Episode Transcript
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Hi everybody, I'm Mark Sage, theexecutive director of the AREA.
And today's podcast is with StuartThurlby, the CEO of Theorem Solutions.
Theorem Solutions was established in 1991,
has been an AREA memberfor the past three years.
They have a UK head office and anadditional office in Detroit. USA.
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Theorem has been the developmentpartner with Siemens, PTC,
SolidWorks, Dassault Systemes andalso strongly participate with the
ISO standards Step, JT, and 3D PDF.
Stuart. Hello, welcome. Thankyou. By having much for your time.
Thank you Mark. Much appreciated.
If I could just add a few wordsto what we're doing in the area of
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XR,
then in essence we're buildingon our core product strength
to deliver a range of differentsolutions using XR technologies
for the areas of engineeringand manufacturing.
And we might get a littlebit more into that.
Yeah, thank you Stuart. Andlet's get straight into it.
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When to ask the first question ofyou. So the number one question,
who should own XR within an organization?What are your thoughts on that?
Sure.
I think maybe just we ought to probablyjust put a little definition in terms of
what we mean by XR because I thinkobviously a lot of people are getting
close to it, but in essence XR coversa number of different technologies,
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augmented reality,
which we hear a lot about and obviouslythe area are very focused on and along
with mixed and virtual reality.
So I think I'm assuming for today'sdiscussion we're talking all the different
technologies in termsof who should own xr.
Then I think what everybodyhas to grasp in order to
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make XR meaningful to a business,
there's got to be a use case.Without a strong use case,
you're unlikely to get traction.
And so I think that's the firstthing people should focus on is to
decide what area their businessdo they think XR might help them,
whether it's design, manufacturing,inspection, training,
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remote assistance. There's a broads swat of areas it can help in,
but I think one of the key decisions isto decide that but accept the fact that
it's got to be use case driven,
which really means ithas to be led by end user
departments. That said,
obviously those departments will needhelp and support and so clearly IT
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or innovation groups who are oftenlooking at XR as a technology will
also need to be involved andneed to support the end users in
terms of how it mightfit into the IT strategy,
how it might be deployed, etcetera. But I think ultimately,
unless it's driven by end users, youwon't get traction in the business.
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And adding to that,
lots of people talk in grandioseterms about having an XR
strategy, but if you think about that,
you can't really have a strategy onXR unless you understand something
about the technology and where it's goingto help and benefit your business. So
without that,
you can't think about what your strategymight well be and don't get hung
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up on understanding the differencesbetween AR MR, vr, et cetera,
and the different devices.That's not a strategy.
What you have to recognize is thatyou are going to have to go through an
education learning process,
which means you've got to investin that in order to be able to
have some understanding ofhow XR might impact your
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business and then standback and just say, okay,
from what we've now learned,what use cases will it affect,
give most benefit to?
And then obviously you'll needsupport from innovation IT areas to
deliver that to the business.
So I think my message is endusers have to drive this thing
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where the benefit is to the business andthat's why people spend money but they
need help and support by ITand the innovation groups.
Stuart, that's great. Thankyou very much. I think again,
I totally agree in my experiencewith speaking to many companies,
AR XR needs to solve real businessproblems and by starting with the
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people who are in the coalface andworking it is basically where the process
needs to start. So I agree.The other thing I'll add,
and maybe we pick up onthis a little bit later,
that it needs to be what I would calla change management program as well.
So not only is it some technologydeployment but it's hearts and
minds in working withthe whole organization.
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So maybe we could pick thatup on a future question.
Yeah, certainly. Yeah, absolutely.
Okay, well that was a great answer. Letme quiz you with the second question.
Well, how would you start the ARconversation within an organization?
I think really in a way it goes backto the point we've just been discussing
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that I think first of all you've clearlygot to have some knowledge of AR and
xr.
So you've got to get somebodyto agree a budget and
allocate some time to enableyou to get up to speed to get
education.
And obviously the area itself canclearly help and assist with that kind of
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activity. Being a neutral body,
they can help inform andintroduce end users to
experts and point them in the rightdirection as to how they might understand
the technology overallbecause you do need that.
