By Dirck T. Schou Jr, CEO, Taqtile
From VMblog – For years we’ve been hearing about augmented and virtual reality solutions entering the mainstream, but year-after-year these future-looking consumer applications have struggled to find their mainstream niche. However, we believe 2021 is truly the year of AR – on the factory floor.
1. Disruption Management
The disruptions of 2020 have forced enterprises to aggressively explore and rapidly adopt remote work and automation solutions. At enterprise organizations in multiple industries, we expect to see a trend toward adoption of augmented reality (AR) solutions, as AR sits squarely at the intersection of remote work and automation strategies. AR is adept at leveraging existing expertise and sharing it quickly and efficiently across teams of frontline workers tasked with maintaining and repairing complex machinery. Expect to see mixed-reality platforms that will allow experts to efficiently author step-by-step processes that capture their knowledge for use in any operational or training capacity.
2. Skills-Gap Management
As we enter 2021, we will see the continued widening of the knowledge gap across many industries. Nearly one quarter of industrial frontline workers are age 55 or older, and they are retiring at a rate that is faster than new workers are coming in to replace them. To address this expertise depletion, we expect to see enterprise organizations install augmented reality (AR) solutions to aid in training. Ultimately, AR systems will become critical enterprise investments for capturing and sharing knowledge with frontline workers, ultimately reducing errors, improving safety, and increasing operational productivity.
3. Reinventing Manufacturing
Frontline manufacturing jobs haven’t experienced a digital transformation yet, mostly because the right hardware hasn’t existed – until now. Consumer-driven mixed reality headsets like Magic Leap and Microsoft’s HoloLens are beginning to permeate the enterprise market. Over the next decade, a majority of frontline workers will use some type of head-mounted, enhanced computing device in their work. Advanced augmented reality (AR) platforms will empower frontline workers to interact with digital information in a much more intuitive way, altering how industrial workforces are built, how staff is trained, and how knowledge is distributed and put to use.
Dirck T. Schou, Jr.
CEO
A business development leader by background, Dirck T. Schou Jr. is Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Taqtile. Prior to starting Taqtile, Dirck held leadership positions in enterprise software and hardware companies including Phoenix Technologies, nCipher, and Spring Wireless, and founded security company Vesper Networks. Dirck's career has been focused on growing technology companies from first customer to successful exit by defining and identifying market segment and establishing strong and effective partner ecosystems. Today he leads Taqtile's efforts to bring digital transformation to industrial frontline workers through Taqtile's Manifest platform. In his spare time, Dirck enjoys the outdoors with his family in the Pacific Northwest.
