A Study of Commercial Augmented Reality Applications in Manufacturing: A Subject Matter Expert Analysis

Augmented Reality (AR) has the potential to improve operations within manufacturing, but its use remains limited in industry. Poor quality of software applications has been reported as one of the reasons for the low adoption of AR in the industry. In this paper, nine commercial AR applications for the manufacturing industry were analysed using a Subject Matter Expert (SME). A mechanical engineer, a UX designer, and an AR technologist analysed the AR applications to understand how useful they are in assisting manufacturing workers, how good their user interface and interaction are, and how robust the technology is. It was observed that these applications explore the potential of AR to impact manufacturing by targeting relevant industry issues. It has been found that these applications have similar purposes, features, and interfaces. However, the analysis suggested they need significant improvements with essential aspects to be employed in more general industry contexts, such as the user interface, more personalisation, and others. Finally, the user requirements to help increase AR adoption in manufacturing has been presented.