But once you've got that knowledge andonce you've got an appreciation of the
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technologies and how itmight address certain things,
you need to stand backand choose your use case
because having a good use case willcreate a good business case and without a
good business case,
you're not going to get budget for theinvestment you're going to need to make.
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So I think understand the technology andgo to sources like the area to help you
with that, having got some knowledge,
then focus on the use case and thatobviously will then lead you directly
inside your own business to talk tothe group most affected by that to
pull out how it can befunded and how you can move
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it forward in terms of gettingpeople's time, et cetera.
I think the other thing to thinkabout also to get buy-in in a company
is think about what do you want to do?
Because there are different approaches.
You can go out to solutionproviders to buy off the
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shelf, out the box technologies or youcan go away and develop it yourself or
potentially contractsomebody to develop it.
And clearly those are key decisions youhave to make fairly early on as well
because they're very differentapproaches to addressing the problem.
So make that decisionand engage obviously with
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IT. And innovation groupswho may have expertise,
may have development resourceswho can assist in that if you're
deciding to go down thehomegrown or externally,
develop the one-off route if you'regoing to an out the box type of
solution. But obviouslyyou can go out there,
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do some research on who aresolution providers in relation
to your use case, speak withthem, try out their technology.
Obviously you've got to make some earlyinvestment in hardware to do that,
but that's relatively low cost.
So I think make thosefundamental decisions.
Are we looking to take something off theshelf or are we looking to develop it?
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That will obviously then guide how mucheffort and time and support you need
from IT and or internaldevelopment groups to do that.
And obviously then that points you at themanagement groups internally as to who
you need to engage with toget support and get buy-in.
But obviously the key thing is toconsider how is this AR technology,
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XR technology going toimprove an existing process?
Will it save you time,
reduce build cost if it's themanufacturing assembly time,
will it improve your service process?Will it improve your time to market?
You've also got to thinkabout the business benefits,
the return on the investment becausewithout that you're not likely to get
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management buy-in to eitherprovide the manpower to go ahead
or to provide the budget to go forward.
And obviously without those things,whatever you choose to do will flounder.
So that's the approach I'd taketo defining how to who approach in
the company to providethe funding and support.
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That's great, Stuart, thank you very much.
Just one additionalquestion on top of that,
you've worked with many of leadingcompanies around the world to help them
successfully deploy XRsolutions. In your experience,
have you noticed it's more of a kindof top down approach where the senior
management are pushing for the kind oftechnology or a bottom up approach where
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individuals,
be IT innovation teams or the end workershave been pushed in this technology or
a hybrid of the two or be interested inyour thoughts of how the technology has
actually been implemented?
Sure. I think in truthit is probably a hybrid.
Most organizations have a chief technical
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officer or innovation manageror director or whatever,
and those people obviously tend to belooking at new technologies to see how
they can help and improve the business.
But because XR is relativelyquite new, you often,
and in fact we've certainly seen thisfind a lot of individual groups or
individual departments acrossengineering and manufacturing as well as
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sales and marketing might bedriving their own initiatives.
And I think that is probably one ofthe challenges that management facing
most companies is to howdo they control that?
You don't want to stop individualdepartments necessarily looking at things
because obviously they understandtheir use cases better than anybody.
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At the same time,
you don't want a free for all that25 different groups are charging
around all supposedly comingup with the perfect solution.
At some point there's got to becontrol. So I think we see a mixture,
we see some corporate governancetrying to be introduced,
but at the same time we do see alot of departmental heads trying
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to see how this can support them.
So I don't think there is a cozyanswer at this point in time.
No, and I agree Stuart, and again,
I've been lucky enough to speak to manyorganizations and one of the things I
always recommend, especially those thathave many different business units,
is to kind of create some sort ofshared group where you can share
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experiences, but alsoprobably more importantly,
share those use cases and potentialsolutions because bringing even more
economists of scale into the organization.
So I think it is definitely ahybrid kind of approach. Excellent.
Okay, so question number three.
