When you think of manufacturing plants, you often think of moving parts.
In fact, manufacturing plants are actually full of moving parts. Fast-moving machinery, equipment, and vehicles can make manufacturing plants a pretty hazardous place.
Although most manufacturing plants are required to have strict safety regulations, it’s still easy for mistakes to happen. Taking into consideration the aging workforce and increasingly complex technologies, industrial safety is becoming a growing concern for manufacturing companies globally.
Fortunately, augmented reality (AR) is transforming the way manufacturing employees engage with technology. It’s not only helping the industrial workplace become more efficient and effective, but it is also creating a much safer work environment.
Safety In Work Environments Is Crucial
The International Labour Organization reports that over 313 million on-the-job accidents occur annually. These accidents cost the global economy an estimated $3 trillion dollars a year. Yeah, that is a lot of money. The combination of an aging workforce, increasingly complex manufacturing line, and a skills gap translates to industrial safety being more imperative than ever.
Work-related injuries halt production, delay cycle times, and prevent manufacturers from meeting production demands or deadlines. In addition to the human cost, injuries at work tend to be extremely costly. Lawsuits and health insurance have the potential to cripple manufacturing businesses. This is one reason why manufacturers are constantly turning to augmented reality to improve industrial safety and boost productivity.
How to utilize AR to improve work safety
Augmented reality is the merging of the digital and physical world. It adds to your world, instead of replacing it – like other methods do. AR can bring a new level of clarity to workers. AR is used to provide more in-depth training, thorough on-boarding procedures, real-time instruction and guidance from experts, and instant hazard warnings to workers.
Improve Quality of Training and On-boarding
AR has proven to be tremendously effective in ramping up the learning curve for new employees – making them less likely to make dangerous mistakes. Manufacturers using PTC’s augmented reality training for new employees are reporting a decrease of 30-50% in onboarding time for new employees.
AR also drastically helps improve quality of training. Studies show that training through augmented reality helps workers retain more knowledge. With AR’s demonstrably-improved training, workers are much less likely to make critical mistakes on the floor or in manufacturing.
3D Work Instructions
Traditional operation manuals are hard to decipher and learn from. Operators, assemblers, and technicians need to be aware of certain safety risks when working on certain types of machinery. 3D work instructions can help workers prevent a malfunction occurring in the first place by giving them a better understanding of the parts they are working on. Through AR, you can map 3D work instructions over a worker’s field of vision. This gives a more immersive illustration of a part, making it easier for an employee to visualize how it would malfunction.
Real-time Safety Alerts
Augmented reality doesn’t only limit and prevent malfunctions, but it also alerts employees of potential dangers quickly. Before, workers had to rely on his/her own understanding when a safety threshold had been surpassed – leading to potentially damaging human error.
AR headsets can now be connected to the network of information provided by machines. This information can be relayed through the AR headsets to trigger real-time alerts that warn a worker when a procedural step could be unsafe. These real-time alerts transform manufacturing workplace safety and even have the potential to protect workers from making serious mistake.
Access to Remote Experts
The skills gap is growing larger and larger – with 22-25% of the manufacturing workplace approaching retirement. This loss of experience presents a unique safety risk to the manufacturing industry. In the same way that employees need to have hands-on training and safety alerts, they also need the ability to speak to experts when carrying out unfamiliar, complex tasks or procedures.
Technologies, such as Vuforia Chalk, allow workers to speak directly to experienced workers while they’re about to perform a potentially dangerous task. Having a remote expert on hand is the lifeline that workers need in today’s evolving manufacturing world.