Hiren Kanani

Hiren Kanani

February 7, 2023 13 minutes to read

AR Remote Assistance: A Definitive Guide for Frontline Workers

AR Remote Assistance: A Definitive Guide for Frontline Workers

The rapid advancements in technology are transforming the industrial workplace. The shift towards digital transformation is affecting the present and future of organizations, especially in the industrial sector. Augmented reality (AR) has been a key player in this transformation journey, offering new and improved ways of conducting business after the Covid-19 crisis. As organizations strive to become smarter and more efficient, the adoption of industrial AR solutions has become a crucial part of the competitive landscape.

According to a Statista report, by 2024, there will be an estimated 1.7 billion mobile AR user devices worldwide.

AR remote assistance is a powerful tool that has the potential to revolutionize the way organizations operate. It streamlines operations, improves collaboration, and facilitates effective remote assistance and inspections. Frontline Workers will benefit greatly from the use of AR remote assistance, as it allows for real-time collaboration, reducing the need for physical presence, and improving overall efficiency and productivity. In this guide, we will delve into the world of AR remote assistance and explore how this technology can help organizations thrive in Industry 4.0.

What is AR Remote Assistance?

AR remote assistance is a cutting-edge technology that enables remote collaboration between experts and technicians using augmented reality (AR) tools. With AR remote assistance, a technician at a physical location can receive guidance from an expert located elsewhere, without the need for the expert to be physically present.

From field technicians executing complex repairs to medical professionals seeing their patients, AR remote assistance has done wonders in getting desired outcomes. Moreover, teams can perform the task on dangerous equipment without putting workers’ lives in danger, and technicians can now successfully maintain machines they have never used before.

Gone are the days when organizations had to wait long for field technicians to come and solve the issues. Thanks to AR remote assistance, which can be used easily and prevents delays. This increases productivity and first-time fix rates. These, of course, correlate to cost savings.

In simple terms,

AR Remote Assistance: Simplifies Operations + Saves Time + Saves Money

AR Remote Assistance  – A Smart Solution for Every Role

Many organizations face certain challenges like increased travel costs, recurring daily visits, troubleshooting issues, and many more. And to meet today’s business needs, traditional old ways of collaboration and support are not sufficient. Hence, if the problems are modern, then why go with old solutions? A Remote Assistance based solution can help you overcome these challenges and drive a tremendous amount of value in every role, whether it is pertaining to field technician, technical expert, or customer:

Field Technician

AR remote assistance helps to overcome on-site issues and get accurate and assertive instructions in real time. They can capture the content of images and recordings from service sessions while consulting with an expert. This saves lots of time, as well as fixing technical issues.

Technical Expert

AR Remote assistance makes it possible to collaborate with multiple users and receive or impart assistance to the worker, resulting in better decision-making. It helps quick and direct knowledge transfer between experts and learners.

Customer

One can have a different and unique experience with remote visual assistance with AR support. Customers can visually demonstrate the issues, which allows experts to provide troubleshooting actions and resolve them remotely in real time. This is how customers are more satisfied after receiving efficient resolutions.

Introducing Plutomen Connect

Benefits of Augmented Reality AR Remote Assistance

Benefits of AR Remote Assistance

With AR-powered remote assistance platforms, industries can better assist their workers whenever needed. Moreover, in today’s tech world, various industries are adopting this change to enhance their processes. This remote assistance with AR support has improved industry processes by providing solutions to critical problems.

This was just the overview, there are many more benefits of AR remote assistance for frontline workers. Let’s explore some of the benefits:

Easy Connection to Remote Expertise

Many industries are now familiar with AR remote assistance and are reducing the obstacles that are coming their way of organizations growth with Augmented reality. It helps in minimizing the risk related to task completion. Moreover, almost every aspect of the network can be monitored and managed in real time from a single location. It provides easy access from anywhere in the world and also empowers your staff to work remotely.

Reduces Machine Downtime

During critical situations, Remote visual assistance allows field technicians to collaborate with remote experts remotely rather than sending a service technician on-site. As a result, this reduces machine downtime and can complete difficult tasks faster and more accurately.

Cost Effective

Through AR solutions for remote assistance, workers can remotely connect with an expert to solve complex issues. Moreover, process efficiency is maintained, and cost savings can be seen as they do not need to travel to repair or install equipment as they can connect with experts anywhere, anytime.

Better Worker Safety

AR-assisted Remote Support ensures workforce safety in training, assistance, and troubleshooting on-site issues. Through proper digital workflow one can identify the areas where precautions are needed and how to carry out the procedure. This solves the issues faster and avoids industrial accidents.

Increases Productivity

Getting expert guidance, usually in industries, is very difficult. But with the help of remote assistance, you can have experts remotely, increasing worker productivity. It brings the real world virtually and resolves issues more rapidly.

Downsizes Carbon Footprint

Augmented Reality offers virtual remote assistance that saves the travel cost of your experts, fuel spent on travel, and emission of poisonous gasses. As a result, AR downsizes your carbon footprint.

