Industrial Smart Glasses Improve Productivity and Reduce Costs

In the factory and warehouse, smart glasses are helping workers get the information they need in order to perform their job more effectively. Instead of hand-held devices and scanners, smart glasses help employees receive direction and visual cues directly in their field of view.

As industrial smart glasses evolve, they’ll continue to deliver more benefits for businesses and employees. But how can you determine if this technology is right for your supply chain?

Increased Productivity

As digital transformation is transforming industrial industries, it has become necessary to adopt new technologies that can help them increase productivity and reduce costs. These technologies may include augmented reality, virtual reality (VR), mobile device integration and cloud computing.

Using smart glasses in industrial settings can improve the performance of workers by allowing them to access information and data without having to leave their work area. This can help them be more productive and get their tasks done quicker, saving businesses time and money.

Another way that industrial smart glasses can improve productivity is by reducing errors and inefficiencies. When workers have access to detailed instructions that are overlaid on the work they are doing, they can complete their jobs faster and more efficiently than ever before.

This is especially beneficial in hazardous or industrial environments where it is difficult for workers to see what they are doing. With AR glasses, they can overlay data and instructions onto their surroundings so that they industrial smart glasses are aware of any dangers and can avoid them as much as possible.

In the past, completing complex tasks required organizations to send out technical specialists to job sites all over the world in order to complete them. This often resulted in long travel times and expensive expenses for companies.

However, with the rise of remote-guidance technology, these problems are no longer as significant. Now, a company only needs to source an entry-level engineer near the job site and fit them with a pair of enterprise-grade smart glasses that allow them to connect to remote specialists to complete their tasks by proxy.

This technology also allows employees in different locations to communicate with each other easily, reducing the need for costly travel expenses and time delays in completing tasks. This also increases productivity by reducing mistakes and inefficiencies, which can help companies save money while improving the overall customer experience.

Reduced Errors and Inefficiencies

With the right hardware, smart glasses can improve productivity by putting information in a worker’s field of view. This allows workers to access critical information on a transparent or very small screen in front of their eyes, and it also improves the safety of working in confined spaces with restricted views like construction sites.

Industrial companies can significantly reduce errors and inefficiencies by equipping their workers with smart glasses, which connect the digital world to a physical workplace. This technology streamlines production, reduces risk and ensures quality, saving businesses time, money and resources.

Unlike tablets that require workers to shift their visual focus and at times, hold them in the hand, smart glasses put information directly into the user’s field of view. They also make it easier to share information with others, which can lead to more efficient and productive workflows.

Smart glasses can also increase productivity by reducing the amount of time it takes workers to complete tasks. For example, H-E-B grocery stores recently tested augmented reality glasses that reduced the average time it took warehouse workers to scan packages by 30 seconds.

Factory workers can also use their smart glasses to get step-by-step instructions for a specific machine or task without the need to take their hands off of a product, which can save them a lot of time and help keep them safe. In addition, QA inspectors can spot defects quickly with step-by-step instructions overlaid on machines that need attention and call other technicians to offer support in real time.

Manufacturing processes can vary greatly, making it difficult for workers to remember all of the steps they need to take. With Vuzix’s industrial smart glasses, assembly line workers can access step-by-step instructions, diagrams and video that help them understand the process and perform it safely and correctly.

With a combination of voice-based and camera-based technologies, smart glasses are able to provide hands-free devices for manual tasks. This enables employees to be more focused on their work, helping to cut down on errors and omissions that can cause a company to lose money.

Enhanced Safety

Industrial smart glasses enhance safety by providing workers with crucial data and instructions on their displays. They also help ensure the proper upkeep of equipment, reducing errors and inefficiencies. For example, Schneider Electric utilizes smart glasses to provide technicians with maintenance schedules and data, while Lockheed Martin uses AR overlays to guide technicians through complex assembly processes.

Moreover, smart glasses can reduce the risk of workplace accidents by consolidating multiple conflicting tasks into a single line-of-sight device. This can prevent a worker from losing focus on a power tool buzzing in their hand or stumbling over a schematic while standing on a ladder.

In addition, augmented reality can reduce the risk of occupational accidents by alerting workers to potential hazards in their environment. The Kinetic Reflex wearable, for instance, analyzes worker movements to detect ergonomic issues that may lead to injuries.

Additionally, smart glasses can improve safety by displaying step-by-step instructions that make it easier for workers to understand how to perform tasks safely. For example, if an electrical engineer needs to check a valve’s wiring, smart glasses can display the correct voltage and current values on the screen.

For field service engineers working in the food industry, Vuzix smart glasses are compatible with TOMRA Visual Assist, which enables remote experts to deliver expert assistance and share specialist knowledge through a video call on site. This helps minimize travel costs while still delivering the level of technical support needed for food processing equipment performance.

TOMRA Visual Assist also supports remote inspections, enabling customers to conduct inspections at locations that are difficult or impossible to reach in person. This enables clients to maximize uptime, optimize equipment performance and increase worker safety while ensuring COVID-19 compliance in sensitive or hazardous areas.

Smart glasses are becoming increasingly popular in the industrial space, as companies look to reduce operational costs while improving productivity and safety. In addition, they can help businesses overcome challenges with employee training. As career veterans retire, it’s important for manufacturing organizations to ensure new hires can learn the necessary skills to operate equipment efficiently.

Improved Training

Industrial smart glasses are an emerging technology that has the potential to improve training. They can deliver real-time information and instructions that can help new employees learn their job tasks more efficiently. They can also support quality improvement.

For example, if you need to train a new employee on how to operate equipment in your facility, you can use industrial smart glasses to present video demonstrations and other instructional material. Workers can watch training videos and interact with them in a hands-free manner, taking notes or performing exercises in real time as the training is happening.

Similarly, workers in healthcare can use AR glasses to learn how to perform certain industrial smart glasses medical procedures without the need to attend classrooms or other training programs. They can access telemedicine and assessment tools, and they can also use AR glasses to take notes and store data in electronic medical records (EMRs) for future reference.

These capabilities can help your business improve training and reduce costs. They can help new employees learn how to perform various tasks quickly and efficiently, and they can also help senior workers teach junior technicians.

This is especially important in heavy industry where labor cost is a high priority and skilled workforce development and retention are major challenges. In these sectors, the ability to see exactly what a worker is doing on the production floor can save them money by decreasing mistakes and increasing efficiency.

In addition to helping to increase the number of successful training sessions, industrial smart glasses also reduce the time it takes to get a new employee fully trained. It has been estimated that a newly trained operator can become productive in about 18 days, which is significantly less than traditional methods.

Additionally, smart glasses can help to reduce travel expenses by enabling workers to work remotely with technical specialists located in different countries. This remote-guidance capability is particularly useful when completing complex tasks that require the assistance of a specialist.

In order to assess the usability and feasibility of smart glass-based self-practice in nursing education, we conducted a pilot study. This study was limited in terms of the sample size, which impacted the interpretation of the results. However, it demonstrated that smart glasses could be a valuable learning strategy in nursing education for students who are struggling with core skills or who have limited access to educational resources.