Long before David Mitchell founded XYZ Reality, he was entrenched in the construction industry — and developing an obsession.
Having worked in residential construction with his father on the west coast of Ireland, Mitchell was well-versed in the sector from a young age, and eventually became an experienced builder with commercial projects around Europe.
But in the background of a seasoned career, Mitchell became fixated on paperless construction, XYZ Reality’s mission critical director Waleed Zafar told DX Journal. He wanted to find ways for companies to skip the 2D drawing process altogether.
The UK-based software development company would go on to introduce Augmented Reality (AR) to the building sector in 2019 with the Atom headset, which has workers build from holograms.
It’s a wearable technology that allows for “connected workers” — on-site or remote employees who, according to Visual Capitalist’s Katie Jones, use digital technologies to assist them with day-to-day duties.
“We task our trades today to look at a 2D drawing, and conceptualise a 3D asset from that,” said Zafar. “And the most challenging part is to position that information out on site, within millimetre accuracy.”
If the process were streamlined, Zafar recalls Mitchell saying, “it will change the game forever.”
The award-winning headset allows construction companies to increase their accuracy, efficiencies, and workplace safety while decreasing margins for error and the likelihood of rework, Zafar said.
It’s just one example of how hands-on industries are being transformed by connected worker technologies — and a market for devices that is reportedly set to “explode” within the next 20 years.
Endless potential, game-changing solutions
The proliferation of smart devices transformed remote work and allowed employees to “remain fully connected” through technology, noted Visual Capitalist’s report.
In businesses like construction, engineering, or manufacturing, those remote workers can include operators, field workers, engineers, and executives who are connected to data in real time — and through technologies like platforms, interfaces, and wearable devices.
According to a 2021 article by Forbes contributor Sundeep Ravande, companies are using strategies to connect workers so they can “promote mobile collaboration between front-line workers and decision makers.”
The goal is to help workers get jobs done faster, better, more safely, and “let management and front-line workers use real-time operational data gathered digitally in the field to make informed, knowledge-based decisions,” he wrote.
As for which industries are expected to provide the bulk of the market for connected worker technologies, Visual Capitalist predicted that the top five will include oil and gas, chemical production, construction, mining and minerals, and airlines by 2039 — and there’s data to help explain the interest and demand.
Connected workers are reported to reduce operational spending by 8%, it said, while wearable devices are reported to increase productivity by 8.5%.
“With seemingly endless potential, these devices have the ability to provide game changing solutions to ongoing challenges across dozens of industries,” the report said.
Solving the golden triangle
Forbes contributor Alana Rudder and editor Kelly Main wrote in 2023 that the “golden triangle” of project management is defined by three constraints that must be in balance: cost, time, and quality.
These constraints also helped guide the challenges XYZ Reality looked to solve with its headset, Zafar said, and the first the team sought to address was quality.
To improve the accuracy of installations, they had to make sure the headset met construction tolerances in positioning the 3D model on site.
“We’re pleased to say we can position models with three-millimetre accuracy,” said Zafar.
In 2020, that accuracy would prove its worth when a presentation solved a real-world problem: the headset was demonstrated for a quality manager on a job site that was early in development, where concrete foundation pads had been poured.
But the headset displayed a hologram of cement that was perfectly overlaid, and the newly poured concrete was about 500 millimetres over the AR hologram.
“They’re like, ‘Wait a second. Have they done an overpour of concrete on that pad?’” Zafar recalled.
They had — and most critically, Zafar said the headset alerted the construction team to the overpour immediately. Without this, it likely wouldn’t have been discovered until later in the project’s development when steel was to be placed on top.
“It wouldn’t have fit, and that would have actually caused a three-week delay to the entirety of the project,” he said. “But because we caught it the moment the pour happened, it meant that they could actually fix it real time, without … a huge problem in terms of logistics.”
The example highlights the device’s ability to improve accuracy and, by eliminating the need for rework, improve efficiencies — and also, Zafar says, safety.
Safety, visibility, and ‘a lifeline to a real person’
About 30% of all construction activities are rework, which means a third of human capital — or “time” in the golden triangle — is allocated to fixing issues that wouldn’t exist if initially done properly, Zafar says.
Meanwhile, over three-quarters of health and safety issues are related to fixing rework problems.
“Building things right the first time … produces that product faster, more cheaply, and more importantly, the production process is safer,” Zafar said. “And that’s what we ultimately need as an industry.”
While some connected worker technologies indirectly make projects safer, others are being developed to directly enhance worker safety — and Blackline Safety’s Christine Gillies says that in some instances, they could mean the difference between life and death.
The company produces gas detectors, area monitors, and lone worker devices that can provide real-time visibility into the wellbeing of employees, according to chief product and marketing officer Gillies.
They also provide immediate situational awareness as incidents are progressing, which facilitates quicker reaction times in emergencies.
With connected safety technologies, Gillies said there’s approximately one minute and 40 seconds between the time a device detects a hydrogen sulphide emergency to the time a site evacuation is initiated — including sending help for a downed worker.
But without them, it takes up to two hours for someone to notice a worker is missing and initiate a search, and even longer to find them.
“An increase in connected workers means [they] will feel more confident and safety incidents will be addressed sooner, with fewer catastrophic outcomes and consequent labour disruptions,” Gillies said.
“Lone workers are [also] less isolated, with connected safety tech giving them a lifeline to a real person when working out of sight.”
How companies can implement connected technologies
When it comes to implementing connected technologies, Gillies said it’s key for companies to secure buy-in from workers on the need or rationale.
This could mean emphasising life-saving benefits, or immediately addressing employee concerns, like privacy.
As for tech like XYZ Reality’s headset, Zafar said companies need to walk before they can run, and step one is making sure to first have a decent model and schedule.
“Provided you have that … you’re good to run, basically,” he said.
“You’re good to be able to adopt these new technologies that can then kind of help bridge the gap, and connect the two data pieces together.”
And while neither Gillies nor Zafar had concerns about over-reliance on connected worker technologies, Forbes’ Sundeep Ravande cautioned that digital worker platforms generally function through wifi — so unstable connections are a potential issue to be mindful of.
“Unless the platform offers an offline mode that syncs once a connection is made, a connected worker platform will be of little use in such a situation,” he said.
