Wearables Will Aid the Increasing Automation of the Workplace

Across all enterprise verticals, the workplace is becoming more and more automated due to machinery, sensors, and devices that enable processes to be more efficient. This automation occurs with or without human interaction, and includes processes such as picking machinery in agriculture, self-scan checkouts in stores, construction robots in machinery, self-drive, and remote working via telepresence. With this automation, processes are completed faster, allowing companies to be more cost efficient.

Despite increasing concern that jobs will be put at risk by this automation, it is likely that new jobs will be created, causing workers to re-train into new positions. In addition to this, an increasing amount of automation will involve collaboration between machinery and human workers, particularly where a human touch is required. This is prevalent within the healthcare vertical, where patients prefer to talk to a human healthcare professional about their health concerns, rather than an AI machine.

An increasing amount of this automation is being aided by enterprise wearable devices. These wearables enable human workers to improve their efficiency and productivity, augmenting their skills by providing them with easy, hands-free access to information, instructions, and a communications interface. This automates the process of accessing or updating information, allowing the worker to do so while they complete their tasks, improving their efficiency. Examples of wearable automation include:

• Smart glasses provide workers with access to company data, instruction manuals, and a communications interface directly in their line-of-sight. This allows them to concentrate on a task while having access to information about how to do so, preventing them from looking away to read a paper or computer manual. This helps to increase worker efficiency and reduce errors because workers have easy access to the correct information at all times.
• Wearable scanners allow workers in warehousing and transportation to automate the package scanning processes. Workers in these industries can scan hundreds of packages per day, normally using a hand-held scanner that has to be picked up and put down during each scan. By automating the process with wearable scanners that scan the barcode of the package as the user selects it, the time taken to do so is dramatically decreased, improving worker productivity.
• Wearable cameras allow workers in law enforcement to automate the evidence collection process. Ordinarily, police officers would write down information about their encounters with members of the public while they work, which takes a large amount of time, can be inaccurate, and can be argued against. By using wearable cameras, the evidence is collected automatically, without requiring the user’s interaction, and is indisputable because it shows exactly what occurred.
• Patient wearables that track healthcare metrics such as heart rate, blood oxygen levels, and temperature allow healthcare professionals to automate the patient tracking process. Normally, healthcare professionals either have to personally, regularly monitor patients, or rely on them to monitor their own condition. With wearables, the patients can leave the hospital and still have their vitals tracked automatically, with updates and alerts being sent to the healthcare professional, allowing them to concentrate on the most at-risk patients and prevent any further deterioration in health.

With supporting platforms, software, and enterprise mobility management (EMM) solutions, such as those offered by companies including Accenture, Augmate, PTC, SOTI, SpiderCloud Wireless, Upskill, and VMware, the data and information that these wearables, as well as other devices and sensors, generate is automatically kept secure. This involves giving IT teams the ability to remotely control the devices, such as wiping or locking them when lost or stolen, as well as setting up encryption and password rules, ensuring that all data is kept safe. By automating the worker processes and the securing of the data, overall company productivity and efficiency is improved. Companies such as Salesforce help to enable the automation within a company by allowing rules for devices and sensors to be set up that lead to alerts being automatically sent to the relevant worker in the case of a patient deterioration, machine failure, or other task.

Wearable devices create an opportunity for workers to become an integral part of an increasingly automated workforce. Wearable-equipped workers help not only bridge a gap working towards automation, but strengthen the transition to more automated workflows. Immediate ROI exists in wearable-equipped workers, and this can in turn promote further investment in both the human workforce and fully automated components.

The adoption of wearables in the workplace is currently limited, with companies expressing a few concerns about the technology. These concerns include factors such as how to keep the data secure, how to integrate the technology into the company, how to overcome worker resistance, the initial cost of the devices, and which device to invest in. As companies continue to show proven wearable deployment ROIs, with these concerns being overcome, many companies will look into the technology.

When considering adopting wearables for workforce automation, companies need to be aware of several of the above concerns to make the deployment a success. To begin with, these companies should make a plan to determine what the purpose and benefits of the wearable devices should be, as well as consider any resistance from workers and any extra IT staffing or capabilities that may be required. Small-scale deployments, trials, and pilots of different types of devices from different vendors allow a company to determine if the wearables will provide the required ROI, as well as which one to go for. EMM solutions are also vital to ensure that the devices are easily deployed, updated, and secured, as well as to enable seamless communication with other devices, machinery, and sensors.

As awareness around device capability to help automate processes continues to grow, so will their prevalence within the enterprise. As this awareness grows, the number of vendors offering the technology specifically for enterprise purposes, as well as the companies that offer the supporting platforms, will also grow, giving companies access to a larger number of devices for various purposes. Enterprise wearable device shipments are expected to increase from more than 38 million in 2017 to nearly 118 million in 2022, due to their ability to automate worker processes.