Discussions from AWE 2023 – Part 1 – Challenges with Industrial XR Deployment

In this two part blog series, we will be detailing key takeaways from AWE 2023. iQ3Connect attended AWE 2023 in Santa Clara, California where we were invited by Jin An of LG NOVA to participate in a main stage presentation on how XR and AI will transform workforce training for industry 4.0. Part 2 of our blog series will cover this presentation and topic in greater detail. At our exhibit space, we had the opportunity to meet with XR leaders from various industries ranging from aerospace to medical devices to higher education. Most faced similar challenges in trying to scale XR to support everyday work processes within their organizations. These challenges fell into 3 main categories, which we have summarized below as Part 1 of our blog series on AWE 2023:

The limitations of XR experience creation using game engines: most of the companies we met had actively developed XR experiences built on game engines using in-house developers or through outside service providers. Regardless of the approach, the cost and time needed to create such experiences prevented further adoption of XR, with many of the XR experiences taking 6+ months to create and costing over $100,000. These companies were searching for a way to more quickly and cost-effectively build and maintain XR content in-house. The speed of the CAD-to-XR pipeline was fundamental to ensuring that XR product training would be available as soon as the product went to market and for providing up-to-date XR design reviews with internal teams, customers, and partners.

Empowering subject matter experts (SMEs) to build XR training: another common thread was the search for tools that would enable SMEs to build XR training. Their current process of PowerPoint training over web conferences wasn’t providing the level of engagement or knowledge retention that was required for trainee success. Existing XR authoring solutions were too complex and time intensive, SMEs needed to create XR training almost as quickly as they could create a slide deck.

Removing barriers to XR deployment and end-user accessibility: the final theme in our discussions focused on the barriers faced by these organizations when trying to scale existing XR experiences. Initial XR PoCs were able to operate outside the production environment and its corresponding IT restrictions and requirements. Once past the PoC phase though, IT and security hurdles severely inhibited deployment of these experiences to the intended audience. Moreover, as the wider audience generally had a more diverse set of XR devices (or in many instances only had PCs or tablets) compared to the PoC users, device incompatibility plagued large scale rollouts, often resulting in complete abandonment of the project.

The organizations we met came to AWE 2023 to find XR solutions that could address these challenges. They were drawn to iQ3Connect’s booth by our web-based platform focused on industrial XR. Our subsequent discussions focused on how iQ3Connect could address such challenges, a brief summary of which is provided below.

iQ3Connect’s web-based XR Training and Collaboration Platform enables teams to collaborate with CAD models in an XR environment (the CAD-to-XR pipeline) in a matter of minutes, while our Training and Experience Creator enables no-code creation of XR training modules so that SMEs can build XR training as easily as they can create a slide deck. Lastly, we remove deployment and accessibility barriers by enabling organizations to deliver XR experiences in a web browser and integrate into existing business tools such as SSO, PLM, or LMS. Users can access these XR experiences on any VR, AR, PC, or mobile device.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of our AWE 2023 blog series where we will be discussing our partnership with LG NOVA and our joint presentation on how XR will transform workforce training for Industry 4.0.

Jin An of LG NOVA and the iQ3Connect team at AWE2023