Why industrial companies are accelerating their deployment of AR

PTC announced the release of its 2019 "State of Industrial Innovation" report series. The series provides an ongoing review and analysis of the industrial augmented reality (AR) and industrial internet of things (IIoT) markets.

Among the findings included in the latest "State of Industrial Augmented Reality" report: AR adoption has become focused on delivering enhanced methods of instruction, guidance, and training for front-line workers, enabling the workforce optimisation necessary to address the growing skilled labour shortage the industrial sector faces.

According to the "State of the Industrial Internet of Things" report: IIoT is poised to have a breakout year in 2019 as companies seek to improve operational effectiveness, reduce costs, and decrease risk inherent in the modern competitive landscape. Both reports explore the breadth of the increasingly multifaceted opportunities presented by these markets.

PTC CEO Jim Heppelmann says, "Organisations in industrial settings realise the urgency in improving productivity and streamlining operations to remain competitive and relevant.

"The insights offered in these reports validate that the adoption of industrial AR and IIoT is an important step toward achieving these goals.

Highlights from the report findings:

The State of Industrial Augmented Reality

• Industrial enterprises are the highest adopters of augmented reality, comprising nearly 60% of the survey responses, with efforts focused on improving worker performance and solving the skilled labour shortage faced by companies worldwide.
   
• 55% of use cases aimed at improving worker productivity focus on delivering instructions and guidance primarily within manufacturing, service, and training environments.
   
• Successful pilots are being moved to production within 12 months at a 20% higher rate, year-over-year, allowing early-movers to capitalise on the competitive advantage.

The State of the Industrial Internet of Things

• IoT is becoming commonplace in heavy-industrial environments, with applications expanding across discrete manufacturing in industrial factories representing over 70% of the survey responses.
   
• Comprehensive, pre-built IIoT solutions are driving more established use cases, such as operational intelligence (31% of total use cases), as well as emerging use cases, such as predictive maintenance (12%) across manufacturing, operations, and service functions.
   
• Data processing at the device or "edge-layer" (present in 68% of use cases) is a critical capability for solution providers and there are increasing requirements for the same capabilities at the IoT Gateway (37%) and Cloud (34%) layers.
   
• Industrial enterprises facing global pressures are seeing the need to quickly deploy IIoT to improve operational effectiveness. 89% of respondents to the 2018 IIoT survey are planning to move to production in the next year, up 6% from 2017.