A sales employee presents a product at the customer’s site: all participants are wearing VR glasses and can see the product in a virtual space in front of them.

X-Reality: benefit from the new technologies!

 

X-Reality, or XR for short, stands for the merging of the digital and real worlds. This is made possible by immersive technologies which integrate digital elements in reality via an interface, such as AR glasses.

Four technologies are part of X-Reality:

 

  • Assisted Reality: supporting people through data glasses which are equipped with small displays and are usually voice-controlled

 

Engineer using data glasses when building a vehicle engine.
  • Augmented Reality: superimposing digital information on the real environment, for example with data glasses, a tablet or a smartphone

 

 
Augmented reality elements that are superimposed on the real environment are visualised on a tablet.
  • Mixed Reality: similar to augmented reality, however, the real and virtual worlds are interwoven with each other

 

A service employee video calls and explains the next steps to an engineer, who can see this information on data glasses.
  • Virtual Reality: closed digital simulations without any connection to the real environment

 

A woman wearing VR glasses dives into virtual worlds.

All technologies aim to provide the user with more intuitive interactions with the digital world and differ in their type and the level of extended reality they provide. For example, they can supplement reality through individual digital objects or completely superimpose a virtual environment on it.

 

XR-based innovations are an enormous boost for digitalisation and are becoming ever more interlinked with modern technologies. In a world that is becoming increasingly dominated by digital information, these human-machine interfaces harbour great potential for companies from a wide range of sectors to generate added value and competitive advantages. The question is no longer whether to use X-Reality, it is how and when XR will be integrated into your own business.

 

 

X-Reality – a magnet for many sectors

 

XR provides almost unlimited application options and enables unprecedented, almost real multi-sensory experiences. X-Reality has become an established part of the working day in the fields of manufacturing, sales, service and staff training in particular – in no small part due to the quick return on investment. However, the ROI is not the only attractive facet of XR:

 

  • Training: Seven out of ten industrial companies fear the loss of expertise when employees retire. XR can help collect knowledge and retain it in the shape of XR guides.¹ The onboarding time for new employees can also be reduced by up to 60% through the use of XR training applications.¹

 

  • Manufacturing: The efficiency of work processes in manufacturing can be increased by up to 30%, while approval processes can be achieved up to 86% quicker. In 2015, Airbus recorded immense efficiency increases in their quality acceptance processes. By integrating mixed reality technology, the company was able to reduce the inspection time for around 60,000–80,000 cable supports in the aircraft fuselage from three weeks to just three days.²

 

  • Service: 40% of industrial companies already use augmented reality for access to a remote expert for service tasks.¹ Almost 60% stated that they were able to see a measurable ROI when using AR services.¹

 

  • Sales: Eight out of ten customers shop where the best and most individual shopping experience is offered.¹ 72% of B2B customers also confirm that it is becoming increasingly difficult to convince them with new offers.² This means that conventional sales tools are no longer sufficient. XR product presentations can turn offers into custom, multi-sensory experiences and enable consumers to interact with the product. This also increases the probability of a purchase.

 

 

Live presentation of a complex product on site at the customer – no problem with innovative VR glasses.

 

From Airbus to Mercedes-Benz – XR in practical applications

 

The application areas for XR are numerous and are becoming ever more diverse: from remote assistance and step-by-step guides, to product visualisations or deployments in indoor and outdoor navigation systems.

 

See for yourself:

 

Several renowned industrial companies have already successfully integrated the innovative XR solutions into their divisions and are thus strengthening their technological advantage:

 

PACCAR – Truck manufacturer PACCAR uses Microsoft’s Dynamics 365 Guides software and the HoloLens 2 mixed reality glasses to train its employees more quickly.

 

AIRBUS – Using mixed reality, Azure Remote Rendering and the HoloLens 2 glasses, the aerospace company Airbus is speeding up the design and manufacturing processes of its aeroplanes.

Porsche – Thanks to immersive technology Porsche fans can experience virtual test drives on race tracks or use the AR Visualizer App to see their dream vehicles in front of their own garage.

 

Mercedes-Benz – The automobile manufacturer is using the remote assistance solution, Dynamics 365 Remote Assist, to reduce processing times for repair and maintenance work.

 

 

1 Accenture, 2019, Waking up to a new reality, Seite 42, https://www.accenture.com/_acnmedia/accenture/redesign-assets/dotcom/documents/global/1/accenture-g20-yea-report.pdf

2 NewScientist, 2016, Volume 229, Issue 3063, 5 March 2016, Pages 20-21: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0262-4079(16)60075-1

3 Vanson Bourne and ServiceMax, a GE Digital company, 2017, After the Fall: The Costs, Causes & Consequences of Unplanned Downtime