Technological innovation in the factory of the future
When you look at the world of industry in its broadest sense, whether it’s product design, production or maintenance, you realize that there is an almost water-tight boundary between information systems, on the one hand, which contain a tremendous amount of data from R&D departments and O&M departments (this data is ultimately the “digital intelligence” of the industrial group) and the operational reality of those operating on the ground, on the other hand, whether they are designers, employed in production or maintenance, or trainers and sales reps.
The IT industrial revolution is here, but there are still barriers.
In view of this, we believe that augmented reality offers a unique opportunity to create a genuine synergy between these two worlds, which will bring continued improvement in quality. How? By rendering this digital intelligence visible in people’s operational space and, in turn, by enhancing information systems in the light of observations from the operational level.
In addition to the technological challenges associated with this approach, we find ourselves confronted with real issues inherent in the competitiveness of industrial groups, and this gives us a unique opportunity to recommend breakthrough solutions for improving both the comfort and the performance of those working on the ground (time, quality, etc.).
By Lionel Joussemet, chairman and co-founder of Diotasoft
Specifically, what industrial projects are you already working on that incorporate augmented reality?
With the support of the NFI RA plan and as part of our strategic partnership with Dassault Aviation, we are creating augmented reality systems to help with factory production processes. In order to do this, we are working on picking out several absolutely key practical and technological challenges in the realistic deployment of augmented reality systems in industrial production processes. In particular, we are thinking of how the proposed systems can be adapted to the tasks and the skill sets of the end users, of how these systems can be installed in the factory in a non-invasive way and of how they can be connected to the relevant information systems.
