“This ventilator
challenge has been
the biggest thing we’ve
ever done with AR – it
representes the largest
is that in order to respond
at the pace at which the
government required,
it forced companies
to look at these newer
technologies. And I
think, again, it’s showing
that with the impetus
and effort required
to get this ventilator
challenge mobilised these
new technologies. And I won’t
say it wouldn’t have been possible
without them, but it certainly wouldn’t
have been possible at the pace at
which it was done. As our CEO, Jim
Heppelmann says, the genie is out
of the bottle and it probably won’t go
back in.”
number of AR
experiences we’ve
ever deployed
inside PTC”
In the short term, the obvious value
for AR in workplaces can be in making
it unnecessary for as many individuals
to have to visit the workplace. AR’s
ability to connect people and allow
them to work seamlessly together
using shared augmented reality
experiences has proved invaluable
during this period, particularly as
PTC has provided its Vuforia Chalk
technology free of charge.
Another area where PTC sees
AR as having a signi cant role to
play is in its ability to aid in the
transfer of legacy knowledge held
by longstanding employees who
are looking to retire. Says Haimes:
“People are retiring off the shop oor
with 20 or 30 years of experience
as to how this product gets built
the right way; how this piece of
machinery is set up to make
these components. That
sort of information that isn’t
documented anywhere
and that tribal knowledge
built up over decades
of experience and
experiences is walking
out the door.
“And companies need
to tackle that. And AR gives
them the ability to do that.
But it’s not just about capturing
that information. If you think about
your potential millennial workforce
that are going to be your new
employees, they’re also expecting
to be consuming data in a slightly
different way to the paper-based way
of communicating.”
PTC is keen to ensure that the
perception of AR is not of a technology
that is restricted to larger engineering
companies. “We are very, very keen
to promote what’s possible for the
SME space,” says Haimes. “And
again, we work closely with places
like the AMRC up in Shef eld, where
we’ve got shows and demonstrators
showing what can be achieved for as
little as £500 worth of investment from
an industry for smart factory smart
connected machine capability. What
does that what does £500 get you?
What does £5000 pounds get you?
That type of information is available.”
The success of the Ventilator
Challenge is already making a
difference to adoption according to
Paul Haimes. “We’ve seen massive
uptake over the last month or so
with companies starting to use it,”
he says. “The Ventilator Consortium
is certainly using it. But again,
many, many other companies are
taking advantage of that, that free
technology. And again, it’s typically
done using a tablet or smartphone,
which everybody has. So it’s an easy
technology to adopt. It’s all cloud
based. So there’s nothing to install
licence, straightforward. And I think
that is driving adoption.”
Summing up, Haimes says: “In
situations like this, companies are
forced to look at new ways of working,
forced to have to take on these
practices and new technologies.
Once they’ve done that, they can see
that actually this has a measurable
impact and measurable bene t.
And we can work faster. We can
work more consistently with people
making fewer mistakes. If there’s
some good that comes out of this, it
will be the U.K. manufacturing will
have accelerated its adoption of new
technologies as a result of it.” !
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