Revolution trials augmented reality for diagnostics

Revolution Print in Ballarat has become the first printer in the country to trial Konica Minolta’s AIRe Lens augmented reality glasses for remote diagnostic input and service support.

The wearable technology feeds text and images to a small screen in front of the user’s eye, and has a forward-facing camera to send live visuals to engineers anywhere in the world. The remote engineers can instruct the user on what to do, and send images directly to the screen; users can also access step-by-step technical instructions using swipe gestures to move between steps.

Leon Wilson, director of Revolution Print, told Print21 that the technology has minimised downtime, increased productivity, and helped run the company’s Konica Minolta print technology 24 hours a day, five days a week.

“Being in Ballarat, and with the top-end equipment we have, sometimes fault finding and problem solving without visuals can be tricky.

“We have successfully used the AIRe Lens for both our AccurioJet KM-1 industrial B2 inkjet press and our MGI JetVarnish 3DS + iFoil digital embellishing press to identify issues. We are also receiving live instructions from trained engineers at the other end, to be able to get things up and running again without requiring an official service call and losing precious hours,” he said, adding that AIRe Lens is also “perfect” for additional follow-up training.

Mark Brown, national manager for product marketing at Konica Minolta, said that the trial, which has been up and running for two months, has been a positive experience for Konica Minolta and for Revolution Print.

“Leon was quite chuffed to be one of the first ones to be able to use it in the country. The experience has been great for him, because obviously when a machine stops, he stops making money. This is really about keeping his uptime where he wants it to be: as high as possible,” he said.

Konica Minolta last week demonstrated the AIRe Lens at the CeBIT technology show in Sydney, where guests were able to follow step-by-step instructions on the heads-up display screen to assemble a box.

Revolution Print was the second printer in Australia to install the Konica Minolta AccurioJet KM-1 B2 sheetfed inkjet print technology; Jossimo was the first, and Imagination Graphics in Sydney is currently installing the third KM-1 – the first in NSW.