There are many benefits of AR (Augmented Reality or Assisted Reality) and digital work instructions, but the idea of digital transformation can seem overwhelming. This article talks about why many organizations are starting to consider digital work instructions, and the benefits augmented reality (AR) can bring.

As organizations begin to deploy applications at scale, they often realize that AR presents both opportunities and challenges. Creating compelling AR experiences for an enterprise has historically been difficult, limiting the reach of how much and what can be deployed.

Despite the occasional challenges, organizations continue to explore the new possibilities and value AR can bring to service, operations, engineering, and manufacturing.

For starters, if you’ve made a heavy investment in technical publications or technical documentation, odds are you have a lot of content in a multitude of systems and formats such as Arbortext, DITA, or even S1000D. This has most likely occurred over a long period of time and leveraged a lot of resources.

With all the resources, time, and energy put into your technical publications the idea of ‘going digital’ or moving towards ‘digital work instructions’ can be daunting.

So why is there currently so much ‘hype’ about pairing Augmented Reality with service or manufacturing, and what benefits can it bring to your organization?

Well… there are a lot of reasons for taking on digital work instructions, or even hands-free work instructions, that can be projected by a head-mounted tablet, a headset, or even an iPad or cellular device. And quite frankly, there are a lot of practical applications throughout an enterprise that can benefit from up to date content delivery and process/quality control.

Augmented Reality relates to the new workforce

If you look at manufacturing plants, assembly facilities, and at the service world as a whole – these groups of people are aging. This means that the manufacturing skills gap is widening.

In fact, there’s quite a bit of turnover happening which is starting to make it difficult for organizations to find competent, qualified replacements.

Studies show that over the next decade, due to economic expansion and the surge in baby boomer retirement, nearly 3.5 million industrial jobs will be needed, and 2 million are expected to go unfilled.

For instance, if you look at an aircraft assembly worker today, most are going to be older guys and gals. They’re used to doing things with physical resources (such as paper for example).

But if you’re looking to replace one of these retiring workers, your replacement is most likely going to be someone used to consuming his or her information through technology devices like iPads or mobile phones. A bonus, however, is that these individuals are more likely to be very open to new technology such as a head-mounted tablet.

The fact is, in most cases, we are talking about entirely different generations of our workforce. The way they consume, process, and work with new information will be entirely different than veteran-ed workers.

It is in your best interest to get these new-aged workers up to speed as quickly as possible. An excellent way to do that is to use delivery methods familiar to younger generations.

This is one of the many reasons companies have begun to explore augmented reality (AR).

Best-in-class organizations realize the benefit of investing in ways to get new workers up to speed as quickly and efficiently as possible.

AR for field service

Many organizations see “field service” as an excellent starting point to implement AR. There are a lot of time savings for service personnel when you go from paper to digital. This is why companies across the board have made the decision to go into a paperless environment.

The upside of AR is readily apparent when inspecting how someone attempts to execute specific detailed tasks on a shop floor. This almost always involves going back to paper instructions which in turn, takes time and wastes a whole lot of resources; hunting for documentation, going to-and-from workstations to document cabinets, etc. This compounds as workers switch tasks.

Augmented Reality provides cross reference materials

By simply enabling a workforce to digitally access resources, an organization can save time, proactively improve processes, and more effectively manage quality.

Augmented Reality allows workers to very quickly and efficiently cross-reference material and pull up related images, user guides, bulletins, and other content. All without leaving a workstation or job site.

For example, if a service technician was to get lost while using a paper instruction manual and he or she didn’t know the next step, AR provides a solution.

With an augmented experience the service technician can link directly back to technical information to read further into a problem that perhaps wasn’t included on the paper instruction manual or was somewhere else.

AR helps track detailed project status

Because AR is simply a delivery mechanism, it can be configured to interact with multiple databases and content sources. Project and task authentication and sign-off requirements can be delivered to workers through their devices but managed digitally at the edge or within discrete systems.

This means there’s a detailed digital trail of the work that’s been done and being done by each individual service technician.

Therefore, if a service task were to get interrupted, someone else on the team could pick up where the previous technician left off – knowing that the all the steps in the work instructions have been completed and signed off by the last worker.

