Augmented reality technology promises to increase productivity in both manufacturing and service sectors by delivering useful information, such as projecting schemes right in front of operators. Thus, they don’t have to look into technical manuals and therefore, work faster and more efficiently (and perhaps even have more fun from their point of view). AR smart glass that visually guide workers can also increase their safety and satisfaction. Working with technology is simply more fun.

It has been shown that workers that are using augmented reality (AR) can increase their productivity by approximately 25 – 50% when working on certain tasks. In addition, augmented reality can fill the gap of under-experienced people working on these positions – people with less experience can achieve the same productivity as experienced even during the first performance of the given task.

This technology and new way of working is being tested in many areas, from manufacturing to warehousing and field service. Even NASA astronauts go into action, using virtual reality for training and augmented reality (Microsoft HoloLens) while in space!

Augmented Reality: Beyond Factory Boundaries to Strategic Decision Making

But what if there were more ways to use augmented reality? In addition to the workshop staff, what if it found its way to managers and executives who could then

  • go through a real process while projecting information from the manufacturing process directly into glasses?
  • go through virtual reality in the environment of the so-called digital twin of their production, monitor critical metrics and tune production performance using only this technology?

After all, we have written on the topic of digital twins several times. This is a virtual copy of a factory with all its parameters as you know it from usual operation. The advantage is that you can do experiments and tests on the production while not endangering the real production process. Once your Digital twins experiment is verified, you can then apply it to real production. Without mistakes, which would cost you millions of crowns.

And the same applies to the use of this technology for control board. When executives make strategic decisions in terms of processes and investment planning, their gain will be the same, if not higher, than if they were focusing only on increasing production output.

With Predictive Simulation, You Can Verify Different Business Scenarios

Many manufacturers of so-called smart technologies use predictive simulation and predictive analysis to get the idea of how their business will respond to different scenarios. It is actually a virtual sandbox where you play and test how dynamic will be the response of your business to different influences and processes. And by transforming the proposed changes into a virtual reality / augmented reality environment, you as a manager have the ability to understand the planned changes through play.

Nowadays, predictive simulation often becomes a part of the way businesses and their leaders make decisions on a strategic level. Investors often insist that they want to see the latest simulation of where their money goes, companies often ask their suppliers to provide them with a simulation of future supplies – and there is no better way to provide proof that it will work than just a virtual (augmented) reality in conjunction with predictive simulation.

Therefore, our message is that in DYNAMIC FUTURE, we strongly believe that we will be increasingly confronted with the interconnection of augmented reality for both management and production, as well as clear strategic decisions based on hard data and dynamic simulation outputs. Once you have done this, you will get ahead of the competition for years to come, because you will not just assume anymore, you will know for sure!