Integrated manufacture: A role for virtual reality?

Abstract

Virtual Reality (VR) is fast becoming an affordable technology with potentially wide-ranging applications in many professions including education, medicine and industry. Its advantages over existing technology are primarily that users can visualise, feel involvement and interact with virtual representations of real world activities in real time. A recently completed study, funded by the EPSRC, examined the feasibility of VR as a tool for UK manufacturing industry. Of primary interest was whether manufacturers perceive a use for VR in their inudstry and, if so, what impact they envisage it will have within their company. A national survey was distributed to over 2,000 UK manufacturing companies randomly selected and interviews carried out with existing users of VR technology. A brief summary of these results is presented. A demonstration application was developed in desktop VR representing the manufacture of a consumer product in which various stages of the manufacturing process were featured including initial design, manufacture, and testing. The demonstration application is described in detail and user assessments are presented. On the basis of these findings, the potential future role of VR in integrated manufacture is discussed. Relevance to industry In only a short time, virtual environments have become a focus of serious consideration as a tool for manufacturing and other industry. In order that VR has greatest industrial utility we need to examine and develop its potential as a specialism-free integrating medium within a simultaneous engineering approach.