Gamification, Game On!

 Gamification still offering creative solutions for employee engagement 10-17

If you think gamification is only for kids, think again. Gamification is not just Pokémon, Clash of Clans, Fortnite, or Minecraft. Some games challenge us but are filled with incentives. If you look around and how everyday systems are being used to engage people or members, companies are finding new ways to engage their associates.

Here is the definition of Gamification (1)

the application of typical elements of game playing (e.g. point scoring, competition with others, rules of play) to other areas of activity, typically as an online marketing technique to encourage engagement with a product or service.

You may be surprised to find out how often this strategy is used and the diverse ways in which it’s used in everyday marketing and motivation. The strategy is similar to that of how casinos play the odds. They want to keep you interested and engaged to play a few minutes longer, spending just a few dollars more since the odds or the numbers are in their favor. 

To put the odds or numbers in your favor, IoT is even more valuable to provide feedback on what is and what is not working within your system. If you are a manufacturer you want to make sure that the gamification incentives are providing improved employee engagement, decreased injuries, and increased production. 

You can monitor safety light curtains, plc control activities, quality, and production tracking of parts. This provides the monitoring but what is it that adds the element of gamification?

One element of gamification is tracking. You must be able to make the statistics viewable to create competition and awards/rewards tied to metrics.

If the element you want to improve is safety and the performance you want to improve is to keep workers out of unsafe areas for example. You have light curtains for when personnel is entering unsafe areas, you can monitor the time they are exposed to the hazard and the same with monitored safety guards and switches. This information can be compared against injuries or just plain risk analysis and you want to incentivize operators to not go into the back of the machine and instead adjust and setup from the front. This may be more difficult or take longer but it reduces the exposure to the dangerous area. By monitoring and displaying operator performance you can reward and recognize good behavior. 

Badging has become one of the additional forms of recognition. Digital badging allows a user to have badges like perfect attendance, safety guru, top performer, etc on their profile. Some of these are internally viewed through private Microsoft teams sites, others are seen everywhere in places like LinkedIn. 

Many companies offer preferred parking for top performers and key contributors. You get the recognitions and save the wear and tear on your shoes and the feet that go in them!

Why is this important? Gamification is designed to develop competition and a high level of engagement. By building in gamification tools you’re encouraging repeated behavior, in much the same was as developing a habit, you’re attempting to have people engage for 2-4 weeks. 

Think about this; if you have your engineers all using the monitoring system daily to retrieve their data they are more likely to value that information and also return to retrieve it after that period. You’re getting buy-in from your department. If you include engineers who run their reports using a program like Linknet for their information gathering, this means opening the program, sorting the machines for which they are responsible, and reporting on their production numbers, you are developing a behavior. 

If the program has multiple impact points such as tooling, production, maintenance, administration, inventory, etc., you find that one department uses this program for their needs and unless you’re running the reports for the other departments, they continue doing what they’ve always done. This means of course you continue getting what you always got.

But you can, of course, gamify the condition where you have departments competing against each other for interacting with the system. This is a top-down approach and requires buy-in from upper and middle management. When a company invests millions in software like SAP, you can be assured that upper management has bought in before they cut the check for the back-office system.

Where we use gamification. Gamification is all around us. Have you seen where Facebook pages acknowledge your contribution to pages and they are given badges to acknowledge your viewership or contribution to a page? These systems are integrated into every aspect of our social media. LinkedIn acknowledges you as being well connected to their site. Sometimes offering premium benefits to you for free or little cost.

Hotels and Airlines reward you for engaging. Contests reward you for liking and sharing pages. It continues on and on. Waze gives you advanced identifiers based on your time and contribution. These tools keep you engaged and using the app.

How we use gamification. We can use the tool of gamification to implement a new change or role out of new products. People often resist change so you can reward those that embrace it by being an early adopter. Early adopters are the key to all effective changes and improvements. They represent the success of the change and also have to be the ones that prove out the new ideas. This type of reward system allows us to visibly (using a display board for the improvement), share in the success of those that are willing to embrace the change. 

As an example, we see where personnel who are given a choice will run jobs that they have run before and are familiar with in the production cycle. You can reward those that are willing to work on new projects and parts. Higher points are given to these jobs and it is reflected in their ranking.

