How is the food and beverage sector gaining efficiency with Augmented Reality?

Thanks to Augmented Reality we manage to blend physical reality and digital information in situ, about the tasks to be carried out, overlaying the instructions for any task onto the operator's field of view while they work. This technology can therefore improve the efficiency of the food and beverage sector.

Augmented Reality also helps in the learning process of new operators or workers, as they will have Augmented Reality devices that make the tasks to be carried out easier and let them interact much better with machines and production lines. In this way the learning path is much faster and simpler.

Augmented Reality for line changeovers in the food and beverage sector

The food and beverage sector is subject to constant line changeovers . Previously, information about these changes was passed on to factory workers through paper instructions, which are now obsolete, because:

• A lot of time is spent documenting knowledge.
• They are out-of-date paper manuals.
• It leads to inefficient and costly training.

Today, we have new technologies, such as Augmented Reality, to improve the key performance indicators of manual assembly and maintenance operations.
In this post on the Invelon blog we help you discover how Augmented Reality can help achieve great benefits in this field.

Benefits of Augmented Reality applied to line changeovers in the food and beverage sector

• Reduced downtime with more effective changeovers and maintenance. Thanks to Augmented Reality, changeover time is reduced, going from 2 hours to 40 minutes a day.
• Reduction of surplus and waste, reducing human error with better instructions at the workplace. According to PepsiCo studies, their surplus accounts for 3% of losses, that is, a total of 10 million euros.
• Greater workplace safety thanks to better instructions on the use, maintenance and repair of machines. It also digitalises the knowledge of specialist operators, since the proportion of workers leaving this sector through retirement is 88-94%.

Augmented Reality for training in the food and beverage sector

Traditional methods of industrial workforce training are expensive and ineffective. Increasingly, companies in the food and beverage sector are turning to Augmented Reality to help overcome the growing skills gap and keep their workforce competitive, something closely linked to the sector's high turnover, which currently stands at 40% a year.

Benefits of Augmented Reality applied to training in the food and beverage sector

• Augmented Reality speeds up the learning curve. The visual nature of Augmented Reality speeds up the productivity of new workers, who learn and retain knowledge better through images rather than words.
• Augmented Reality prevents loss of knowledge. Industrial companies will lose valuable technical knowledge when older workers retire. Augmented Reality can digitalise their knowledge and turn it into a guide for less experienced workers.
• Augmented Reality is more cost-effective than traditional training. Traditional training costs include printed manuals and documentation, travel to external training facilities and trainees' salaries. Augmented Reality greatly reduces this kind of training cost.
• Augmented Reality creates an efficient and very safe environment. Thanks to augmented reality there is greater workplace safety with better instructions on the use, maintenance and repair of machines, and it allows new workers to learn without any kind of risk and in a completely safe way.

Augmented Reality experiences and products for businesses

At Invelon we specialise in implementing Augmented Reality solutions for different types of companies. How do we do it?

Our software: Vuforia from PTC

Vuforia is a complete, scalable enterprise Augmented Reality platform. Our wide-ranging suite of solutions guarantees that we can offer the right Virtual Reality technology to any customer based on their business needs.

One of its applications is Vuforia Chalk, a tool that combines Augmented Reality technology with real-time communications to connect a technician in the sector with an expert so they can see and solve the problem. This helps employees with instructions and guidance without the technician needing to be physically present.

Now you have the chance to try Vuforia Chalk for 30 days in our free demo:

Another of its applications is Vuforia Studio, a tool for harnessing the richness of 3D and IoT information to deliver compelling augmented reality experiences that help improve efficiency, create better products and enable greater worker safety and productivity.

You also have the chance to try Vuforia Studio for 30 days through the following free demo:

Our hardware: Microsoft HoloLens 2

HoloLens 2 offers the most comfortable and immersive Mixed Reality experience, with industry-leading solutions that deliver value within minutes, such as the one mentioned above, Vuforia from PTC.

If you need advice or more information, do not hesitate to contact us and we will be delighted to assess your needs and the best way to help you.