Securing professional knowledge in the manufacturing industry with Augmented Reality

Topic

Companies in the manufacturing industry face the major challenge of structurally safeguarding professional knowledge and thus maintaining their competitive position. Professional knowledge is disappearing because professionals retire and the knowledge, they have built up is difficult to transfer to these new employees. Current forms of one-on-one instructional learning are very time-intensive and increasingly less feasible because there are fewer experts available. Work instructions do not sufficiently capture the necessary professional knowledge and the form does not match the learning styles and needs of the new intake.

Augmented reality (AR) and associated methodologies offer an alternative that enables accessible ways of capturing and sharing (transfer) professional knowledge. Capturing is supported by various sensors and algorithms to monitor actions. Information can be fed back in a more intuitive, personalized form at the right place, time and in the right context.

Manufacturing companies see the potential of this technology to solve their problem of knowledge retention and training of the broad new influx but lack the tools to properly pick up and deploy this. Due to the many uncertainties, companies do not dare to make the necessary investment.

Nine companies, two professorships, network partners from the XR & smart industry and a university department are joining forces in this application to create tools and guidelines to effectively use AR to capture and offer professional knowledge. Practical solutions are developed, evaluated, and general lessons are abstracted from them. The lessons learned, developed methodology and demonstrator setups are made generally available to the manufacturing industry that wants to use this technology to retain knowledge and optimal deployment of new employees, and companies that develop these types of technological solutions.

Partners

Global Electronics, Rinos, Polder staalproducties, Pactum, Pentas, Dyka, VDL Weweler, Elicit Online, Total Reality, Lucrato, Technohub Apeldoorn (TINT), KIT, IRhub, Garden of Kairos, TechYourFuture, Saxion, Universiteit Twente.

Duration

2023-2025

Financing

RAAK-mkb

Contact

For more information: Danny Plass or projectleader Sjoerd de Vries