(USA)
Some of the biggest names in manufacturing are collaborating to ensure the industry fully capitalises on the potential of augmented reality (AR) technologies.
To help AR providers develop products which meet the needs of manufacturers, a set of practical guidelines has been released. The new resource is the result of a project spearheaded by Caterpillar, Lockheed Martin, and Procter & Gamble.
Chicago’s UI Labs and the Augmented Reality for Enterprise Alliance (AREA) launched it this month. The guide was compiled through an initiative undertaken by the Digital Manufacturing and Design Innovation Institute (DMDII), a UI LABS collaboration. Over 60 stakeholders, including academics, industry and AR companies, took part in a workshop to share their insights on what the guidelines should contain.
Thomas McDermott, executive director of DMDII, said: “Augmented reality has immense potential to transform manufacturing, and early adopters are seeing impressive productivity and quality improvements. However, wide adoption of this technology requires collaboration among the industrial companies operating on the front lines and the AR providers designing solutions to ensure the technology under development meets the needs of industry.”
The AR functional requirements documents will ensure the design of this technology can better support manufacturers improve their processes across a range of areas, including training, inspection, factory floor operations and machine assembly.
Mark Sage, executive director of AREA, added: “For the first time, industry — both suppliers and users in the AR space — will have access to a benchmark set of requirements that will help them develop a roadmap and source, select, evaluate and deploy augmented reality solutions,. These functional requirements will be used to help continue the development of the AR ecosystem, and AREA is looking forward to communicating and driving future changes.”