So we're now assuming with all thisgreater advice in the hard work of the
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organization that westart to see XR solutions
being implemented. So thequestion is from your experience,
what are the three biggest challengescompanies need to overcome to successfully
deploy Enterprise xr?
I think there are a lot of challengesin truth, but they are all manageable.
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I think one of the first things torecognize is don't believe what you see on
YouTube.
Don't fall into that trap andcertainly don't get hung up on
devices. Should it be HTCV, Oculus Rift,
HoloLens Magic Leap,
whatever the truth is,
the pace of change in this marketspace around both hardware and software
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is very rapid.
And so what's the right decisiontoday on a device or a particular
technology will change in 12 months time.
So go back and keepfocusing on the use case.
Obviously you've got to select atechnology and an approach to it,
but don't get concerned that becauseyou've gone down a particular
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device type that that willlater on cause you problems.
Yes,
there'll be some level of upheaval ifyou choose a particular technology and
device,
but it shouldn't stop you moving forward.Lots of people start
to panic about should we go down theVR route or the AR or the mixed reality
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route? I wouldn't let that influenceyour dramatically choose your use case.
Look at what is a good approach tosolving that use case and run with it.
And that means you've got to recognizethat this technology is in its infancy.
There are literally hundreds of smallstartups out there along with the giants,
apple, Facebook, Google,Microsoft and Samsung as well.
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And all of these are driving the marketand then it changes very rapidly.
So don't get hung up on thetechnology and let that put you off.
Some people think, well, shouldwe therefore wait till it matures?
I think that is equal follybecause if you do that,
what you'll find is that your competitorswill be five years ahead of you.
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Lots of large companies,as you suggested earlier,
mark have already started downthis journey and are doing things,
understanding it and seeing how itwill help improve their business.
So if you sit there for two or threeor five years waiting for it to mature,
you'll be two, three or fiveyears behind your competitors.
So I definitely wouldn't do that.
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I think the other thing isdon't try and ball the ocean.
Choose a use case,
break that down into small elementswhich will improve your business and
then go out and solve that andprove that that effect can happen.
If you try to be too broad in itwith all the dynamics that are going
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on, the chances are you won't get there.
If you choose a practical use case,
choose elements of thatwhich can be delivered today,
you will then showbenefit to the business.
You've also got to recognize obviouslywhatever you choose today and whatever
use case you adopt,
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that the technology will affect theexisting business processes that you have.
And obviously you needto consider that as well.
You won't be able to answer thatquestion wholesomely in this very
early stage,
but you do need to recognize thatif you implement XR to solve a
particular business problem use case,
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then it will have an effect upon thatdepartment, the people in that department.
And it will also have an effectupon how it integrates into your
workflows and your other businessprocesses. So you can't ignore that.
And I think some people,
if they ignore that when managementcome to look at the benefit,
a particular use case might give,
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it can then flounder becausethere's no understanding or
guidance for the business as to howand it will affect or the processes.
So that does need to be thought through.
And I think from that you thencan create a plan for management
as to how you'll go forward.And obviously that then can mean that you
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can look at how that will then be funded.
I think I also hear lots of talk attimes about we've got to have a strategy
and I think that'spremature at this stage.
What you've got to have is a plan,
a plan where you can identify a use case,
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go ahead and deliver that for thebusiness and show benefit and also show
how it will affect the businessin the broader sense and
affect your existingworkflows and processes.
I think at that point you canstart to stand back and say,
let's look at a strategy for the wholebusiness and bring in different business
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groups and obviously involve othergroups who are affected by that strategy.
But don't think you can createa strategy now without a great
understanding,
without seeing how it will improve thebusiness and without understanding how it
will affect all the workflows. Youcan't create a strategy, create a plan,
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deliver the plan, and then you canlook at the bigger strategy picture.
Fantastic. Stuart,
that's some amazing and veryinsightful help and support and
advice for the companies out there.
So I want to thank you very much foryour time and your insights today
and keep in tune as we continue to deliver
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the thought leadership of the leaders ofthe area and its members and companies
like Therum Solutions. Stuart,thank you very much indeed.
Thank you, mark, which appreciated I.