The key to gamification success is constantly re-evaluating and adjusting the metrics so that people don’t get bored or lose interest. When used properly it increases learning and reinforces the principles that the company values. 

Some tips for gamifying your workplace.

1. Reset all contestants goals regularly. If you run it like an odometer on a car many of your people will find it too daunting and they will lose interest. Also, the winners lose interest because there is no competition.

2. Make it visible. Everyone should see the tracking because that also gets non-competitors interested and have a rooting interest in the winner. It also promotes it through the company, this provides recognition to the employee that may feel they are just a number on the plant floor and not recognized for their contribution. A company newsletter and a congratulations from the CEO goes a long way!

3. Make it fun, you might find out that bragging rights and a wrestling belt are more desired than a $10 gift card to the winner. Offering a choice is another option. Not everyone wants the same thing, recognize the difference in their desired language of appreciation. Sometimes offering a day off with pay or gift card or another option can give them an option that fits their desired recognition. 

4. Vary the grading system based on desired results. If you want to add gamification to sales goals to recognize teamwork and leadership, you have to be specific. If it’s just sales numbers don’t be surprised your best salesman is not your best teammate or mentor. You may even get other members involved where they get a point to give to their most important team player.

5. Automate. A system that requires you to implement a new tracking system just adds more work. Utilize your existing IoT tracking and add sensors or triggers where needed to gauge missing elements. Many display systems can add fields for new goals and add a baseline for the green or red requirements.

Does it work? There is some debate over the long term success of using gamification. Some studies show that over time people’s interest and desire to reach an accomplishment wanes in the same way an old game wears out its interest (2). 

1- Oxford Dictionary

2- How gamification motivates: An experimental study of the effects of specific game design elements on psychological need satisfaction by 

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S074756321630855X

Voice First Technology

Voice First Technology

Recently, “Project Voice” had an event. For those unfamiliar with project voice, their events focus around voice first technology. Incredible conference with new technology and new strategies for incorporating voice technology.

Growth has been exploding in the voice arena. See below, 39.8% growth in one year!

People are quickly adapting this technology and improving their life experiences. With all of these new devices, so too are the growth of applications for voice.

Medical was a very important focus during this conference. Voice technology is very helpful when doctors and nurses hands are occupied performing procedures. The though of being able to add additional options to record, detail,  note are all great but the amazing part is the thought of adding automation, changing settings, moving an operating table up and down, adding suction all by voice is a phenomenal new idea.

Think about how we interact with voice currently? Maybe you have a smart speaker in your home and you use it to check weather, your schedule, raise the temperature in your room or even adjust lighting. These are just scratching the surface.

Again if we think about places where your hands are indisposed, cooking in the kitchen and you need to look at a recipe, or are multitasking talking as you’re working on your car. These make your like easier

Go to the next level, the elderly, or handicapped without the use of their hands, this moves it from improving your life to a necessity of life! Imagine you need a automated chair to allow you to stand. Using your voice can change this aspect of someone who needs assistance to round the clock care.

Many neurological diseases are incorporating a strategy to help patients with these health concerns. Parkinson’s is one of these that were in attendance and discussed their needs for patients. 

Making information available through voice applications is a new area being developed. The blind have a difficult time using systems with just a modified Braille keyboard, the smart speakers provide access to more data everyday. It’s freeing to have more access for those with vision problems. Now those who don’t have access to interfaces for computer system information can access using voice. 

Project voice take the voice first attitude. Which along the same vein as, ” You see things; and you say 'Why?' But I dream things that never were; and I say 'Why not?' the famous speech by George Bernard Shaw, used by Robert Kennedy. Voice first promotes using voice over other forms of input, keyboard, mouse, etc. This is their focus.

Let’s look at the average person's commute. Commute times are increasing and with it the need for hands free usage. Robert Bruchardt from Mercedes Benz discussed how voice is improving safety in vehicles by keeping your hands off your phone and eyes on the road. It is an opportunity for safety that we all can embrace to make roads safer.

The conference highlighted similar strategies for vehicle driving challenges all the way down to food ordering apps. Organizing foods into better searchable engines is harder than most people think. For instance if you want to get a hamburger, it’s very difficult when a restaurant has a proprietary name like Big Mac or big boy since these make it more difficult for the engines to compile this information.

