By Tim Hoebeek

Music, mood lighting, even giving beer to cows and massaging them  has been used to increase the well-being of cows and improve the yield in milk or meat production, be that quantitative or qualitative. Now they have upped the ante in Russia, as CNN is reporting on:  Virtual Reality headsets for cows.

The jury is still out on the experience for cows and its impact, similar things have proven to be beneficial in the supply chain and field services. Most often we use augmented reality in such cases, were field engineers can get additional information while performing maintenance or even have colleagues from the technical back office watch what the field engineer is seeing and confer on the best way forward.

In a warehouse, there’s a lot of potential in different processes. You can get new workers productive right away, without training. You can guide them through an unknown facility by showing them the optimal route, you can show the products they need to pick in a warehouse or you can help them in sorting supplies for the field engineers that are on the road, as can be seen here.

There are big benefits in augmented reality for warehouse operations, but stay away from the beer and massages though.

The technology is there, but there are some practical things to take into account as well.

1. People will be wearing something on their head while moving around, the position of the headset needs to be fixed.

2. Regulation is always one step behind innovation: can people drive a reach truck when using a device that partly obscures their vision?

3. And last but not least: when it’s new, there is a need for change management. Some people will see the benefits and be enthusiastic from the start, others will need more time to adapt and adopt.