Process and quality control benefits of AR

Some AR solutions even provide the added benefit of recording the time taken to complete a specific step or entire task. It provides insight into possible areas for training or process optimization.

In other words, it can help an organization notice discrepancies between expectations and execution – ‘as written’ and ‘as executed.’

You open the door to many closed-loop quality control improvements when you have insight into, and a digital signature on every completed task.

Hands-free work environment

Both head-mounted tablets and phones can be operated in a hands-free environment.

Handheld devices scan activated QR codes to read instructions. This allows operators to maneuver hands-free while the instructions are being read to them.

By using a head-mounted template environment, you can verbally communicate with the instructions on the head-mounted tablet without ever having to look away from work, or wake up a tablet or phone.

The return on investment for AR

The upfront costs are often the most expensive part of this piece of this digital transformation journey. Whether implementing a full-scale enterprise deployment or a proof-of-concept, you’ll often need to lay the same foundation of supporting technology. But it is worth it.

Talk with us if you’d like help figuring out a ballpark investment to get AR going at your company.

The ROI is tangible and real. For instance, AR solutions can easily save a $60,000 fully loaded resource 8 to 12 minutes a day by replacing paper and disjointed processes. That turns into four hours a month, forty-eight hours a year. That’s more than $1,300 per year in savings for every worker. The ROI quickly goes up proportional to the number of users added to the system.

Conclusion

I’ve made my case. But it doesn’t change the challenge I brought up at the beginning of this article. Moving, converting, and re-authoring legacy technical documentation is daunting…

Or is it?

We have a solution. It’s called AR Instruct™. Watch the video below to get an idea of what it is and how it could help you.

AR Instruct™ is an application that takes an existing product, assembly, service, and other technical information (in formats like DITA, XML, Arbortext, S100D, etc.) and dynamically transitions it to be displayed in a digital work environment. We aren’t talking about publishing a PDF on an iPad either.

AR Instruct™ publishes fully interactive experiences complete with voice commands, step management, graphic viewers and all.

You should do two things after reading this article – 1) Request a demonstration and 2) Forward this on to the people in your organization responsible for publishing and managing work and service instructions.

Let’s talk about how technical documentation impacts field service procedures, high costs of inaccurate technical information, the root causes of service failures, and how to achieve high field service productivity and effectiveness.

Many of the fundamental issues in service occur due to inaccurate service information and technical documentation that is difficult to understand.

We have all been in a situation, at least once, that involved failure to deliver a service as promised. Why? It’s because all brands and businesses make promises! But the truth is… service issues happen

When service fails to deliver on promises, or a buyer experiences poor customer service, the result almost always ends with lost customers, canceled subscriptions, and tarnished brand reputation.

The impact of a service failure can be devastating. Let’s talk about the root causes impacting service issues and failures

The impacts of service issues

The greatest influence on service almost always has to do with one thing; technical documentation. By technical documentation I am referring to tech pubs, standard operating procedure documents, service instructions, maintenance manuals, guides, work instructions, procedures, bulletins, etc.

I’m talking about anything and everything that is provided to help assist and guide service technicians. Many of the fundamental issues in service occur due to technical documentation, let’s talk about why.

Technical Documentation and Field Service

Today many field service and manufacturing organizations rely on traditional time-intensive methods to develop and deploy technical documentation such as service procedures, work instructions, guides, manuals, etc.

But the fact is – oftentimes the tech pubs, guides, and manuals that are created, aren’t even read (or in some cases even used) by field service representatives for which they were designed!

In addition, technician instruction manuals and documentation designed to be used in field service are often out-of-date. This is due to the high maintenance and distribution costs to create, maintain and produce continually up-to-date field service documentation.

This issue compounds as products become more and more complex in response to ever increasing customer demands for innovation and customization.

This rise in complex products has resulted in complex service and maintenance procedures, affecting and influencing inaccuracies in technical writing and documentation. As the demand for complex maintenance and service procedures increase, technician efficiency decreases due to more time being spent searching for the correct service information in a format that can be used on the field. This often results in repair and maintenance delays.

