News: Microsoft Video Shows Off BAE Systems' HoloLens-Powered Manufacturing Training Solution

Microsoft Video Shows Off BAE Systems' HoloLens-Powered Manufacturing Training Solution

While some in the augmented reality space are tweeting about future amazing immersive experiences and others are showing off cool experiments, Microsoft continues to move forward with tangible business solutions right now that show how the HoloLens can improve business.

In the latest example, Microsoft reveals how BAE Systems is using PTC's Thingworx Studio software on the HoloLens to improve employee training. Specifically, BAE produced a new visual training tool that takes workers, step by step, through the process of assembling green energy bus batteries.

"There's huge growth in this market, but it is unsustainable unless we embrace new technology," said Shawn Atkinson, a BAE Systems operations program manager, in one part of a new HoloLens video posted by Microsoft on Sunday. "Our production tempo is increased dramatically. We've brought on a lot of new people and that's forced us to look at innovative solutions to build product correctly every time. HoloLens has really become beneficial in allowing us to train new people on this product 30% to 40% more efficiently."

Image by Microsoft/YouTube

A key point made in the video presentation is that creating such AR guides using this setup requires little technical knowledge, an aspect that could encourage other potential enterprise AR users who may have, until now, been put off by the possible technical hurdles involved.

"We came along and we had a mixed reality solution to allow [BAE Systems] to create experiences for the HoloLens quicker and more efficiently," said Ryan Orwoll, PTC's senior director of production management, later in the video. "It's all drag-and-drop you don't need a lot of technical expertise, and you get up and running right away. It just makes it a lot faster and easier to get a lot of people using the experiences that were created with our software."

Another point that may encourage adoption is PTC's policy of allowing users 30-days of free trial access to the software suite.

"We had to find a platform that could help us scale and that's when we began the conversations with PTC," said John Kelly, BAE System's director of Empower Innovation, in the same video. "When I first tried a HoloLens, I quickly understood that this technology would have significant implications for our business, and that we needed to get out in front of it."

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Cover image via Microsoft/YouTube

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