Innovating Workflows: Mixed Reality’s Role in Industry
It’s a common problem. A machine operator needs to repair a piece of unfamiliar equipment. Resources are available to help understand the issue, but accessing the information isn’t always easy. The operator may have to track down an instruction manual in a distant part of a plant, which could be a fifteen-minute walk away. As well as the manual, there may be photos, illustrations, and sets of data tables on paper to find the optimum settings, all taking time away from the task at hand.
So, they have to find a surface for all these materials, and consult them while working with the machine. With hands soon coated in grease or oil, they have to sift through the documents, and maybe call a specialist for help, punching the number into a phone with greasy fingers. The operator finds themselves holding the phone with one hand and using the other to operate the equipment and flip through diagrams.
Such inefficiencies are a common problem all over the world at manufacturing plants, aboard ships, and within mines. Mixed reality (MR) is a solution being adopted by a growing number of industrial companies and organizations, which are quickly seeing improved operational efficiency. What’s more, they’re benefiting from more capable, confident employees as they are now easily accessing critical information at the point of their need. After eight years of being in the MR industry, we have seen mixed reality grow into the ideal performance support tool for today’s industrial landscape, where the demands for efficiency are relentless.
This tool is currently facilitating operational efficiencies that are reshaping industrial operations. With the introduction to the industrial metaverse, the use of mixed reality is becoming more of a standard practice within the industrial world because of its immense capability to have an impact in critical areas such as digital transformation, remote collaboration, and data visualization. This five-part series aims to break down the intricacies of mixed reality and its layers of use. As well as exploring its transformative potential, we will be exploring different uses of the technology that we have seen in our journey through the mixed reality industry. From remote task guidance on complex troubleshooting to the visualization of IoT data, we will dive into how MR is building a new foundation for organizations to build upon as they look for new efficiencies in their digital transformation efforts.
Bridging Physical and Digital
Let’s first define what we mean by mixed reality. This technology, which has existed for almost a quarter-century, is the blending of the actual and digital worlds to enhance interactivity and knowledge transfer.
In practice, the user wears a pair of goggles, but is still keenly aware of their immediate physical surroundings while also keeping their hands-free and at the ready. This ability by the user to see their actual surroundings is the main difference between MR and virtual reality. VR, the most popular form of extended reality, closes off the users physical surroundings and immerses them in a virtual environment. With MR the user can see and manipulate physical objects around them, while at the same time, the goggles allow them to also see and interact with digital assets that help them to do the job, such as 3D representations of equipment or data tables and illustrations in the format of PDFs/JPGs. The technology also allows users to communicate with teammates anywhere in the world, who can provide instruction. The worker has access to a library of information and real-time human expertise all from one platform creating a centralized knowledge base. In a 2019 paper for the journal Applied Sciences, this technology was summed up by Somaiieh Rokhsaritalemi, Abolghasem Sadeghi-Niaraki, and Soo-Mi Choi: “MR may be defined using three terms: immersion, information, and interaction.” [Here’s the link: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/10/2/636]
The combination of these three capabilities makes MR the ideal performance support tool for modern industrial workplaces. Other performance support tools, or PSTs, are also being used to boost efficiency but MR has huge advantages over traditional methods such as apps, videos, and manuals all of which are constrained by physical limitations.
This is because mixed reality is the only PST that allows users a three-dimensional model of equipment that can be approached from all sides and manipulated like the genuine article. This level of user interaction backed with supporting 2D assets and remote guidance allows for more collaboration around the gear while providing a range of materials that give team members instant knowledge to solve any challenge they may face.
Many digital technologies are designed to replace the human element in an industrial process. We’ve all heard the arguments for employing machine learning or robotic automation solutions to phase out human labour. But mixed reality helps living, breathing humans enhance their understanding of machinery and processes. It helps people optimize their use of equipment while retaining their human intuitions and insights thus helping avoid the mistakes often made by lacking the correct access to knowledge at the point of need.
This is a very simple description of a technology that offers an array of solutions, depending on the industry and an individual company’s requirements.
Untapped Transformative Potential
Let’s return to the common problem of a machine operator trying to use or fix a piece of unfamiliar equipment. Using MR, while manipulating real-world equipment, they can monitor a range of data sets within the headset to visualize the data the machinery is producing using IoT. Using a 3D model, the equipment can be approached from any angle, even having it animated to show the process of proper procedures to dismantle or fix the equipment to better understand the task at hand. Without having to physically search for documents, they can access a library of relevant content on the task at hand supported with images and PDF manuals. And both hands are kept free, so the user has full manual dexterity when operating the machine.
Finally, if a user is unable to solve the problem alone, they can call a specialist anywhere in the world and they can work together, viewing the same assets over distances. MR does everything other forms of telecommunications do but offers a level of interaction that cannot be matched.
At Kognitiv Spark, our clients often start off with RemoteSpark by using it to communicate with remote workers. But using MR as a communication tool is usually only a first step. Clients soon realize that the vast functionality of mixed reality can transform their operations – from on-the-job training, to complex troubleshooting, to remote inspections or repairs.
As mentioned earlier, this is not a technology that’s about to be launched. It is already in the market and a generation of adopters have been using this solution in industrial settings, not in labs or testing rooms. We describe this group of current users as the “early majority”. They are grasping the potential of the technology and expanding the ways in which it is used.
In the coming articles, we will reveal how industrial groups – members of this early majority – are leveraging the different layers of mixed reality to their advantage. We’ll dive into their methods and insights to show how this technology is now best practice in improving the productivity and efficiency of the industrial workforce.