Combined IoT & AR: The Application Areas

Whereas a combined IoT & AR approach can generate significant business value, it is equally important to focus on its imagination value and numerous applications. So let’s have a look at the creative potential you can untap with the combination of these technologies.

Whereas combined IoT & AR solutions are still seen as simply an enhancement of operations on the shop floor, they are on their way to becoming the core capabilities of industrial enterprises. IoT & AR technology can help in creating a culture of company-wide collaboration and so become a major player in pushing the agenda of innovation across departments. The development and deployment of IoT & AR initiatives thus can take place across entire ecosystems and precipitate change on a variety of levels.

Leveraging IoT & AR the Right Way

IoT & AR solutions need to be created for a specific device type and built in such a way that they guarantee ease of use and maximal user comfort. The advantages of smartphones, wearables, and larger headpieces have to be weighed carefully before settling on an approach. Organisations may also want to look into strategies that involve integrations and craft AR solutions that are compatible with multiple devices.

In the long run, intuitive and easy-to-use IoT & AR solutions that are fully embedded within their settings can get employees to embrace the new technology from the start. Your people can become advocates for the endorsement of iterative development initiatives that involve both augmented reality and IoT. This will not only enhance workers’ interactions with equipment on the shop floor but will create precedents in talent development and a new wave of skilled workforce uniquely capable of handling both technologies.

IoT & AR: A Look at the Applications

In industrial settings, having Augmented Reality on top of an existing IoT setup can make lives easier and save resources. Here is a breakdown of the most typical application areas:

Equipment Maintenance

AR applications can help enhance the insights coming from IoT data and thus accelerate response times and facilitate decision-making. With a combined IoT & AR approach, there is less necessity to use highly skilled specialists for the tasks on the shop floor as these can now be handled by a variety of actors within an organisation.

This application area for IoT & AR makes it possible to cut costs and boost revenue at the same time. One possible source of revenue here is the provision of multiple after-sales services that can help industrial manufacturers maintain and manage the assets they have purchased while benefiting from cutting-edge technologies presented in an appealing and easy-to-use way.

Tackling Downtime

Whereas advances in IoT make it possible to maximise the potential of condition monitoring, predictive maintenance, and asset tracking, the combination of IoT & AR brings these to the next level.

Both machine performance and the effectiveness of production processes are enhanced to deliver preventive alerts right to the employees that need to take critical action. With the combination of real-time data coming from industrial assets, sophisticated analytics, and AR devices, scheduling maintenance tasks and eliminating downtime has become significantly easier.

Managing Production Delays and Long Repair Cycles

Equally so, the incoming IoT data, visualised with the help of AR technology, can help navigate through production delays and assist in scheduling downtime for repairs. Ultimately, this is an advantage that translates into lower costs and better risk management.

The waiting time for accomplishing maintenance tasks is significantly reduced too. It is becoming less necessary for specialist staff to be present at the location needing repairs. Many of these can now be managed remotely or overseen by less experienced staff.

Improving the Quality of Service

IoT and AR technologies also tap into service repair efficiencies. Added to all the benefits listed above, it is now possible to make instructions and manuals interactive, with AR-powered features that significantly improve the user experience.

The combination of IoT & AR technologies can thus handle a variety of issues around service, effectively eliminating situations in which a piece of equipment on the shop floor breaks down unexpectedly, employees are blocked by waiting for spare parts to be dispatched from another location, or there is a delay because workers do not understand the user manuals and time is lost in finding an employee who is qualified to perform the repair work.

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