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Though we spend ample time examining consumer-based XR endpoints, greater near-term impact is seen in the enterprise. This includes brands that use AR to promote products in greater dimension (B2B2C) and industrial enterprises that streamline their own operations (B2B).
These industrial endpoints include visual support in areas like assembly and maintenance. The idea is that AR’s line-of-sight orientation can guide front-line workers. Compared to the “mental mapping” they must do with 2D instructions, visual support makes them more effective.
And with VR, employee training and onboarding can be elevated through immersive sequences that boost experiential learning and memory recall. It also scales, given that far-flung employees can get the same quality training, versus costly travel for senior training staff.
Altogether, there are micro and macro benefits to enterprise XR. The above micro efficiencies add up to worthwhile bottom-line impact when deployed at scale. Macro benefits include lessening job strain and closing the “skills gap,” which can preserve institutional knowledge.
But how is this materializing today, and who’s realizing enterprise XR benefits? Our research arm ARtillery Intelligence tackled these questions in a recent report. It joins our report excerpt series, with the latest below on Burns & McDonnell’s efforts to elevate field operations with AR.
Stretched Thin
Burns & McDonnell is an engineering and construction firm that employs 7,000 globally. Though this headcount is ample, there’s scarcity at the higher levels of the experience spectrum, leading to a skills gap. Resources are stretched thin, which results in slower service and site visits.
These visits involve functions like inspecting and permitting construction projects, which are core activities in the company’s operations. Given that it’s such a valuable and costly part of its value chain, Burns & McDonnell was motivated to better optimize it, so it turned to AR.
More accurately, he company adopted an assisted reality system. Rather than AR’s graphical overlays, this involves line-of-sight reference data. Specifically, it used RealWear hardware and Visual Spection software, which lets it manage site evaluations and asset documentation remotely.
This process was previously executed by on-site experts who captured asset information on paper, then brought it to a centralized location to enter it into a database. With AR, it now inspects assets and collects data remotely through the live line-of-sight video feeds of site technicians.
The goal, as teased above, was to enable scarce senior experts to virtually visit and review sites without the costs and constraints of travel. Given their scarcity, this effectively let them place shift by being in several places at once, virtually speaking, thus maximizing impact.
Finely-Tuned
So what were the results? Burns & McDonnell freed up skilled senior employees to monitor multiple sites, thus making its deployments more scalable. In the process, it also reduced field errors by 33 percent and accomplished 5x speed boosts in distributed asset documentation.
As for strategic takeaways, achieving this outcome didn’t just require the inherent benefits of ”see-what-I-see” AR support. Additional factors include hardware that’s safe for field use, including PPE compatibility and battery life. This is a hallmark of Realwear’s ruggedized hardware.
Similarly, safety is critical for any AR systems deployed in industrial environments, including the ability to clip directly to hard hats and wear with eye protection. Hardware should also be resistant to dust, water, and shock, which is a challenge for finely-tuned and fragile tech gear.
Tech compatibility and security are also key factors, which RealWear accomplishes through its Android-based OS. Lastly, voice control can enable the hands-free advantages that AR promises, while Two-way comms need to be optimized to transmit multimedia with limited bandwidth.
We’ll pause there and pick things up in the next case study with more enterprise AR best practices and tactical takeaways…
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