In a highly competitive landscape, any competitive advantage that manufacturing companies can find is a valuable one. And with technology playing an ever-greater role in the sector, extended reality (XR) is standing out as a key differentiator and emerging edge technology.
According to XRA, 81% of manufacturing CEOs and decision-makers say immersive technology like XR is beneficial for the manufacturing industry. This blog explores those XR benefits for the industry, and how extended reality in manufacturing is being applied in practice.
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Extended reality changes the real-world environment around us by adding digital elements, enabling a blending of the physical and virtual. Elements that can be added include virtual reality (VR), in the form of three-dimensional environments; augmented reality (AR), where information is integrated into the environment; and mixed reality (MR), where users can interact with both the physical and virtual as if they’re one and the same.
For modern manufacturing, XR enables businesses to take a more human approach, as more creativity and collaboration can be baked into key processes. Being able to take those processes to the next level can go on to yield significant gains in sustainability, cost-effectiveness and process efficiency.
XR enables the creation of immersive training environments, where employees can get instructions and advice directly alongside their work, without having to refer back and forth to a manual or computer terminal. This can speed up learning and operational processes, help staff learn new skills quickly, and improve productivity along the way.
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Connected to the previous point, XR can be extremely helpful in repair and maintenance scenarios, by feeding in real-time data, step-by-step details and even visual instructions to the staff member. This can substantially speed up the process of maintenance, therefore reducing costly downtime; and can also improve the quality of the repairs through more detailed and easily digestible information.
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XR means that laborious and time-consuming physical prototypes can be replaced with virtual models, built through digital twins. Not only does this help improve the design process by enabling greater degrees of interactivity and informed decision-making, but it also helps expedite the process overall, which can be crucial in getting quality products into the marketplace faster.
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XR enables every type of stakeholder to engage with virtual assets, wherever and whenever they’re working, and to come together and collaborate in virtual spaces and meetings. This allows more expertise to have an input on product creation, and breaks down the geographical barriers of design and development by allowing people to contribute from anywhere.
Training employees to use edge technology like VR and XR is fundamental to realizing the benefits, with users who get VR training feeling 275% more confident with the technology afterwards. Developing confident, proficient XR employees can bridge vital tech skills gaps, open up new career progression opportunities, and support talent retention and acquisition.
As manufacturing is such a potentially hazardous industry, XR environments can be used to simulate potentially dangerous situations, so that employees learn how to react and operate as safely as possible. The learnings from these scenarios can also be used to inform wider health and safety procedures and operational changes in the long term, and reduce safety risks in products.
All of the efficiencies listed above can make a real difference to a firm’s bottom line - far beyond the increased profitability of getting better products into market faster. Savings can be found in identifying and resolving problems earlier, saving on material costs and wastage in prototyping, and reducing downtime caused by machine failure and lengthy lead times in repair.
XR technologies can be transformative in customer-facing applications, as well as behind the scenes. Customers can engage themselves in design processes with virtual demonstrations and product visualizations, and provide feedback on virtual prototypes at the development stage. In the sales process, customers can also use VR to choose the specification of a product to suit their preferences.
Several leading manufacturers have already been able to integrate XR into their processes successfully.
In the automotive sector, Ford uses XR to render the interiors of its new vehicles using 360-degree sketches. That way, designers can experience the reality of a car’s surroundings from any position within the car, including from the driving seat.
Meanwhile, in aviation, Airbus have deployed VR rooms to aid design processes through artificial 3D objects; AR inside new aircraft that allows staff to complete quality control; and customer-facing technology that allows airlines to spec new aircraft interiors by walking through them.
As with any emerging technology such as artificial intelligence, there can be some practical barriers around implementing extended reality in manufacturing. From our experience, three stand out in particular:
While there are huge returns on investment possible through XR in the long-term, these have to be weighed up against short-term costs like hardware, software, integration and specialized training.
To make XR work, manufacturers need equipment and systems that are compatible and interoperable. Many existing solutions may not meet requirements, and so new machinery and software may be required to make XR a smooth, seamless success.
Complying with regulations around product quality, safety, and responsible use of data are vital parts of any manufacturing technology use. Any integration of XR should take these factors into account.
The new innovations that are in the pipeline for extended reality in manufacturing mean that the potential of the technology is too great to ignore. These include spatial computing, where physical and virtual environments seamlessly come together, and users are able to interact with them, allied to multi-sensory technology that integrates users’ sense of hearing, touch and even smell.
Making the most of these opportunities, addressing the challenges above and maximizing the potential of XR requires not only focused tech implementation, but also leading expertise to guide it. That’s where Ciklum comes in, with XR support across accelerated MVP releases, in-depth proof-of-concept workshopping, and streamlined QA and delivery. Get in touch with us today to discuss your specifics, or find out more on Ciklum and XR here.