When service technicians encounter unfamiliar problems and don’t have reliable service information to solve a problem, the need for repeat service visits increases. There are many major negative consequences from these situations.

For example, a customer might experience equipment downtime. This downtime impacts both the service provider, as it inflates the cost of service, as well as the customer, as they lose productivity.

The high costs of inefficient field service

For you, as a service provider, the consequences of poor service information, complex products, and poor technician efficiency can drastically impact your costs of service in a number of ways.

For starters, let’s assume you work with service contracts. Service contracts often contain elements such as equipment up-time clauses. In the case you were to unintentionally breach one of these ‘set clauses’, it’s fair to assume the organization would face undesirable penalties and costs.

Take a deep breath. All is not lost. The added costs from inefficient service strategies are completely avoidable!

Repeat field service visits also drastically increase business costs. Multiple repeat visits to service products quickly increase costs and become very expensive. This is why many organizations seek to avoid repeat service visits at all cost.

A rarely considered cost-driver for service stems from difficulties comprehending poorly written, inaccessible, and out-of-date technical documentation.

When service technicians are unable to easily identify which spare parts are required, they often order multiple parts in hope that one will be correct. This results in high part returns, and handling costs. Not to mention, the need to hold more parts in stock from inflated orders (the bull whip effect), also affects parts inventory.

The skills gap is also increasing the cost of inefficient service.

“Faced with continuing economic expansion and retirement of baby boomers, the US manufacturing industry is looking at a potential shortage of 2.4 million workers in the next decade.” – 2018 Deloitte & The Manufacturing Institute skills gap study

To put it in perspective, a large portion of our workforce is approaching retirement soon. This is causing the skills gap to widen. With the loss of tribal knowledge, access to consumable expert knowledge becomes increasingly necessary.

New and inexperienced technicians have repeat service visits which cause an organization to face higher training costs, while overburdened experienced staff members are forced to train and pick up the slack for newer employees.

All of these things impact customer satisfaction. These conditions damage service reputations for both an organizations product, as well as, service contracts. Most importantly, all of these scenarios impact an organizations ability to retain customers and garner repeat business.

Sometimes you need to break down the barriers between product development and operations.

How to gain high service productivity and effectiveness

In order to obtain high technician productivity and effectiveness you must re-evaluate your service methods and procedures

Increase technician comprehension with accurate AR work instructions

To increase technician comprehension, look into concepts to create accurate, in-context augmented reality (AR) work instructions that overlay digital information onto a physical product.

Establish accurate part identification

Consider implementing accurate AR experiences so part identification, replacement and ordering are easy and accurate.

Enable remote real-time work instructions

Enable expert technicians to give remote, real-time guidance on physical objects using assisted reality tools like Vuforia Chalk.

All of these help service organizations create a more flexible, agile, workforce. These changes result in increased equipment uptime and productivity. They result in happier customers and more empowered workers.

Most importantly – you can start implementing these benefits today. All the technology currently exists. We would love to work with you and your organization to understand your service operations goals and map a path forward.

Augmented Reality (AR) and Assisted Reality for digital work instructions have become a growth driver, or at least consideration, for many industries.

Yet moving everything from paper or ‘digital hard-copy’ to digital AR experiences seems to be a daunting task for large and small organizations alike.

The truth is, there are many ways to incorporate augmented reality into service, but many of these can disrupt current processes and be a challenge to implement.

This is why, our company (EAC Product Development Solutions), developed and created an easier way to make service information more accurate, relevant and accessible.

We created a solution that automatically republishes your existing technical content likeXML, DITA, S100D, etc. with no need to reformat, author or rework any content that you already have.

It allows you to easily deliver the content behind AR instructions, manuals, and guides to digital devices such as tablets, head-mounted displays, or cell phones.

Implementing AR for service should be easy. That is why we created a better way.

The tool is called AR Instruct – It easily connects traditional technical publication content to the AR world.

Digital Work Instructions & AR Instruct

AR Instruct enables “hands-free” execution of work instructions using the latest immersive technology including: Augmented Reality, Assisted Reality, and Mixed Reality.

Our AR solution works as an AR publishing engine that repurposes existing S1000D, Arbortext, or XML, technical publication content and simplifies the transition to hands-free and mobile paperless instructions.

