PTC Announces Factory Operations, Service, and Training Performance Report
AR Redefines Manufacturing-Sales-Operations-Service
On the 25th, PTC announced research findings through a jointly published report with research institution Aberdeen Group, demonstrating that augmented reality (AR) improves service management quality. The two companies cited the research report "How Leading Companies Use Augmented Reality for Superior Service Management" unveiled at the 2018 Augmented Reality World Expo, revealing that companies utilizing augmented reality achieved significant growth rates compared to the previous year, with net profit also substantially improved.

On the 18th at the 'Augmented Reality World Expo Europe (AWE Europe) 2018' held in Germany, PTC delivered a keynote address introducing augmented reality trends and enterprise adoption cases, explaining the potential of augmented reality to fundamentally change how people work and to redefine the ways products are manufactured, sold, operated, and serviced.

According to the report jointly announced by Aberdeen and PTC at 2018 AWE, analysis shows that IoT technology is currently correlated with 82% of enterprises utilizing augmented reality. Beyond this, the key findings regarding the current status of augmented reality in service management contained in the report are as follows.

▲Service organizations using AR demonstrated significantly better performance than non-using organizations across customer retention, customer satisfaction, and annual revenue improvement overall. ▲Leading enterprises showed on average 25% better results than other companies across all performance metrics including compliance management and SLA compliance. ▲Among leading enterprises, 34% are utilizing AR-enabled training, 31 percent are using it for field guidance, and 25% are sharing knowledge based on AR.
Currently, more than 60,000 commercial AR applications worldwide have been built through PTC's augmented reality development platform Vuforia Engine, and approximately 55,000 registered developers choose Vuforia as their preferred platform for app development. Additionally, over 14,000 users participate in the Vuforia Studio free trial program, providing feedback on use case priorities and hardware requirements.

Jim Heppelmann, PTC President and Chief Executive Officer, stated, "Augmented reality is one of the fastest-growing segments in the technology market, and companies adopting it are creating substantial business value. Enterprises in the industrial sector are leveraging new augmented reality capabilities to differentiate products and services, seeking to enhance customer experience, uncover new revenue streams, and secure competitive advantage. For end-user use cases, adoption is expanding centered on service and maintenance guidance, with augmented reality playing a role in minimizing machine downtime and maximizing product value."

Tom Paquin, Analyst at Aberdeen Group, explained, "Rapidly changing market competition, the spread of digital transformation, and the intensifying shortage of advanced technical talent are critical challenges facing enterprises. As evident from the analysis results in this report co-published with PTC, leading enterprises, particularly manufacturing and service companies, are securing competitive advantage in the market by investing in augmented reality."