Moreover, in the last five years, certain environmental and technological factors have led to the adoption of AR Remote Assistance.

Factors Responsible to Adopt (AR) Augmented Reality Remote Assistance

Nowadays, AR remote visual assistance is one of the most innovative transformations that have been introduced in the industry. As it fulfills all the demands by offering expert guidance through real-time video collaboration. But you might be thinking, why is its importance increasing day by day? Hence, we have shared some factors that have influenced the need for remote visual assistance.

COVID-19 Restrictions Lead to Market Urgency

Many industries have not adopted AR remote assistance until and unless the Covid-19 pandemic breakdown. The majority of the industries were affected by the lockdown orders, and plus they had to follow social distancing norms. Here, RVA came into the role and helped the industries in overcoming the obstacles of lockdown and social distancing. Through this, operations were carried out seamlessly with the help of remote assistance. Where in-person attention was needed to solve machine issues, now an expert is needed to resolve the issues through remote assistance. RVA has proved more than just to solve issues. It supports quality, productivity and enhances efficiency.

Shifting Employment Trends

The increase in an aging workforce and many resigning from their full-time jobs have led to a shortage of well-qualified and trained personnel. Due to this, many organizations are turning towards AR remote assistance to upskill and train their workers with new technologies.

Continuous Improvement

Organizations are always willing to boost productivity, efficiency and service quality. Hence, the adoption of remote visual assistance has proved beneficial to them. Through RVA, it improves first-time repair rates, machine downtime and enhances productivity.

Emergence of New Technology

Many new technologies are available that help the industry face the competitive world. Its main aim is to provide recurring revenue streams with the help of technology that can enhance outcomes. The most desired outcome for any industry is to have a high-quality product. Hence, to fulfill this desire, AR remote assistance enhances frontline capacities by streamlining knowledge throughout all your process.

Revenue Growth Opportunities

AR-powered remote assistance helps organizations to resolve issues remotely in real time. Through this, technicians in the field can receive proper guidance directly from their mobile device, such as a smartphone, tablet, or even a pair of augmented reality glasses, such as RealWear.

Which Industries are Using Augmented Reality Remote Assistance?

In the Industry 4.0 era, organizations are trying their best to transform their frontline workers digitally. And AR Remote Assistance solution has made this possible. This solution creates value in your company and assist your team members. Following are some use cases of AR Remote Assistance Software:

Maintenance

Maintenance has always been an essential component across a wide range of industries. The maintenance sector has seen substantial growth as far back as the 1990s and earlier. Augmented reality is an emerging technology that has already shown great promise for improving maintenance performance. AR essentially allows a user to see the real world, except that this view is augmented with computer-generated graphics overlaid alongside real objects. This augmented view is displayed to the user through an electronic device such as a camera-equipped tablet or a head-mounted transparent display. Augmented reality, in a nutshell, allows users to enhance their field of view with real-time superimposed digital information. But, more than that, it is a valuable solution for many of the challenges which surround industrial maintenance, repair, and operations.

Consumer Electronics

Whether supporting home appliances, smart devices, or wearable, customer service agents who provide assistance with consumer electronics benefit from using remote assistance augmented reality. The technology helps agents better support customers throughout the lifecycle of their equipment, from installation and setup to updates and repairs.

Insurance and Financial Institution

Forget personal visits to claim your insurance on devices, vehicles, and other things. With AR Remote Assistance companies can check the damages to your devices or vehicles and claim the insurance accordingly. It is also used for customer identification through visual support. Insurance companies have found additional value in visual claims, allowing customers to transmit images and videos of their claims to adjustors for faster and more accurate claims processing, more efficient remote adjustment, better risk classification, improved documentation handling, and reduced fraud.

Communication Service Provider

A communication service provider delivers a wide range of hardware devices and services to consumers. AR remote assistance ensures more efficient issue resolution and less costly hardware replacement. For example, an agent can see the connections on the back of a customer’s set-top box, router, or modem. They can then immediately understand the problem and guide the customer to the correct connections.

How Plutomen’s AR Remote Visual Assistance Solution Works?

how plutomen connects works

In difficult times, the knowledge of an expert always becomes a guiding light. And this One-button solution becomes a bridge between an expert and a technician.

AR remote assistance is more efficient as compared to auditory communication, as visual instructions are understandable and can easily execute. Moreover, it levels up your customer service by allowing your support to access the faulty machines right off the first interaction. These speeds up the resolution and leaves the customers satisfied. Let’s learn how Plutomen’s AR Remote Visual Assistance Solution Works:

Connect

  • First and foremost, log in to connect with the user and the team. Plutomen Connect makes it possible to access your smartphone contacts through which you can directly connect with all your team members.
  • The registered user can access a link or code to make calls accessible for Guest Logins on an ongoing call.
  • The guest user can connect by clicking on the link.