The best part? AR Instruct requires no content re-authoring and no content rebuilding. It’s really that easy.

AR Instruct can even dynamically publish up-to-date work instructions from the latest document revision on your server. This will ensure accuracy, compliance, and quality.

Watch the video below to get a quick and easy introduction to AR Instruct.

How does AR Instruct work?

A Service Engineer scans a work order QR code to locate relevant service procedures.

Our AR publishing engine, AR Instruct, retrieves XML content and dynamically formats it for AR viewing. This requires no manual publishing at all.

Using a digital device like a Vuzix or RealWear, the service engineer can navigate the AR content hands-free with voice commands.

The Service Engineer can inspect each associated technical graphic related to the product.

The Service Engineer can also expand any technical graphic or content for enhanced viewing.

With the AR Instruct graphic viewer, the Service Engineer can pan and zoom any image by using voice commands. All buttons he or she sees are “readable” as voice commands.

Using voice commands, the Service Engineer can navigate links to cross-referenced steps or procedures.

Once the Service Engineer is done with the cross-referenced content, he or she would be able to return to where they left off in the original service procedure.

When all steps are complete, the AR Instruct software notifies the Service Engineer that the procedure is done and all steps are recorded as complete.

The Service Engineer exits back to the bar code scanner to begin a new work order or procedure.

If your organization creates service information, work instructions, installation operator guides, user guides, technical instructions, service manuals, or even service procedure bulletins – it’s time to rethink your process.

Let’s talk about how to make your service information accurate, relevant and accessible.

Defects in products happen, but in the case that a product needs to be taken apart- it’s important to do it the right way. This is especially true with today’s advanced complex products.

This is why organizations often don’t question why they’re managing mountains of paper-based technical publications. But what happens when a service call involves the use of particular tools that aren’t quite outlined in a service procedure manual?

Or when field circumstances turn out to be different than the initial service order and the correct manual may not have made it into a technician’s vehicle?

What happens when technical publications designed to guide service are no longer relevant due to product or tool changes? Despite best efforts – service, installation, and operation problems arise. These problems cause worker confusion, dissatisfied customers, and business risk.

Providing information that no longer applies to specific products forces operators to troubleshoot challenges based on assumptions and experience – or worse – inexperience. Paper-based and locally stored procedures, instructions, and guidelines also have a tendency to make work instructions difficult to find.

If your procedure documentation guidelines are disconnected, they are only hurting you.

The good news is, with the help of simple technology, any organization has an opportunity to rethink their service information. There has never been a better time to make service information accurate, relevant, and easily accessible.

The solution? Interactive digital work instructions.

How to make service information accurate

You might be surprised, but as a matter of fact, the first step towards achieving accurate service information involves using the content (such as Tech Pubs, Arbortext, DITA, XML, Images, etc.) that your organization has already created. Evaluate the current service information processes your organization has in place. For instance, you might currently be using paper documentation.

What’s the problem with paper documentation?

Once your documents are committed to paper alone, you can no longer assure their ongoing accuracy. The underlying information could have changed right after it was printed! Your information should (most definitely) include the latest version of technical publications and content (such as Creo Illustrate, Windchill, Service Information Manager, InDesign, FrameMaker, Oxygen, etc.) that you already have without the need for added latency or work for authoring, styling, and publishing.

When you’re in a digital work instruction environment, that environment is set up to draw from the most accurate up-to-date information available on your system. This is why the best possible way to ensure the accuracy of your service information is to move away from paper workflows and go to digital work instructions – instantaneous access, up-to-date information.

How to make service information relevant

The best way to ensure that your service information is relevant is by connecting your technical publications back to your engineering and manufacturing content creators.

What do we mean by that?

Your work instructions, service manuals, operation guides, and bulletins all come from files you have on hand. So why shouldn’t they directly connect to and show operators and technicians accurate and relevant information about what they do?!

Furthermore, if your current service processes involve the need to find and locate product information before your technicians start the job, you end up losing valuable time.

It’s time to change that.

The way to make your service information more relevant is to have your instructions take your technicians down a specific product path. Using visual work instructions will allow your service teams to get specific information and insights that directly pertain to what they need.

