Improving workflows and productivity with immersive 3D collaborative apps

Improving collaboration can boost team productivity by up to 50% and enhance decision-making by up to 87%. Approximately 67% of employees stress the need for better remote collaboration opportunities, yet many companies fall behind when it comes to adopting platforms capable of creating engaging team environments.

Other factors, like design change orders and inaccessible data sources, can further disrupt collaboration and communication as well as companies’ decision-making processes.

This article explores the impacts of inadequate collaboration methods on worker productivity, highlights the subsequent business challenges this causes, and explores how immersive 3D technology can transform collaboration and improve project workflows. You will learn:

• How poor collaboration directly affects stakeholders productivity and workflows.
• How collaborative technology improves project operations and empowers workers to overcome barriers.
• How Unity Industry’s range of products and support services can unify data and project stakeholders on a single, comprehensive platform.

Read on to discover why current collaboration methods fall short and how immersive 3D collaboration tools can expedite decision-making, minimize costly errors, and enhance feedback loops.

The impact of inadequate collaboration

Everyday, workers across industries like manufacturing, energy, and construction encounter challenges stemming from inefficient collaboration tools. Here are just a few examples:

1. Project coordination

Troy, a plant engineer, finds himself buried under a mountain of data and processes scattered across various formats and systems. Shifting through disparate data systems to create a work plan is tedious and doesn’t give Troy the time he needs to effectively communicate project details with stakeholders. This leads to communication gaps and missed updates.

2. Assembly process

Jim, a project lead at a manufacturing firm, is tasked with overseeing the product assembly process. His main challenge? Ensuring that design changes are communicated clearly to every stakeholder. This task is made difficult by the lack of accessible design review tools for non-technical staff on the assembly line. When Jim delivers unclear or inaccessible design changes to stakeholders, it results in misunderstandings and errors in assembly execution.

3. Quality control

Mark, a dedicated site manager, manages construction project inspections. With a lengthy checklist of quality standards and codes to uphold, it can be easy for details to be missed. Doing so jeopardizes the confidence in both project completion and quality assurance.

By the end of each task, workers like Troy, Jim, and Mark are left feeling overwhelmed, exhausted, and plagued by self-doubt. The lack of effective collaboration tools not only impacts worker productivity, but also presents considerable business challenges including increased costs, delays, and the need for extensive rework.

The right solution to improve collaboration

In each of these cases, what’s needed is a solution that empowers the workers to synchronize data and unite project stakeholders in a shared, interactive platform.

Unity Industry is that solution. By leveraging immersive 3D technology, developers can repurpose existing 3D models, such as BIM and CAD, to build and deploy real-time collaboration applications for their organizations that:

• Identify mistakes earlier by creating interactive experiences of preliminary designs, enabling stakeholders to provide feedback, in real-time.
• Transform complex 3D models to consolidate data into a single, accessible interface, ensuring all project stakeholders, regardless of their technical expertise, can engage effectively and make informed decisions.
• Facilitates multiuser collaboration by ensuring all stakeholders, regardless of their technical expertise, can access and interact with assets in real-time, across 20+ platforms and devices.

Let’s explore how Unity Industry can be used to create immersive collaborative applications to transform each worker’s daily operations.

Transforming workflows with immersive 3D

1. Project coordination

Troy starts his day by launching the immersive collaboration application, created by his company’s developer team, on his desktop. Through the Asset Manager feature within his app, Troy is able to upload all existing 3D models and data for an upcoming project and leverage cloud-based assets to transform pipelines that will automatically integrate and optimize all project data into interactive, high-quality visuals.

With all the project information already available within one platform, Troy compiles a detailed, engaging work plan that includes all the standards, procedures, and 3D models required for the project. Once finalized, he shares the plan with on-site plant workers directly through the app.

Feedback loops become efficient and dynamic, with on-site workers able to review, comment on, and suggest adjustments to the plan. They can share their input with Troy in real-time within the app.

2. Assembly process

At Jim’s manufacturing company, assembly line workers notice discrepancies between intended product design blueprints and actual production outcomes. They quickly access the immersive collaboration app on their mobile devices to make notes of these inconsistencies. Although Jim is not present on-site when these issues are identified, the app’s seamless cloud connectivity through Unity Cloud allows him to review the documented notes and promptly collaborate with the design department from any location with internet access.

Design changes are seamlessly communicated through the app, ensuring the assembly team is always working with the most current design information. Complex updates become manageable tasks, fostering smoother workflows and reducing costly errors.

3. Quality control

At a construction site, Mark is armed with an immersive collaborative application on his mixed reality headset. He uses AR to overlay virtual designs onto the actual built environment to verify all site details.

Once Mark completes his inspection, on-site contractors receive instant notifications from the app on their mobile devices to confirm that the inspection has been completed. Clients and other stakeholders can also check the latest status of the project via the app on their preferred devices.

Transitioning to a tool that enables real-time, accessible, and interactive collaboration has streamlined each of these workflows, created more efficient feedback loops, allowed for quicker decision-making, and reduced costly errors.

Leveraging Unity Industry to build your collaboration app

By enabling the creation of immersive, interactive experiences, consolidating complex models for easier review, and making real-time data more accessible, Unity Industry is setting a new standard in collaboration and decision-making.

Get Unity Industry to bridge the gap between technical and non-technical stakeholders while accelerating decision-making processes and ensuring projects remain on track.