See

  • Once you are connected, you will see what that person is actually seeing, and this makes easy communication between experts and workers.
  • This will assist a person in fixing an issue remotely and quickly.

Guide

  • Plutomen Connect offers different features to help you collaborate effectively and guide remotely.
  • Features such as, to add annotations to showcase a particular point in the ongoing call with experts, teammates, or industry leaders.
  • You can access AR-based remote assistance with smartphones, tablets, or smart glasses.

This was how Plutomen can ease your work, now let’s dive deep into some of its fantastic features:

What are Some Features of Plutomen’s AR Remote Assistance Solution?

features of Plutomen Connect

Here are the key features of our AR remote assistance software that help you to see the issue, collaborate, and complete tasks with double speed.

Pointer: This feature is used to highlight a particular part or area on the screen that needs to be repaired.

Zoom: Use Zoom for better understanding and to ensure that you don’t miss any important details.

Freeze & Screenshot: While instructing the technician on video, pause the screen in real time and can take a screenshot for future reference.

AR Annotations: AR Annotations tools are used to draw and write on the screen to emphasize an issue.

Share Image and Screen: Share images of the screen on call or the entire screen to better understand the issue.

Record: Record video of your sessions and build a secure knowledge repository to use whenever required.

Future Seems Promising for Industries Implementing AR Remote Assistance

The future definitely seems promising for the industries who implement AR remote assistance. According to Goldman Sachs, the augmented reality market could become an $80 billion industry by 2025. In fact, the 2018 Gartner Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies names augmented reality as an emerging technology mega-trend, showing promise in delivering a high degree of competitive advantage over the next 5-10 years. Hence, this indicates that it’s high time for enterprises to explore “Augmented Reality” to understand the future impacts to their operations.

Today, many companies are already using AR technology to effectively work and better understand problems. Some of them are mentioned below:

NASA

NASA is using HoloLens AR headsets to build its new spacecraft faster. Lockheed Martin engineers wear the goggles to help them assemble the crew capsule Orion—without having to read thousands of pages of paper instructions.

Bosch

Bosch created a development platform (CAP) in the automotive industry that allows for device-independent AR applications. In a field of study at Bosch Car Service workshops, they discovered that the use of AR applications achieved a time savings of 15 percent and allowed mechanics to see the location of hidden components along with instructions and repair guides. This helps to avoid undertaking any unnecessary disassembly and assembly work. CAP also allows for the development of training applications as well.

Boeing

To assist engineers installing electrical wiring on an aircraft, Boeing developed and tested its own AR technology to provide real-time, hands-free, interactive 3D wiring diagrams right before engineer’s eyes. During the testing phase, Boeing has theorized that the AR technologies have shown a 90 percent improvement in first-time quality and a 30 percent reduction in the time required to complete the job.

Empower Your Workforce with Plutomen’s Augmented Reality based Remote Assistance Solution

Plutomen’s AR-powered Remote Assistance Solution is specially designed to empower the frontlines in an increasingly digitized working environment.

Our AR Remote Assistance solutions meet the needs of the industry to overcome challenges in an extensive range of use cases. In addition, it provides immense opportunities to speed up processes, boost quality, decrease error rates, and, most importantly, save costs.

Hence, reap a whole load of advantages by embracing AR-powered Remote Assistance in your industry.

Request Demo AR Remote Assistance

Augmented Reality Applications On Factory Floor

Explore use cases of AR for shop floor operations

Download Ebook
Hiren Kanani

Hiren Kanani

CTO, Cofounder of Plutomen

With 10+ years' experience of Hiren Kanani has helped Plutomen ensure smooth communication between the company and the client for swift project delivery with fewer iterations. He is CTO & founder at Plutomen.

Recent Blog

Check out our latest blogs and news on all-things in Augmented Reality.

Augmented Reality in Pharmaceutical Industry

Augmented reality (AR) is a cutting-edge technology that combines digital data with the physical world. In recent years, the pharmaceutical industry has focused on AR as a powerful tool for improving various aspects of medical training, product demonstrations, patient engagement, clinical trials, medical visualization, and more. AR in healthcare is expected to grow from 0.609 […]

February 17, 2023

AR Glasses VS Smart Glasses: Understanding the Difference 

Over the last few years, we have seen Augmented Reality play a prominent role in the growth of Industry 4.0 operations and economy at large. Thanks to an increase demand of remote support and assistance due to pandemics, recessions, and war-like situations. As such, it’s no surprise that the industrial adoption of smart glasses and […]

December 1, 2022

What is the difference between AR, VR and MR? [+Use Cases]

Human imaginations are always awesome. Starting from the invention of the Computer in 1822 to 21st century, life is becoming easier, faster and technological. Various inventions proved to be revolutionary. For instance, Uttama Lahiri and her team at the Indian Institute of Technology in Gandhinagar, and their collaborators at AIIMS in New Delhi and AMRI […]

December 16, 2022