You need to realize that voice first strategy means that you have to combine direction “look up” or “find” , along with data, fettuccine Alfredo. This can make this a challenge and while it continues to improve we need to do a better job training our technology.

There were even companies who can test your technology and recognition without the need to go through the pain of customers becoming agitated with a poor interface or a bad interpretation program. 

Companies were there speaking on integration between voice and manufacturing workplace like Jeff Adams from Cobalt had tremendous insight into what is the next phase of technology integration. Using voice instructions to operate robots and equipment are here today.

There were many ethical discussions and panels regarding AI and voice. Much has been expressed regarding what can be heard within these devices and what is done with that information and who else sees the info. There were several discussions regarding protecting data and the hacking of these devices or ancillary programs. It was a significant part of the strategy for most companies. We need to address these concerns. 

AI is becoming more important as part of a voice first company interface. Artificial Intelligence is assisting with the voice comprehension aspect. Once the voice is received by the smart device microphone section of the device the understanding of the words is critical to the success of the program. 

Dr Shamoon was presenting on the difficulty we have in communicating big ideas in just words. Below are 2 sample sentences which illustrate how easy it is to confuse programs by voice when we make assumptions. Our brains can understand these assumptions but a computer does this through understanding the probability of what word or phrase you are wanting to convey.

Why should you care? With the significant growth of smart speakers and now the mobile version you can put in your car, we are seeing more and more companies writing for these devices. 

Many people only see these as a hands free device for convenience but in the same way as we have become dependent on our cell phones and they have become our go to place for our data, searches, communication and access, the smart units are quickly becoming the interface of choice. By no means should we think of this as a replacement to other devices like our phones or tablets, it is instead a convenient method to interface with our devices.

The big picture for manufacturing and IoT is that these devices make interfacing with our current systems a bit more convenient when the application warrants a hands free option, or in the case of many, when you need another hand. 

The designers of these devices are designing simpler programming interfaces so anyone can program using these devices. This open platform design has accelerated the app development. This is where many companies will find their niche in the future. I can’t stress enough that we have proven historically that we will invest in convenience. We spend more on cell phones than we did 20 years ago with the new phones coming out at around $1,000. Why? Do we need this to make a call, no. But, because we are paying for the all in one service where the one device can perform all of the systems in one device. Can we do this currently? Echo show can search, play music, show you pictures, access the Internet, update your calendar, make lists all by voice. 

Siri is another area that is expected to attain more utilization but needs a bit of a push to make it a more open design so app makers will want to build for this service. 

All of the big players were in attendance ( Microsoft, Amazon, Google) so you know they see the long term merit to designing for voice first systems. Don’t sleep on voice first, oh that reminds me to set an alarm on my smart speaker.

A Connected Life

 A connected life during Covid 19.

Fear ! Everyone today is experiencing a level of fear most of us have never experienced in our lives. We all need to adopt a system of social distancing and this is problematic for those of us who are older and have been very social creatures in the old face to face way. Our younger society members have had a level of social interaction virtually, they’re entire life! We can all take a page from this book as we adapt to a connected life.

When I think back a long time ago to my childhood, the technology landscape was very different. We didn’t even have home computers in most households. Now today, kids are bombarded with technology. I suppose this made for a simpler time but does that mean better? No, I wouldn’t say so.

In these days when most homes now are semi, self quarantined its even more important to stay engaged.

Many yearn for the old days but I say we are in the golden age of technology. Kids today live a connected life. It was even recommended during this time that we play video games to keep from getting too restless.

Does your technology make your life worse? I wouldn’t think so. Some people want to pick and choose the technology they would live without. 

Would I want to live without electricity, air conditioning or indoor plumbing? No, not by a long shot. There are many books out there published about a simpler life, engaging home farming and taking these creations to times when most everyone was a farmer, no matter how big or how small, most everyone farmed. According to pbs Death of a Dream - sustainable future (1) 90% of the population in the 1800 s lived on farms. Today only 1%. Is this good or bad? I think it would be better if we all did some farming to help offset our usage, same as doing something to reduce our garbage and something to offset our electric use, etc. With the pandemic we are currently experiencing it would have been better if we all had some level of self sustainability. All are a good thing and provide benefits. Some though would have us go back to the Stone Age when humans were fewer and had less impact and influence.

