Lockheed Martin, Proctor & Gamble and Caterpillar have joined with 62 other organizations to create hardware and software guidelines for using augmented reality (AR) on the manufacturing floor.

The guidelines are designed to guide AR technology vendors in developing future products for industrial businesses, both large and small. UI Labs and the Augmented Reality for Enterprise Alliance (AREA) announced the guidelines in a document released on Tuesday.

Enterprises will benefit from these guidelines, also called "functional requirements," because they will encourage interoperability among hardware and software products and make it easier to request bids for AR products, AREA said.

The guidelines are obviously voluntary but still deemed to be a consensus among many manufacturers, including AR device makers, that could contribute to greater adoption of AR. Even so, AREA didn't use the term "standards" in referring to the guidelines.

"One of the major challenges of deploying AR and VR [virtual reality] has been the lack of standards for hardware, software and interfaces," said Jack Gold, an analyst at J. Gold Associates.

"Anything that can help get standards in place will accelerate the adoption and deployment of AR. That said, this is a first step, not the endpoint," Gold said. "This effort is important if it really does influence solution providers to standardize and allow interoperability."

Dima Tokar, an analyst at Machnation, said AR has the "potential to revolutionize many industrial use cases, but without a standard, it's difficult to implement a solution that works across multiple vendors."

Just in the enterprise internet of things category, AR guidelines could affect vendors that provide devices, connectivity, middleware, applications, integration and services, he said.

AR technology is different from virtual reality (VR) in that AR displays new information on top of an existing environment. A worker can use glasses, headsets or tablet computers to provide a composite view of the real and virtual worlds.

For example, an aerospace worker could try out a virtual design for an aircraft wing on an existing fuselage. A shop foreman could see where a new part needs to be inserted in a complex assembly line.

The hardware guidelines from AREA outline storage, connectivity, battery and other requirements for AR devices. For example:

For AR software, the guidelines call for:

There are also a series of recommendations for software support extended to workers at small and medium enterprises and for the ability to link internet of things data through the use of QR codes, Near Field Communications and Bluetooth.

UI Labs and AREA said the new documents are designed to help improve performance and efficiency for manufacturers in the areas of employee training and safety, factory and field operations, machine assembly, inspection and repair, and manufacturing floor space and product design.

Lockheed Martin, Caterpillar and Procter & Gamble initiated the guidelines process through a UI Labs collaboration group called the Digital Manufacturing and Design Innovation Institute(DMDII). The other 62 organizations assisting in the process included AR providers, universities and government agencies.

AR has the potential to transform manufacturing, but wider adoption requires collaboration among industrial companies and AR providers, said Thomas McDermott, executive director of DMDII, in a statement.

AREA said the guidelines should be viewed as "living documents" subject to further development. AREA is creating a "Functional Requirements Committee" to ensure the requirements become integral in the further development of an enterprise AR ecosystem.

This story, "New guidelines point to an augmented future" was originally published by Computerworld.