Immersive Technology in Manufacturing

While industry-wide efforts continue to drive the development and adoption of fully automated "lights out" manufacturing systems, a significant portion of the activities involving manufacturing still require human skill and dexterity. The use of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) in manufacturing can help humans perform these tasks with precision and efficiency.

Immersive technologies have moved beyond their origins, from works of fiction to mainstream applications appearing in the real world. The advent and ubiquity of smartphones has accelerated the spread of these technologies among the general public. While capturing the attention of the global public, they have also attracted the interest of businesses that have capitalized on the fascination with immersive technology. This has led businesses to develop immersive technologies in customer-centric applications, such as the use of immersive technologies in digital marketing, namely virtual reality and augmented reality, which are increasingly being adopted by companies large and small. But now, as the novelty begins to wear off among consumers, companies are turning their attention in-house and designing the application of these technologies to improve their critical business operations. The use of technologies such as virtual reality and augmented reality in manufacturing is an example of the shift in immersive technology from consumer-centric to employee- and process-centric applications. Immersive technologies are proving to be a natural fit for manufacturing processes due to their ability to enhance users’ visibility into processes and provide them with the right information at the right time, as demonstrated by the implementation of immersive technologies by major manufacturers.

The need for immersive technology in manufacturing

Since the introduction of automation and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), the manufacturing process has become less and less manual. More and more manufacturing plants are working on what is known in industry parlance as "lights out" manufacturing, which is especially useful in areas that require extreme precision and minimal need for customization, variation and inspection. Industries that make sense for lights-out manufacturing include materials and chemical processing plants, oil refineries, food processing and packaging, and large-scale manufacturing plants for simple products.

However, most products produced today are constantly changing as customer needs change. Therefore, manufacturing needs to be highly flexible, but equally or even less tolerant of non-conformance. Although eventually, these processes will be automated through the use of general-purpose robots, for now, they will require dexterous hands and the decision-making power of a human brain. Unlike general-purpose robots with superhuman information processing capabilities, humans cannot process large amounts of information quickly and therefore cannot make decisions based on all available information. They cannot perceive or see hidden patterns like AI-based systems can, so human workers need assistance in performing the different tasks involved in the manufacturing process, from initial design to final inspection.

Virtual and Augmented Reality in Manufacturing

The adoption of virtual and augmented reality technology in manufacturing, while still in its infancy, has proven to be a major game-changer for manufacturing players. It helps manufacturing processes become more efficient by increasing worker productivity and plant utilization, and even enabling design improvements.

interactive design

A lot of planning and design work usually takes place before a product is produced. Functional product design is the essence of product quality and a key driver of product value. Manufacturers attach great importance to the correctness of design. Traditionally, designers have used two-dimensional computer-aided design models to test and experiment with products that are three-dimensional in nature. For products that must be tested in real time, designers often use physical prototypes to test product designs. These prototypes are difficult to make and even harder to redesign for experimentation and retesting. In addition to being expensive, it also delays time-to-market (TTM) because physical prototypes require multiple redoing of the model, so each iteration requires time to physically recreate the prototype.

Through virtual reality, designers can conceive products in three-dimensional space and test those products in a simulated environment until the design is complete. In addition to minimizing time-to-market, virtual reality provides the ability to test products under expected conditions and identify design flaws that cannot be highlighted using traditional testing methods. This ensures that the product produced is designed to be perfect and minimizes the possibility of product recalls and other undesirable consequences of product failure.

Intelligent decision

Manufacturing operations need to be agile to keep up with the changing needs of the market and customers. To achieve this, they need to be able to make decisions quickly, but must conduct a thorough and detailed analysis of the available information. However, in order to achieve safe and effective decision-making, the amount of data that needs to be analyzed is too great for decision-makers to easily process and understand. This causes delays in the decision-making process, delaying necessary actions, and ultimately having the opposite effect of agility. It is increasingly evident that the use of data visualization can enhance executive decision-making and ensure that not only answers to questions can be easily found, but new problems that can drive higher performance and further growth can be discovered.

The use of virtual and augmented reality in manufacturing-related data visualization can speed up the decision-making process at every level of a manufacturing organization, from high-level strategic decisions to critical operational decisions.

Informed Maintenance

Equipment failure is a problem that causes unplanned interruptions in production and requires an immediate response from the maintenance team. At times, the maintenance team may not be around to restore the equipment to a fully functional state in time. Data visualization related to the performance and health of manufacturing equipment can enable maintenance teams to identify equipment health issues that often go unnoticed. Using AR equipment to guide hobbyists while addressing these issues can ensure the normal operation of production facilities without too many long downtimes, maximizing plant and equipment utilization.

Quality inspection

Quality inspection is an important part of the manufacturing process. As organizations strive to maximize productivity, they also emphasize improving product quality and consistency standards. In order to ensure the high quality of products, in addition to using automated inspection methods, human quality inspectors often have to inspect hundreds of units to find defective units. Due to personnel constraints, this resulted in inspectors missing subtle indicators of disqualification. Combining augmented reality with artificial intelligence and sensor technology can even illuminate subtle deviations on manufacturing cells, enabling higher product quality standards.

Immersive training

For manufacturing employees, on-the-job training is necessary to perform their duties effectively and efficiently. This process takes time, and deploying inexperienced new employees to perform critical operations can degrade work quality and even lead to safety issues. Training new employees in a virtual reality environment allows them to gain the experience and proficiency to perform their duties without compromising productivity, quality and safety.

The indispensability of virtual and augmented reality in manufacturing will be a general trend in the next few years, at least until high-performance and generally intelligent robots replace us.