I for one am happy for the technology today and the opportunities it brings to us. Our children have never had the struggles that those in the 1800s dealt with and that’s good. They have modern medicine, technology beyond our wildest dreams and a lack of fear that allows them to pursue their dreams. 

The connected life allows them to adapt to the modern computer and the sequence of operations much quicker than we have in our lives. Have you ever handed a child a smart device and watched them maneuver quickly from page to page, while we flounder to figure out what we are looking for and how to find it? Their level of understanding is so much better than even their parents.

Younger generation move on quickly when a poorly designed app or a lousy interface doesn’t function correctly. They do not tolerate sub par programs. They have grown up with easy to use interfaces with intelligent and intuitive controls. These are all designed so that someone who has never picked up a device can move quickly. 

The curse of knowledge that older people have is they are used to older programs and interfaces and the way those function and we don’t adapt well to the newer connectivity. 

Since these programs are, for the most part designed by the younger generation, for the younger generation and start by not being tied to older systems and their antiquated designs. They are designed not engineered, meaning, they want the look and feel to be as important as the function. Be functional and fun if you’re trying to be part of a connected life.

Even for the more seasoned individual you find that your life is more connected whether you want it to be or not. Try to find an account you have in your life that is not connected? Most banking is now online and most services you pay for are paid online. Money? Cash? What is that? You find more people carrying less cash and live their lives via their credit card or bank card. Less checks are used as we use electronic transfers.

How do we balance our lives? Just because we exist in a connected world does not mean we can’t still enjoy the outdoors. When Pokémon go came out it looked like a scene from the walking dead. Pale teenagers who hadn’t been outside in months walked like zombies searching for their next find. Too often we look at how smart devices add a level of disengagement but there are opportunities for the opposite

In a recent article (2) the benefits of a smart home are discussed such as energy consumption. When you have smart controls in your home you can adjust the time of the usage, the duration, temperature, heat or brightness. All of these can reduce your electric bills. So often we find ourselves looking at the disengaged.

Amidst these challenges in the covid 19 smart devices can be a means of escape, a level of information, emergency preparedness, connectivity, and even our source for food.

Recently the food delivery services have seen a significant spike in deliveries and orders. For many trying to maintain the secure in place attitude, these services provide food but many others deliver much of our other essentials. 

For those working from home the services like zoom have had a huge increase.

For some business services like toastmasters (speaking and leadership) which was a business 90% face to face, now they are forced to adapt to the virtual world for their meetings. It’s impossible now to achieve these without a virtual component. Most meeting places, churches, restaurants, schools, senior living facilities are all on lock down. Business has changed completely. It will not go back anytime soon. Even after the safe in place discussion ends and we resume a normal life, we will find that businesses will adopt a greater level of working from home and virtual meetings.

Even for the gaming world which was almost exclusively online, now has to deal even more online so their face to face tournaments are now closed to the public and only exist in the virtual world.

The need for virtual products and using video remote in is becoming mandatory.

Adjusting to this new life has been easier for those who have lived it their entire life! The younger generation has been surrounded by electronics and has used this form of communication their whole lives. They have not seen the stir crazy results that many of us who have always travelled or spent much of our lives on the road are now experiencing. Your home can start to feel like a prison as all of the social engagement you had is taken away.

We can learn a lot from a lifestyle that we may not understand. The communication via devices, the social aspect of computers, all of what may feel new may just be the new norm. Precision Metalforming Association President, David Klotz was on an episode of Destiny of Manufacturing podcast (3) where he talked about how they are even adding a happy hour zoom meeting where all of the office people get together over a network while they have a happy hour cocktail and discuss the week and even share some of their life experiences dealing with working from home and the Covid 19 Virus.

Working from home challenges some of our systems. IoT provides a level of connectivity to manufacturing plants. You can now remote in or use web publishing to view production status, shipping numbers, downtime causes. All of these systems now become even more important. 

Stay safe, work and live smart!

1 PBS Death of a dream - sustainable future

2 the Tennessee magazine- smart answers to smart home questions 

3 Longevityindustries.com Destiny of manufacturing ep0318 David Klotz

IoT and Artificial Intelligence, Full Steam Ahead

 IoT and AI forge ahead in technology 10-7

Many of you have heard how Artificial Intelligence is going to change our lives. If you wonder what to think about this; expect this to be an understatement. Artificial Intelligence (AI) will touch every part of our lives. Internet of Things (IoT) and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), are connecting devices across our vehicles, throughout our homes, in every facet of business, and are changing the factory floor.