By implementing technology that can cross-reference technical publication content, you can be sure your service information will always be relevant no matter the task.

The technology available today even has features like ‘work process selects’, to route directly to the correct tech pub content. Even better, it also has the ability to navigate to cross-referenced content such as DITA, XML files, images and more!

Simple solutions on the market today can even provide service technicians and operators with the ability to immediately start on a service task. With the help of technology, such as a digital device or a handsfree headset, service technicians can instantly receive relevant work instructions at their fingertips… or eyeballs… by simply scanning a barcode.

Your service information should be accurate and timely, and the best way to make that possible is by directly connecting all the files you currently have! It’s that simple.

How to make service information accessible

Making service information more accessible has everything to do with the use of digital devices such as mobile or wearable devices.

By using mobile or wearable devices, workers have the ability to instantly connect directly to work processes and even existing tech pub source content. Every organization has the ability to make service info easily accessible to the extent that the company wants.

For instance, you can easily make any information accessible and relevant now with a connected Industrial IoT environment. By using Wi-Fi and cellular connections, technicians have the ability to connect online to whatever the most relevant information is.

Your path to better service information

Please contact us to see how Industrial AR can be used to connect and reuse existing technical publications and content. We have the know-how, technology, and team to help you take your digital transformation to the next level, decrease service and manufacturing errors, and improve the way you distribute technical information.

Watch this video to see EAC’s solution for converting work instructions to digital AR experiences with AR Instruct.

PTC is expanding its Augmented Reality (AR) solutions with another powerful Vuforia product – Vuforia Expert Capture. The technology allows an expert or skilled worker to ‘capture’, or record, their manual procedures on the manufacturing floor to then deliver the recorded step-by-step instructions to new hires or other employees to perform that same procedure. 

Vuforia Expert Capture empowers front-line workers with the confidence to do their jobs with increased productivity and improved efficiency with easily viewable procedures by using a hands-free, AR-enabled, wearable headset, such as the Microsoft Hololens or RealWear HMT-1. 

How does Vuforia Expert Capture work?

Vuforia Expert Capture uses three different AR-enabled technologies to create location-specific AR guidance including Vuforia Capture, Vuforia Editor, and Vuforia View.

Vuforia Capture: An expert uses the Hololens or RealWear to record the procedure with the Vuforia Capture software downloaded into the wearable device. 

Vuforia Editor: A content creator uses Vuforia Editor, an editing software, to edit, modify, or add to the captured procedure and then publishes it.

Vuforia View: A new hire or other employee uses a Hololens, RealWear, mobile phone, or tablet device with the downloaded Vuforia View software to then perform the captured procedure.

The skilled worker, or subject-matter-expert (SME), can use voice or gesture-controlled commands to take photos or add bookmarks during the recorded procedure. The bookmarks would then allow the editor to focus in on highlighted parts of the procedure and add additional content such as a still image, a 3D CAD file, or links to other resources available through the organization’s existing content.

Who benefits from using captured AR experiences?

Your organization can benefit the most in manufacturing, service, and training uses cases where:

The knowledge from SMEs can be captured instantly without causing too much disruption from daily work activities while reducing the need for rigorous training for other workers.

PTC’s customer, Global Foundries, a global full-service semiconductor manufacturing company, has found success with the implementation of using Vuforia Expert Capture:

Michael Campbell, EVP of AR products at PTC, says in a press release, “We are excited to offer industrial enterprises a new way to use AR to leverage the tribal knowledge of SMEs and help alleviate the skills gap crisis threatening today’s industrial enterprise. Vuforia Expert Capture is a high-value, out-of-the-box solution that accelerates AR content creation that enables manufacturers to not only improve the accuracy and speed at which workers successfully complete new or unfamiliar tasks, but also to reduce training costs and time to productivity.”

Campbell, in a recent webcast that introduced the new product release, says that PTC is working on allowing users to use Vuforia Chalk, Vuforia Studio, and Vuforia Expert Capture in sync with one another. This would allow content creators to embed 3D CAD files into the procedures while editing captured processes in Vuforia Editor or it would allow employees new to procedures to essentially ‘dial-in’ to a remote expert with Vuforia Chalk to then ‘talk’ him through the procedure while seeing assisted chalk overlays onto real-world equipment.

