The biggest danger, when it comes to introducing a new technology across an organization, is to over-promise and under-deliver. 

During the early stages of any emerging technology, the use cases will be compelling but limited. To maximize the ROI of emerging technologies, organizations must carefully balance excitement about potential benefits with realism about current capabilities. 

In the energy industry, augmented reality (AR) and assisted reality (aR) adoption have both accelerated in the past several years, particularly as companies turned to new technology-enabled methods of monitoring and managing assets during the COVID-19 pandemic. Augmented reality (AR) refers to a computer-generated overlay to real-world objects, while assisted reality (aR) delivers digital content in a user’s immediate field of vision. Both technologies are about more than just wearable headsets and include the associated software and the user experience provided by the integrated solution. 

From a user experience perspective, the AR/aR rollout in the energy industry has often been less than ideal. Our first-hand experience across connected worker programs and emerging technology adoption with global energy clients has reflected this challenge. Many recent AR/aR adoption efforts did not reach their full potential. By over-promising and under-delivering, IT and innovation leaders ensured that frontline workers would eventually revert to legacy ways of working. Frontline workers began to suspect that AR/aR were being driven by empty hype. 

This backsliding on AR/aR is unfortunate, because AR/aR do bring significant benefits when it comes to monitoring and maintaining assets in the field. Among other benefits, AR/aR deliver:

• Remote assistance and guidance from subject matter experts to deliver more robust knowledge and assistance to frontline on-site engineers working on complex procedures 
• Workflow automation allowing on-site operators to create and establish an interactive audit trail process for others to replicate and follow
• Remote inspections of assets in line with organizational objectives to cut down on travel and associated carbon emissions

Problems in the Field: The Causes of AR/aR Adoption Challenges

In our experience, most problems related to the daily use of AR/aR devices were due to IT or innovation teams not understanding the nuances of assets, sites and frontline teams. Each site and asset presents unique requirements when it comes to AR/aR-enhanced inspections. If not addressed, frontline workers experience those unique requirements as baked-in limitations of AR/aR, particularly if they feel that they have not been consulted as part of the solution rollout.  

In one recent client engagement, users reported network connectivity issues when working in onshore assets surrounded by metal buildings. In the context of floating production storage and ship offloading, users regularly reported motion sickness when using AR/aR devices. Workers were also troubled by the absence of “hey, while you’re here…” conversations during remote inspections, finding that the narrowly task-oriented nature of a remote inspection via a wearable headset did not tend to provide a broader view of the state of the site/asset. This last roadblock was not due to the inherent limitations of remote inspections, but rather insufficient training on how to fully leverage the new tools..

In all of these examples, the message to the field workers was: The technology team that is pushing this new solution has not bothered to understand the basics of what you do every day.  

How to Smooth the AR/aR Transition

When launching a new AR/aR solution – and particularly when launching a new solution when a previous AR/aR effort has failed – technology and leadership teams need to think carefully about both their own blind spots and how the new solution might be perceived. In particular, they need to emphasize the value to the end user, tailor solutions to individual sites and involve frontline workers to drive business readiness. 

1. Emphasize the value to the end user 

As IT and innovation teams become enamoured with the potential of new technologies, they can fall into the trap of assuming that new technologies are inherently exciting to everyone. When deploying a new technology and explaining its many features, they often forget that they have a responsibility to articulate the “why” behind the technology. Frontline workers are not immersed in futuristic trend-spotting, and they are not likely to adopt something simply because it is new and innovative. They want to know that it will solve their current challenges better than their legacy solutions. 

Often, technology teams focus exclusively on the hardware: “We are deploying a wearable Augmented Reality headset that enables hands-free, voice-activated remote assist and work assist functionality.” 

For a frontline worker in a high-stress onshore refinery, this emphasis on learning new hardware will come across as a burden rather than an opportunity. Instead, descriptions and explanations of new AR/aR programs should focus on articulating the value to end users and asset managers. After all, an AR/aR solution is not simply a piece of hardware, but a combination of hardware and software that delivers a value add to the user. Technology teams might emphasize how AR/aR can lower operational costs and necessitate fewer helicopter flights for remote support. They can explain how the solution will deliver faster responses while presenting less risk to frontline workers, and how the solution will accommodate the constraints of offshore assets.

2. Tailor solutions to individual sites

Force-fitting an asset simply for the sake of standardisation is a surefire way to undermine new technology adoption.

An AR headset that is ideal for a refinery worker, for example, might cause motion sickness for oil rig workers, and such nuances can only be discovered through on-the-ground testing. Consequently, technology leaders should undertake trials and POCs for different assets and sites to identify context-specific challenges and opportunities before beginning an organization-wide rollout. 

An agile method of testing, failing fast, and further testing with first-hand users is the best way to ensure that the ideal solution is deployed for each particular asset, whether upstream or downstream, FPSO or fixed platforms or wind farm. 

Standardisation has benefits at an organisational level and does provide economies of scale, but if doesn’t serve the user, standardization is unlikely to yield better ROI than customization.

3. Involve frontline workers early and at every step

While thoughtful communication to employees is important (see point 1), deployment is a two-way street, and it is crucial to involve frontline workers in decision-making well before deployment begins. To enlist the help of users in developing the solution, organizations should focus on making them “sponsor users” rather than just users. This active involvement sets a baseline for success and helps identify constraints, and more importantly provides a community of users who will advocate for the solution with their peers.

A carefully crafted communication plan can include targeted messages designed to be shared by individual site managers, advertising the context-specific benefits of AR/aR adoption. Pre-deployment messaging can often be effectively shared through posters/stickers on shared assets such as terminals, desktops and laptops. 

Trainings on how, for example, to seamlessly adapt to a new headset must include ample opportunities for feedback, to ensure that no potential drawbacks or problems are overlooked. This feedback loop can be extended by ensuring strong channels for resolving technical issues, including clear instructions for who to contact for support to ensure minimum disruption.

An often-forgotten part of the adoption curve is ensuring sustained use of the solution. Periodic long-term engagement from the operations team or OLMs (Operations Landscape Managers) to collect data on the quality of new devices and services will feed into continuous improvement.

Conclusion: A Bright Future for AR/aR Deployment 

Energy companies should not assume that recent struggles with AR/aR deployment are the result of inherent limitations in the underlying technology. AR/aR can and will transform asset monitoring and management. So far, many of the challenges have been rooted in poor communication and planning, and a lack of focus on how simple site-specific factors like connectivity and motion might impact the effectiveness of AR/aR solutions. By focusing on the needs of frontline workers and actively adapting AR/aR solutions to individual sites and assets, energy companies can ensure that their next AR/aR implementation program will impress frontline workers, making their day-to-day work more safe, efficient and effective.