Sensors and smart devices are gathering data in copious amounts. The data is building our profiles through voice-operated devices in our homes and on our phones. Every piece of data that is gathered expands your profile outline. If you and I both log into amazon, our pages will most likely look very different. My interests and data build my profile and your info builds yours. This allows for customized experiences. I want to emphasize the word “custom”. 

It is this personalized and custom experience that makes us use these tools to purchase since it allows for quickly retrieving our past viewed items but also to view similar items. This is further experience through renewable items that are on subscription. Like reminders from our dentist to replace our toothbrush, you will receive reminders when your past purchases are set for renewal or you can further establish the time saving using subscriptions.

This same experience is being copied and mimicked throughout our lives on Facebook, Google, and many other data-gathering platforms. Data is the new currency. Amazon doesn’t manufacture products but fills your needs by providing solutions.

Whether you gather this data through hardwired switches or through sensors in our vehicles or temperatures in our homes. All of these help us find solutions. The gathering of the data can be done in numerous ways but the gathering and moving to the cloud is only the first piece of the puzzle

The next piece is processing your data. The process of data gathering has become much easier through the internet of things. Information is relayed nearly instantaneously from the source to the internet and quickly processed and compared, then transmitted into the proper format to your tablet, phone, or computer. If you live in a world where hierarchy and immediacy are important edge computing can add value. If you look at many of the machine controls, they have this strategy typically implemented where they can process safety and important data locally and pace the non-important information at times when the communication system is off-peak. This is often referred to as the Edge tier. Many systems gather through discrete sensors and switches and process through compatible SQL server systems and these can come in many forms including machine controls.

The way we actually gather the information has become simpler with integrated sensors and measuring devices. These connected or smart devices are all connected in a way that makes this information accessible from your location, as remote as it may be from the actual source.

Processing is where we actually do something with the data, even if that something is nothing more than moving it from one pile to another. We put the data into registers and compile the information. It may need to be added to the previous data or moved onto other systems. These memory registers typically hold the data for a short period as it moves it along to the next location.

Data comes into processing in many ways, it can be manually entered, it can come in from system processes or even be data brought in from outside. Think about in your home, your smart thermostat is constantly and directly monitoring data, you may have a camera which only gathers data when the sensor actuates from motion so it is remotely triggered and then we have things like your phone or other voice actuated device that requires you to actuate it in order for it to start acquiring data. All of this data is then processed through a modem and up to the cloud.

This acquisition phase may have some processing capability. In a factory, many sensors are tied into a system that compares the data at the machine level to determine if its good or bad part. In your home the voice actuated devices start to compile and determine if the command requires addition to files like adding to your shopping list or if it needs to go and retrieve data. These can act as bi-directional systems. Very handy when you want to look at a part print on an operator interface.

Other systems, such as the enterprise tier that may already exist, implement, and manage your business. These are shown above as Enterprise Integration. These systems run most of your existing back office and warehouse supply chain. In many cases, these systems are doing other purposes like inventory management, preventive maintenance, production scheduling, and quality tracking.

Integration is part of the next phase, this is where you are comparing against parameters from existing data or external systems. This is the first stage of the AI process of comparing the actual results benchmarked against historical results and anticipated outcomes. These neural networks developed automatically help us to have smarter and more intelligent expected outcomes. These lead to higher expectations and also give us more value from our data.

Adjustments based on current and past actual results mapped to the occurrence history. When we build up our information we increase our knowledge. We now need to convert information to knowledge to enlightenment. The information must produce improvement and a level of enlightenment which creates a new path of impactful details. 

The above picture from NIST represents a hardwired version of analysis, however in true artificial intelligence, the systems must be able to learn and develop its own networks that are responsive to what is learned based on what is important but also what level of impact that information has in the formula. Therefore the gates must be able to be turned on or off as to whether they are part of the formula and have an impact. You also need a way to vary the impact in that formula.

Think about a formula, a+b / (5*c)= result. We may determine that changes are occurring and require us to adjust the formula. Perhaps “b” doesn’t have an impact at all, or maybe b has twice the impact. Artificial intelligence must be able to expand and not have only hard-wired decisions where it would require a person to go in and reprogram these alterations.