You can start implementing AR in your organization with Vuforia Expert Capture to rapidly capture high-value procedures from the expert’s point-of-view. Contact us to talk to an AR expert: you can request more information or ask for a live demo with your team on-site.

Check out our Augmented Reality Gallery for more real-world use cases for Industrial AR.

The aging workforce crisis is affecting field service companies in a huge way. Kris Oldland, a B2B author, wrote an article for Field Service News called The Aging Workforce Crisis Is Not Only Real But It’s Here – How Are We Going To Resolve It?. Oldland’s research found that 53% of field service companies believe that replacing an aging workforce is a challenge for their organization.

Here’s how we should be addressing the aging workforce – by protecting older generations.

Protecting older generations

According to a report written by the United States Senate on ‘America’s Aging Workforce’, challenges such as age discrimination, inadequate training opportunities, and working while managing health conditions and disabilities are making it difficult for older workers to thrive in the workplace. Not everyone is ready for retirement – whether it’s due to financial reasons or they’re just not ready to stop working. It is projected that by 2026, working individuals that are 55 and older will make up 24.8 percent of working Americans – which will account for almost one in every four American workers (United States Senate, America’s Aging Workforce).

So how can field service companies help protect older generations from losing their jobs due to these challenges? We don’t need to ‘replace’ the aging workforce – we can still leverage their vast amount of knowledge and experience. Service organizations should be leading the way by providing solutions for older generations to continue working by eliminating or at least significantly decreasing travel time and cost it takes to service equipment on-site.

How do you do this? Provide your employees with an augmented reality (AR) tool such as Vuforia Chalk.

What is PTC Vuforia Chalk?

PTC’s Vuforia Chalk is built on the Vuforia AR platform technology from PTC. You can draw digital annotations on your device that accurately anchor to physical objects in the real world so that the receiver of your communication through the app knows exactly how to solve the problem via your instructions.

Vuforia Chalk allows field service technicians to help customers without having to travel to get to them. Chalk is an app that empowers service technicians by providing them with instructions and guidance they need to quickly solve technical challenges. Both experts and technicians can accurately mark up live views to highlight details or guide multi-step solutions.

Chalk marks where you instruct on the screen, leaving ‘still’ marks where you’ve placed them, even if you’re moving your device around. You can move your device out of view, and your chalk marks will still be seen drawn where you put them.

AR is one of the fastest growing segments in the market, allowing Chalk to easily launch as an app that service companies are immediately attracted to. Organizations are seeing that the investment draws in new levels of workforce productivity and efficiency for those that can work remotely and cost-effectiveness for less money spent on travel.

How can AR help with remote assistance?

Older generations are easily able to learn PTC’s Vuforia augmented reality tools as something that can be incorporated into their service processes.

Our recent webinar called, Vuforia Chalk: Powerful Remote Guidance at your Fingertips, gathered valuable survey information from our attendees: 50% of our respondents told us that their service technicians on average travel 50-100 miles radius from where they work to get to service calls, and the other 50% of respondents told us that they travel more than 100 miles to service their customers.

Think of the costs incurred with that kind of travel. The back and forth communication, the talk with human resources to plan the trip; the expenses of a rental car and/or plane tickets; the time lost to work due to travel; et cetera. The list goes on and on. When, in reality, you can use a simple AR app remote assistance app such as Vuforia Chalk to problem-solve from the comfort of your own office or home.. or anywhere for that matter.

When we asked our webinar attendees if ‘the availability of an office-based remote-expert role would increase the retention of retiring technicians and their knowledge’ – Fifty percent said ‘Yes’, and the other fifty percent said ‘Maybe’. Become a leader in the field service industry and offer your aging workforce the chance to work remotely. After all, there’s a one in four chance that the aging worker could be your grandparent.

Download the free trial of PTC Vuforia Chalk today, to see if this could be a tool that could keep older generations from feeling any repercussions of the aging workforce. Contact us if you’re interested in Vuforia Chalk.