidth solution that will help its on-ship technicians to communicate with experts onshore to ensure they can work together to fix the issue. This mixed-reality solution allows both parties to view the same equipment at the same time. The software utilizes mixed reality headsets, meaning the ship-board operative can have both hands free, allowing the operative to work on the equipment without interrupting the call to the shore-based technician.
The solution was so successful that LeeWay now uses RemoteSpark on all four of its vessels, ensuring that its clients can conduct their work without interruption.
To read the full case study on LeeWay Marine click here.
This is just one use case that demonstrates why mixed reality has become best practice for industrial organizations, including those with remote workers in challenging environments. In this article – the second in a series of five on mixed reality – we will show how organizations can benefit their operations through the use of mixed reality as a communications solution.
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, that person has full sensory perception of the surrounding environment. It means operatives can communicate with others, share images and information, all while being hands-free so they can work with the equipment in question.
At Kogntiv Spark, we know the WHAT and the HOW of MR, and through our dealings with customers, we’ve come to appreciate the WHY of this technology. Why are so many industrial organizations adopting it? And why have early adopters increased usage throughout their organizations?
The obvious reason to adopt MR as a communications solution is that it allows operatives in different places to work on equipment together, while the field worker is hands-free. However, there are less obvious and equally valid reasons for embracing an MR solution.
Bridging Expertise Across Remote Locations
For example, we’re working with an industrial manufacturer that has multiple plants, most of them in rural locations. Though this is a large company, it doesn’t have the resources to place a technical expert in all disciplines in every plant. This company used to suffer from bottlenecks when its packaging machine jammed and an experienced operator was needed to help fix it. Then it adopted MR, allowing one manager at any plant to work with on-site workers to get the equipment running again quickly. If a problem occurs on the third shift, the expert can jump on an MR call from home.
This company is now developing a distributed network of experts so each plant has certain expertise at each site, and these experts can communicate with other plants using MR when needed. It’s a model that could be adopted by any company with a network of remote plants, improving efficiency and reducing downtime.
The experience of this manufacturer highlights a common problem in today’s industrial landscape: technical experts are getting harder to find. One energy client with global operations told us it can’t place experts at every site because such personnel are too scarce. Sometimes an expert is flown to a site to fix a problem and is needed at the same time in another part of the world. MR allows such valuable staff members to meet the company’s needs quickly regardless of where they are.
You may have noticed these example companies operate in remote locations, which is a common situation for manufacturers, field service groups, and resource companies. This highlights another huge “why” for using MR as a communications solution: it can operate at low bandwidth. RemoteSpark can connect off a cell phone hotspot, which means it can be used in most land-based locations in the world. It can allow a support call at 128 kbps and gives optimal performance at just 256 kbps. As you might expect, connectivity is an issue with ocean-going vessels, but seafarers can use MR with a VSAT or Starlink connection to enable reach-back capabilities when needed. As one observer with knowledge of nautical operations put it, it is the ideal communications solution for “digitally stressed environments.”
Extending the Reach of Support With Mixed Reality
Of course, the reasons for using MR extend far beyond connecting with remote workers. For example, we work with an equipment manufacturer that sends along a mixed reality headset equipped with RemoteSpark every time it ships a product so customers can maintain an optimal connection with its customer success team. It is state-of-the-art customer relations and shows that MR can be used as a communication tool within or beyond an organization.
The unifying theme of all these examples is that mixed reality facilitates knowledge transfer better than any other communications alternative. And this is a crucial era for knowledge transfer within industrial companies because expertise has become such a scarce resource. Our customers tell us that the average years of experience of industrial workers has declined from twenty, pre-pandemic, to four years today. Experts are becoming a rarer resource within companies.
Mixed Reality can help you to make the most of your specialists – that’s probably the biggest “why” of all. Not only can experts in head office communicate with satellite operations, but companies can station experts in different remote locations and let them work with field officers at all of their sites. It can even “extend the life” of an expert. If experts retire but still want to be involved, mixed reality can let them work from home, helping out front-line workers when they’re needed.
The industrial landscape is currently suffering from a dearth of expertise, and the best organizations are finding ways to transfer knowledge as effectively and quickly as possible in all environments. They’re opting for mixed reality to address this critical problem.