Increase intelligence without human intervention, this is our dream scenario. Our long term desire is that the system will learn on its own and not require any influence. A baby learns items are different. A bottle is different than a cork. It’s different in size, in weight, in required strength to lift each item, how tight you have to grip, range of motion to carry it without running into things, inertia, etc. Even though the child doesn’t know why it’s adjusting to these differences, they will adjust to compensate for the difference. This is our desire for machinery to learn in this way. 

Language in the way we communicate we must have a common understanding. This could be a language or mapping issue. I don’t always need to understand a language if I know casa means house or home. I can map a table so when the word casa is uttered I can refer to the table which tells me house. 

Improving our lives. The results of our improved teaching would minimize our required input. Let’s say a thermostat could understand our comfort level. If I am sweating it’s too hot, if I shiver, it’s too cold. Adjust by how much? What if there are 5 people? Not everyone’s comfort is the same. Maybe they are sweating but they are wearing a sweater.

AR and VR Integration with IoT

 AR / VR ( IoT and AI integration)

What is reality? Some doctors say if you perceive it to be real your body will fill in the blanks to make it a reality.

By now we have all seen this. Unfortunately, it’s not completely true and makes many assumptions, there is some science behind this. Our brains interpret what it “expects” to see. (1)

Virtual reality is similar in some ways, we are accepting that this virtual world has some omitted items but, it doesn’t take away from the experience. My Dad used to get sick at IMAX movies because it was immersive and gave you the impression you were flying or driving, etc. To him, perception was reality!

Virtual reality can give us the same interaction with the Internet of Things (IoT). Experience! When we experience things we react. Our pupils dilate, our muscles contract, our breathing and heart rate changes. Based on these feedback mechanisms we can read back a person's sensations to a virtual experience. 

Using sensors we can tell how someone is reacting. 

This is expanding on how the VR / AR experience is improving. The newest version is not a display only, it also tracks our eye movement and the reaction to what we see. This helps programmers and Artificial Intelligence systems to recognize that their representation on the screen is confusing or misleading. If the user is looking to the right but the direction should be taking them to the left, we know the graphics need to be corrected. We are using the IoT feedback through the self-facing camera to tell us the individual’s reaction. If the instructions become confusing we can sense through expressions and pupil reactions that the user is becoming frustrated. We can also position them using GPS and the forward-facing camera, where the frustration is occurring. 

The programs are self-evolving now to determine that what is being transmitted via the cloud to the user is not producing the desired response. If a technician is using AR goggles to walk them through a repair using tags on a piece of equipment along with global positioning, then we can tell if the AR tags are in the right locations or if they are getting lost. The feedback from the sensors tell repetitive actions because they are walking through the steps numerous times. 

With AR being incorporated for so much more technical work, it just makes sense you would want to close the loop using IoT and sensors for feedback and Artificial Intelligence to make the system more immersive and user friendly. The Augmented Reality can help walk the user through an activity. Whether you are using the technology to speed up bin-picking or giving directions for assembly. The AR using tags on the equipment for locating speeds up the process and also add an element of error proofing by integrating the forward-facing camera to verify that where something is being placed is confirmed. The IoT loop verifies the activity and using the AI to learn from errors as to why the instructions or indicators were confusing really improves the instruction set for all tasks.

Assembly and warehouse systems are improving their efficiency and accuracy using tools like google glass being integrated into supply chain systems that work to improve the bottom line by reducing mistakes and speeding up the process. (2)

Warehouse service companies are training with this equipment currently and while it doesn’t solve every challenge, it does benefit a lot of the applications.

Some of the systems such as pick-by-vision (3) are looking to show metrics that benefit the company in the two main factors, accuracy and speed. The systems are of course dependent on the inventory management systems and the warehouse location system into which you will integrate. The pick-by-vision systems are using augmented reality which allows the actual vision of the individual, will be the base for which all the other information systems will overlay. It overlays mapping information, directions, photos of the item to be picked, and bar codes to be compared. The great part of the systems is the can be real-time and improved through AI.

