THE FACTORY OF THE FUTURE

The Reality of the Factory of the Future

By Sanjay Jhawar, President, RealWear

The hype surrounding immersive connected worker technology has slowed, but the benefits of digital transformation are achievable today with the right tools and approach. Learn what this means for smart factories and the factory of the future, and how manufacturers can overcome internal resistance to new transformation efforts.
Over the past several years, manufacturers have implemented consecutive waves of connected worker technology as a part of digital transformation efforts. Few businesses, however, have successfully capitalized on the promise of the digitized factory of the future. The truth is that though connected worker programs stand to change how manufacturing companies operate, they need a bridge technology adapted to the unique needs of the factory enterprise and its workers. When ruggedized tablets, immersive virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) solutions were first launched, they were all the rage, and manufacturers experimented with them widely between 2014 and 2016 in initiatives designed to bring workers into the digital future. Industry experts made all sorts of marketing claims and predictions about their potential to rapidly change how industrial workers complete their duties and the value the emerging technologies would bring to organizations. At the time, more than one-third of manufacturers said they were either currently adopting or planning to adopt VR and AR technologies in the next three years.¹