In this six-part series (read part four here), we answer the most pressing questions about establishing AR in product development and scaling it from pilot to multiple use cases. You will get practical tips to get you started.

WHAT IS THE ROI OF AR? 

Deploying immersive AR is easy and fast. If you implement your AR software on Monday, you can run your first use cases by Friday. 

As a rule of thumb, measurable value is created wherever Augmented Reality can save real materials, work steps, or travel costs and time.

Once companies have identified these processes, they can use the experience gained to quickly identify other processes that can be optimized using AR. The cost per project drops, making AR increasingly profitable, and it pays for itself within a few months as it moves from the innovation process to regular operations. XR Streaming helps with technical scaling to distribute AR applications across the enterprise.

Companies can measure the return on investment (ROI) of immersive AR at multiple points in the product development process. A common metric is the time it takes a company to go from an idea to a physical prototype to a product.

In this process, companies can define and quantify a variety of KPIs. Typical metrics include

• time saved for the feedback process through collaborative work on digital holograms,
• material saved through virtual models,
• the average speed per iteration on the prototype compared to the analog process,
• the number of defects on a prototype in relation to the time it takes employees to find and fix the defects,
• and travel time saved.

Action Points: 

• Get an overview of all work steps in product development and check where a digital work step with AR can accelerate the process (faster iterations) or replace a physical work step (such as traveling to the site). This is where the ROI potential lies.

• Get an overview of the costs of a prototype, such as material and travel costs, calculate production errors and the time to fix them, and compare these costs with those of a digital prototype created and edited through AR collaboration without travel costs.