Much of the success and failure of these systems comes through the quality of the vision system and the cameras. Of course the higher the quality, the more data and slower the response time can be unless your complete system is upgraded to utilize the data from the camera. This is also why many of the systems opt for cheaper GPS technology and scanning tags. These can allow for lower resolution but the trade-off is the finite analysis the higher quality vision systems will offer. 

The displays don’t have to just be glasses style, they can be a smartphone or tablet but then you take away the hands-free advantage. The image is scanned and compared against a database and orientation is also determined in order to factor in directions and mapping. As you approach your location the more detail you receive.

When using a slower system or an interface that has a lot of detail some issues can occur such as the person using the device may walk past the location because the feedback took too long. This is a problem and one you need to address early on in order to make sure your system is robust enough to handle the interface.

The vision systems give you the advantage of recognizing and comparing location based on visual cues. The simpler versions use tags similar to the QR tags. These scale the distance based on a known location and size of the tag. This can be confusing though as the angular distortion and change of position can take away some of the accuracy. 

Determining the picking order or assembly order is where most of these tools really excel and make these tools more than a glorified laptop, tablet, or smartphone; Hi-tech programs that take information from IoT and then use the positioning data to determine the optimized flow really capitalizes on the tools system but next they can use AI to learn the best flow sequence.

The key for much of these systems is that you need the feedback loop from the IoT, sensors, or tags. This must be communicated elsewhere to compare and feedback with information. The glasses don’t have enough on board to act alone.

In warehouse systems the keys mainly do you pick the right part and how long did it take? In assembly systems, these AR and VR tools can integrate to produce an obstruction that isn’t there but is anticipated to be installed. This way you can run analysis checks and ergonomic assessments prior to installing the equipment that will be causing the obstruction. 

These tools can really benefit from training. VR creates an environment similar to the one the trainee will be working on without investing millions in equipment and in training machines. This can greatly reduce the learning curve. These digital twins allow you to train but more importantly, create a duplicate environment to simulate conditions without the cost or the engineering levels. Many companies are producing these VR simulations prior to final assembly and testing. This allows the final systems to be tweaked before a hard tool is produced that can take weeks or months and cost thousands of dollars. 

The key to the success of AR and VR in your plant will be integration with your IoT and by extension your AI analysis system. If our systems don’t get smarter we will be spinning our wheels for a long time. Think in terms that the AR and VR is the train riding on IoT rails and AI is the conductor… All Aboard!

1- science daily - how our brain fills in the blanks. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2000/06/000601164617.htm

2- augmented reality- researchgate.net

Stoltz, Marie-Helene & Giannikas, Vaggelis & Mcfarlane, Duncan & Strachan, James & Um, Jumyung & Srinivasan, Rengarajan. (2017). Augmented reality in warehouse operations: Opportunities and challenges. IFAC-PapersOnLine. 50. 10.1016/j.ifacol.2017.08.1807.

3- pick by vision 

https://jasoren.com/augmented-reality-warehouse/

Artificial Intelligence In Medical

 AI in medical

Some of the most amazing technology aspects we see in Artificial Intelligence are in the medical industry comes from the swarm or hive philosophy. This strategy is founded on taking the group approach as you might find in the insect world of working toward a common goal. (1) In all of the studies, the addition of swarm concepts and deep learning artificial intelligence has yielded improved results over groups of humans working independently toward Pneumonia studies.

None of us are individually as strong as all of us. Working toward common goals and solutions. This has been especially proven in the current world crisis with the coronavirus. Swarm or hive mentality is oversimplification when it comes to research a better description might be hyper-focused or singularly focused; since to say that insects are smarter might be a bit generous but when focused on one singular task and ignoring all other distraction and not concerning one's self with who gets the credit might yield some greater results. 

The AI component should not be overlooked in this study also since maximizing the speed with which we gather the data is a big part of how soon we can find solutions.

If we break the details down, how do we work toward a solution? By taking small bits of data from around the world no matter how seemingly minute and allowing computers to mathematically find commonality and just as important, rule out the unimportant data.

The Swarm AI allows for us to improve our predictive analysis. It makes better use of the data and works on incredibly sophisticated algorithms and is able to utilize doctors to be the eyes and ears of the patients. 

The applications for this data in manufacturing, business, and in our real lives, should not be overlooked. 

