Entering the industrial metaverse

It’s time to get ready for the internet of industrial metaverses – an entirely virtualised environment where machines and humans are represented by avatars and graphics that provide digitally encoded workstreams, tasks and functions.

Technological leaps in both Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) headsets, in conjunction with significant advances in algorithmic logic and cloud-based compute power, enable us to portray a 3D virtual world to incredible detail. The way we work at our desks, in our factories, and out in the field is going to change forever – and it’s coming sooner than you think.

Transforming manufacturing

The industrial metaverse will have a profound impact on a number of sectors – from banking to broadcasting and from pharmaceuticals to professional services. The manufacturing industry, however, is an industry that provides a particularly exciting opportunity as machine noise, paperwork, and punch cards all have the potential to become things of the past.

Today, manufacturers collect and harness data to better understand and decide how to re-organise production and workflows. This new metaverse-enabled era allows maintenance managers to focus on more high-value tasks that are critical to the actual function and progress of the organisation, leaving predictive maintenance detection, planning and scheduling tools to identify faults and potential issues in machinery, systems and equipment.

It is not just the production of products that are benefitting from these advances in technology. The same school of Artificial Intelligence (AI) engines and Machine Learning (ML) models can also be used to pre-empt production issues in a plastics factory, or influence the way a legal services firm operates. This is the manufacturing metaverse in action and one that will develop rapidly over the next five to ten years.

Thinking bigger than the games

To maximise the business potential of the metaverse, we must look beyond the perception that AR/VR is only for video games, such as Pokémon GO or Minecraft. Applied practically, industrial metaverse technology opens the door to connect every part of the business process, from supply chain to procurement to sales, all the way to retailing where AR could advise store assistants which shelf a certain product should be displayed on.

In the near future, industrial metaverse intelligence could also be used for active inventory management and shipping between stores, responding to external stimuli. Whilst product demand fluctuates smoothly between seasons and due to consumer trends, it is also affected dramatically by real-world factors, such as a major sporting event in a particular city. In this case, metaverse intelligence could react to this stimulus and automatically ship more merchandise to the stadium.

Looking further up the supply chain, the use of digital twins will be key enabling foundations for efficiency improvements. Creating completely virtual spaces, with digital representations of real objects, will enable new, immersive training opportunities, helping to build the skills needed for technical roles such as automotive maintenance. Furthermore, with modern employers wanting ‘university-plus-one’ candidates (those with a year experience under their belt elsewhere), the industrial metaverse can offer graduates exposure to skills that could only be learned on the job, in a wholly virtual world. With this tech on offer, +1 skills could be learned at university, meaning graduates are ready for technical roles on day one, with little investment from the employer.

Inside the growing industrial metaverse, we’re already seeing businesses spend significantly more time and dedication on data quality, management and analytics. As the industrial metaverse is constantly running, business leaders have continuous access to stock reports, supplier status updates, quality checks and factory bottleneck alerts, as well as every aspect of operations that can be digitally measured.

Heading towards a ‘zero human future’

As the industrial metaverse grows in complexity and importance, we are moving closer and closer to what is called the ‘zero human future’, where products and services are manufactured, sold, and transported without any sort of human intervention. With data centric users and AI preference logging, the metaverse could eliminate need for any shopping processes, with users just knowing what the supply chain offers at all times. Whether this dystopian future appeals to our shopaholic society remains to be seen, however it will certainly serve to benefit industries by ensuring consistency at supply level.

The foundations for the industrial metaverse have been laid, therefore adoption is the next challenge – it’s vital that users’ perceptions of AI and AR/VR are managed steadily and deliberately, to allow the room for this innovation to scale. It will now be fascinating to witness how the industrial metaverse grows from here, and to what extent this virtual future will be accepted by the end user.