However, innovators are adapting wearable technology to business environments, including manufacturing organizations. Wearable technology holds application promise in such areas as production, warehousing, logistics, maintenance, safety, and security.
The smartglasses form factor offers usability benefits, says Dan Cui, vice president for business development at Rochester, N.Y.-based Vuzix Corp., which manufactures a device called the M100 Smart Glasses that is marketed to enterprises. “One thing about tablets and cell phones, versus something that you wear, is that handhelds are an acquired technology trait for humans,” he told ThomasNet News in an interview. “Wearing a headset is more suited to human physiology, as opposed to something you have to pick up and hold in your hands.”
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Vuzix’s device is being used for warehouse applications, and the company is getting ready to release an application for field service.
Wearable technology will increase in importance and improve in capability as the Internet of Things (IoT) continues to roll out in industrial environments, according to Dave Edstrom, chief technology officer at Burlington, Ont.-based Memex Automation. As machines become more intelligent and increasingly networked, more information about their operations and status will become available on the shop floor. The information cloud is creating an environment in which wearable technology can be of great utility.
That doesn’t mean it will be easy to pull off, Edstrom cautions, in speaking with ThomasNet News. “The 'last-meter' problem will become exponentially more important with wearables,” Edstrom said, referring to the challenge of capturing machine-generated data wirelessly and integrating it into the company network. “It will be expected that as someone walks around the plant, they can automatically gather data from any device that has a 'digital heartbeat' -- provided they are authorized to,” he said. “It sounds easy, but the necessary steps to make that a reality are anything but easy.”
Implementing such a regime first requires the organization to structurally “know what is happening anytime, anywhere, on any device,” Edstrom said. “This means that the first step before wearables will be to make sure you are real-time-monitoring your plant. Only then does embracing wearables make sense.”
Indiana Technology and Manufacturing Companies (ITAMCO), a precision gear shop based in Plymouth, Ind., has developed a cloud-based app for Google Glass that allows a user to receive data from the manufacturing production environment over a network built on the MTConnect standard for machine communications.
Joel Neidig, technology manager at ITAMCO, told ThomasNet News that the company is using its Google Glass application in-house, refining the technology, and seeking partner companies that could benefit from the smartglasses in their own enterprises.
“We’re using it for monitoring machines that are in-cycle and for part-tracking,” Neidig said. The smart-glasses form factor “makes great sense especially in manufacturing,” he noted, since the plant floor is “where we all have to wear eye protection. Also, it’s nice to have something hands-free, because we’re always working with our hands.”
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This article was originally published on ThomasNet News Industry Market Trends and is reprinted with permission from Thomas Industrial Network. For more stories like this please visit Industry Market Trends.