INDUSTRY NEWS
AUGMENTED REALITY
VUFORIA
AMRC signs landmark deal with PTC
A network of world-leading research
and innovation centres has taken one
of the UK’s largest ever deployments of
Augmented Reality (AR) technology.
The University of Sheffield Advanced
Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC),
which works with more than 120 industrial
partners including Boeing, Rolls-Royce,
McLaren Automotive, BAE Systems and
Airbus, has signed an agreement with PTC
to implement Vuforia® Expert Capture
(VEC) software across its three sites in the
UK.
This product allows tasks to be recorded
using a wearable device and this content
can then be turned into a step-by-step
video guide with instructions for workers to
implement at multiple sites and companies.
The agreement builds on a long-term
relationship between the two organisations
and comes after VEC played an integral
role in remotely transferring manufacturing
expertise safely to a number of new
production lines supporting the build
of over 13,000 ventilators for the
VentilatorChallengeUK Consortium (VCUK).
“Vuforia Expert Capture will be used
primarily by our Factory 2050 teams to
deliver upskilling and reskilling solutions for
our aerospace partners, with the potential
for much wider application into other
sectors,” explained Professor Rab Scott,
Head of Digital at the University of Sheffield
AMRC.
“Our involvement in VCUK gave us firsthand
experience of the power of AR in
helping to quickly set up new manufacturing
lines safely by rapidly transferring
production knowledge to different facilities.”
He continued: “It has the potential to
transform future supply chains and this is
something we wanted to explore in more
detail by giving researchers, our existing
manufacturing partners and SMEs easy
access to VEC and other PTC technologies.
“We already have a number of projects
where we think it will accelerate
Airbus employees using VEC technology as part of the VentilatorChallengeUK
consortium project
the deployment of solutions into
manufacturing.”
PTC, one of the world’s leading providers
of industrial innovation technology,
became a Tier One Partner of the AMRC
in 2017, with its ThingWorx® IoT platform
helping connect machinery and devices at
its Factory 2050 facility.
This latest deal is one of the largest ever
signed for Vuforia Expert Capture in the
UK and will see the AMRC become a
lighthouse demonstrator for its growing
range of digital technologies and
Augmented Reality solutions for industry.
In addition to VEC, experts at the research
and innovation centres will also be able to
maximise the capability of Vuforia Chalk, a
remote assistance product that leverages
AR to help employees collaborate in
operational, maintenance and repair
situations.
The technology is like Facetime, with
augmented reality superpowers for
industrial settings, with the emphasis on
being easy to set up and use.
David Grammer, UK Country Manager at
PTC, went on to add: “The high-profile
nature of the VentilatorChallengeUK has
really thrust Augmented Reality into the
spotlight and proved that it is a technology
that manufacturers can easily adopt and
successfully implement now and not in
five, ten or even twenty years’ time.
“Using Vuforia Expert Capture and Vuforia
Chalk allowed us to parachute a virtual
Smiths Medical manufacturing expert into
new production lines, giving engineers
who had never worked on ventilators
before access to all the guidance and
advice they required to complete the
build.
“AR reduced the time taken to create
the new supply chain by a number of
weeks and also protected all the workers
involved in the project by ensuring staff
were not moving from site to site, reducing
the risk of Covid-19 spreading.”
He concluded: “We now want to increase
the adoption of Augmented Reality and
remote assistance in other manufacturing
environments and the AMRC will provide
a perfect gateway to engaging with
research projects, new supply chains and
in the development of new products.”
For further information, please visit www.ptc.com/www.amrc.co.uk or follow @ptc on twitter.
Issue 46 PECM 23