There is a massive gulf between the data available to us in the digital world and the physical world within which we can apply that data. While the world around us is fully 3D, the digital data. We use to inform our decisions and action in the real world remains confined to our pages and screens. This gap inhibits our capacity to make the most of the knowledge or conditions in which we use it. AR can close this gap and revolutionize our operations in all life areas. And the capabilities we have yet to unlock.
The power of AR will greatly magnify these capabilities, improving how we learn, visualize, and interact, which is of immense value in the business sector.
With this in mind, it is essential to realize that businesses could be included with an effective AR strategy as the technology evolves. While it may seem like AR does not apply readily to every organization, its value across many different areas means that this is not often the case. And it’s essential to ensure that you know exactly how to apply this technology to your business.
How Augmented Reality Provides Value
Instruction
Instruction, training, and coaching are critical tasks that improve workforce productivity and efficiency. These functions are often labor and cost-intensive and only sometimes produce the desired results.
While instructional videos and written instructions can be hard to follow and don’t consider individual learning needs, AR can provide real-time visual guides showing how to carry out a task or a process in great detail, making it easier to understand.
Visualization
AR applications reveal internal insights that would otherwise be impossible to perceive or explain through a schematic in a book.
For instance, AR can overlay a patient’s veins on the skin in the medical field, making it easier for medical staff to locate. Or it can show a technician a full 3D representation of the device they’re working on and also allow them to identify issues and fix them in real-time instead of going through the process of elimination.
Interaction
Product and tool interaction has shifted from physical controls to touch screens and remote operation.
AR takes the user interface to a whole new level. Virtual control panels may be overlaid directly onto any device or product to provide instructions on operating it. And, eventually, allowing it to be run through gestures and commands using AR headsets.
Where Augmented Reality Provides Value
Regardless of the emphasis of the business, there are several areas of an organization where AR may add value. Here are a few examples already in effect in various sectors:
Product Development
While many computer-aided designs (CAD) capabilities allow for the creation of 3D models, they can only ever be viewed through a screen, limiting the perspective of what you are looking at without the aid of a physically built 3D model. AR allows 3D models to be superimposed on the physical world as a hologram. They allow you to evaluate and improve designs before making a physical 3D model.
Manufacturing
Manufacturing processes can often be quite complex. With many steps involved, any mistakes made during the process can be costly and time-consuming to rectify.
AR can deliver the correct information when and where it is needed to workers. It reduces errors, enhances efficiency, and improves productivity.
Logistics
Warehouse operations are estimated to account for about 20% of all logistics costs, while picking items from shelves represents up to 65% of warehouse costs. In most warehouses, workers still perform this task by consulting a paper or onscreen list of things to collect and then searching for them, a slow and potentially error-prone method of working.
A growing number of companies are using AR to enhance the efficiency and accuracy of their process. Instructions direct workers to the product location to be pulled. Also leading them to the site and the best route to the following effect. This allows picking times to be faster and more precise without being affected by misread information or interruptions in attention.
Sales and Marketing
AR is revolutionizing the consumer experience by reinventing showrooms, product demos, and buyers’ perceptions of their interests.
When customers can see virtually how products will look or function in a natural setting before buying them, they have more-accurate expectations. They are more confident about their purchase decisions. And greater product satisfaction, meaning they are more likely to complete a purchase and less likely to want to return it. AR may even reduce or eliminate any need for brick-and-mortar stores and showrooms in the future.
AR is the Future of Business
Whether training new telephone operators in a call center or giving salespeople the capability of taking their products out on the road. Optimizing warehouse and factory processes, or much more, augmented reality permeates every facet of the business. And an effective strategy can help you to improve efficiency, cut costs and create higher value from your proposition.