With the COVID 19 virus. Researchers claim to have predicted this before it happened! Bluedot, AI warned its customers to avoid Wuhan on Dec 31. It used world health data to caution it's travelers to avoid the area because of data and the modeling used to track and predict how diseases spread. Some have said it had already spread by that time and the symptoms were slow to reveal themselves but in either case early detection and isolation have proven to be crucial in limiting the spread of the virus. 

How quickly the virus was detected and identified was also a limiting factor for the model since it took much longer to identify that this was not just the flu or other regularly seen virus. Since it spreads much quicker and has been more difficult to detect it has complicated matters. The beauty of AI is it can sift through large amounts of data to find common points. (2)

Metabiota is another company using data to track health information. More data will make us healthier and protect us from the outbreak as well as help us predict what will happen and when it will happen. 

There are some concerns that data overload can make us paranoid as we receive predictions of every perfect storm scenario. Is too much data healthy? If you're safer hiding at home in your basement from every possible illness are you truly living? Poor data and bad assumptions have created doubt in some of the models. 

Artificial Intelligence is gathering data, tracking trends, building simulation models, and assisting to develop treatment plans and more importantly preventive care assessment that will help us live longer and healthier. Imagine predicting drug interactions we are not even aware of today. If a cure comes for cancer AI will be part of that solution. If our data continues on the current path we will see a greater analysis of pre-existing conditions and work to minimize their impact.

With telemedicine, we can monitor more data by remote and maintain better records. If you look at hypertension and compare it with your meals you can track how sodium is impacting your health. High blood pressure can be monitored and compared against your current prescriptions. No longer would you need to wait to go to the doctor to get updates on your health. Now you can get instant updates, predictive analysis and determine your health. 

AI is also found in medical manufacturing. Since we have so much more technology going into monitors, pacemakers, etc. Manufacturers have more of a need to inspect, track, identify, and predict data around their parts and devices. The tighter the regulations the more of a need to identify your when problems occur. Along with inspection, you need identification so you can track when a device or component is manufactured. This tracking ability has proven to be crucial when a failure occurs, you need to identify if this is a one-off problem or if it's a batch problem or if it comes down to a complete design and product failure. This can impact the amount of recall or service work you need to address. 

From the aspect of hospitals and doctors who rely on trust, it can make or break their business if the patients can't trust the products or solutions that medical personnel are proposing. Failures can crush a medical office when it results in an insurance claim. A single anomaly failure is bad but not as bad as a recall. Large hospitals like to know that the products they use have a long track record and have large paperwork files that show the history of reliability.

The way AI factors in is that you can develop a track record without having one if your inspection is done with proper modeling software. This predicts failure rates and what you are doing to reduce the risk or hazard. Artificial Intelligence works well to analyze short term data to have predictive data regarding failures in the long term.

Determining how patients respond to treatments is probably the most interesting are for AI since it gives patients a historical model to understand how treatments and diseases progress and the effectiveness of drugs works within the patient. We have existing models that show how drugs have negative effects on our organs and that some drugs need to have dosing increased as a disease progresses. Take for example type 2 diabetes. We have a lot of data representing how the disease progresses if you do nothing, we have models of the progress when you get worse or gain weight and we have models showing the benefits of weight loss and exercise. AI now can take these models and factor in dosing for current levels and show the long term effects and the ramifications of each model. We can also factor in homeopathic results in these models and the long term benefits and concerns patients should address when deviating from the prescribed treatment.

The number of Artificial Intelligence patents alone have gone up dramatically over the last 3 years. This graph shows how we are just beginning to understand all the possible applications. The changes in the medical industry and the demand more a quicker turnaround from a new breakthrough until it becomes available is far too long and faced with extensive delays and costly research projects. 

AI can be applied to patients, med-devices, drugs, treatment, age-related disease progression, and far more, we will see changes from doctors visits to medical files. AI will allow us to live longer and healthier lives.

1- Unanimous.AI - Nature - New Study Published in Journal Nature, Digital Medicine Shows Power of Swarm AI

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41746-019-0189-7

2- Singularityhub.com - How AI Helped Predict the Coronavirus Outbreak Before It Happened

https://singularityhub.com/2020/02/05/how-ai-helped-predict-the-coronavirus-outbreak-before-it-happened/

3- WebMD- 

https://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/features/artificial-intelligence-helps-health-care#1