Growing technology and the easing cost of implementing AR are opening up new avenues. After selling a product, sound maintenance is crucial to driving customer loyalty. Today, traditional maintenance, support, installation, and guides hereon aren’t enough. While some brands are already adding AR to their customer education tool – self-help guides, tutorials, and knowledge base, there is a lot of room to innovate traditional maintenance with AR. The blog talks about all the possibilities and the underlying benefits of Augmented Reality in maintenance.
Understanding Augmented Reality
Augmented Reality refers to the type of immersive experience where digitally designed or modeled objects are overlaid in the physical world. The users can see and interact with it through their smartphones or special AR-based glasses. In the past few years, it has gained a lot of popularity. It is due to its versatility and ease of use and implementation in business and entertainment alike. Some popular examples of AR-based applications or services are games like Pokemon Go and e-commerce platforms like Ikea Place.
Augmented reality for maintenance and repair activities
Augmented reality can completely transform the maintenance and repair sector if implemented correctly in more than one way:
Preventive and corrective maintenance
Preventive and corrective maintenance tasks are streamlined with Augmented Reality industrial maintenance for equipment and machinery. By overlaying digital information in the real-world environment, AR systems provide technicians with valuable visual guidance and data-driven insights.
Preventive Maintenance
Augmented reality enhances preventive maintenance activities through various capabilities. It displays step-by-step instructions on the screen, guiding technicians through routine procedures like filter replacements, fluid level checks, and component inspections. AR highlights specific components within the technician’s view, ensuring accurate identification and reducing errors.
Corrective Maintenance
For corrective maintenance, AR pinpoints the exact location of faults or issues within a system, directing technicians to the problem area. It displays step-by-step repair instructions, ensuring technicians follow the correct procedures and sequences. AR can integrate with parts databases, providing information on required replacement components and their inventory availability.
Machinery audits
Augmented reality machine maintenance greatly enhances audits and inspections by providing a comprehensive view of equipment status and performance data. Visual overlays display real-time data, sensor readings, and condition monitoring information directly onto the physical equipment, enabling technicians to identify potential issues quickly.
AR can integrate thermal imaging capabilities, allowing technicians to visualize heat patterns and potential hotspots within machinery and perform the required services.
Data analysis
Data analysis capabilities for maintenance and repair activities can be increased through intuitive data visualization and analysis tools using AR. It displays complex data sets and analytics in a visually intuitive manner, overlaying charts, graphs, and trends directly onto the physical environment.
AR enables side-by-side comparisons of historical data, current performance metrics, and simulated scenarios, aiding in root cause analysis and decision-making. Augmented Reality remote maintenance facilitates collaboration between technicians and data analysts, allowing for real-time data sharing, annotations, and discussions within the shared AR environment.
What are the benefits of AR maintenance and repair?
Some major benefits associated with using AR are:
Faster problem diagnosis
With AR-based component models, problem diagnosis can be done much faster and accurately. Technicians will also be able to find problems in areas that are generally hard due to physical limitations and consume a lot of time to find them. Constant monitoring of data dumps can be used to find issues before they turn into major issues.
Faster servicing and repair work
Based on the problem diagnosis, AR can help to provide step-by-step instructions on how to solve the problem in the least time possible. With a digital inventory, the tools and components needed can be quickly found, reducing the energy and time wasted on mundane tasks.
Consistent and efficient
One of the biggest benefits is that the operations the technicians perform can be consistent as they follow the real-time instructions provided through AR. It increases the overall efficiency of maintenance and repair work.
Less reliability on experienced technicians
Finding experienced technicians who can perform the job is not an easy task. Thanks to Augmented Reality maintenance training, even the less experienced technicians can be trained on 3D models helping them to understand their work in a short period.
Fewer errors
With step-by-step instructions and real-time digital model assistance, the chance of errors is negligible. It is not limited to simple maintenance or repair work but even the complicated tasks now can be performed without a high failure rate with AR assistance.
Real-time Machine service and audits
With consistent and real-time machine audits, you can monitor the condition of tools and equipment. It can drastically reduce the chance of overdue repair and maintenance. You can even buy the required upgrades based on the data available on the performance and condition of machines.
3 Major industries where the demand for AR in maintenance and repair will increase
AR will play an important role in most of the businesses and industries in the upcoming years, but the sectors where this growth will be fastest are:
Aerospace
The aerospace industry has a high demand for efficient and accurate maintenance and repair. It is due to the complex nature of aircraft and the critical importance of safety. Augmented reality (AR) technology offers significant advantages in this sector. AR can provide step-by-step guidance for inspections and repairs. Technicians can easily identify intricate systems, and experts can offer real-time guidance remotely.
Automotive
The automotive industry is continuously seeking ways to streamline maintenance and repair processes, improve quality, and reduce downtime. AR technology offers significant benefits in this sector. AR provides technicians with step-by-step instructions and highlights specific vehicle components for accurate diagnosis. It allows access to technical manuals and service bulletins, improving efficiency.
Manufacturing
Equipment and machinery are critical assets. AR in manufacturing can help elevate maintenance and repair activities, leading to increased uptime and productivity. AR can integrate with sensor data and condition monitoring systems for real-time visualization of equipment performance. It can provide detailed instructions for maintenance and troubleshooting and enable collaboration between on-site technicians and off-site experts.
Major brands utilizing AR in maintenance and repair activities
While many brands are still finding the perfect way of using AR in their chain of operations, there are a few famous brands that have already started to use it and reap the benefits.
Bosch
Understanding the potential of AR, Bosch has started to use an AR-based application in their car service workshops. It helps the technicians with navigating required components or providing step-by-step instructions to troubleshoot a particle problem. It has almost reduced the time required to work on a particular service by a margin of 15%.
Boeing
Boeing has integrated augmented reality technology into its electrical wiring assembly processes by using Google Glass. It provides step-by-step guidance and voice commands to navigate virtual instructions. It has resulted in a zero error rate and a 25% acceleration in wire assembly activities. Also enhances training and knowledge transfer for technicians.
The maintenance and repair sector is going to get a major overhaul with AR becoming an indispensable part of it. It boosts the worker’s efficiency, helps them maintain a standard quality, and reduces the chances of blunders and mistakes. For most businesses, this is an opportunity to bring a qualitative change without any major risks. If you want to ease the burden off your maintenance team and save time, consider adding AR to your plan. Sign up for the PlugXR Platform or book a free demo now to learn more.