Horus Business Modeler now also supports process execution via AR glasses

Ettlingen, February 4, 2020 – Augmented Reality (AR) promises entirely new perspectives on the development and use of mobile contents and applications: innovative navigation features relieve everyday life, mobile shopping is becoming increasingly interactive, and AR games offer players an endless amount of fun. What is implied is the overlapping of users’ real environment with digitally generated information; a computer-based extension of reality perception. In the working world, employees are confronted with an accelerating complexity. Furthermore, when it comes to changes and further developments, the pace is ever increasing. With complex processes in particular, a combination of business process management and augmented reality helps encounter these requirements. This way, Horus – innovative software forge in the heart of Karlsruhe TechnologyRegion and specialist for business process management – now presents an entirely new dimension of the Horus Business Modeler. The first professional Social BPM Tool (Business Process Management) for modeling, simulating and analyzing business processes is now also applicable via AR. While wearing AR glasses, displayed elements guide users interactively through their processes. Further support is provided by an integrated pattern recognition, which identifies the objects within the process during its operation.

For a long time, relevant market studies which divined an enormous growth of AR scenarios have been regarded with emotions ranging from astonishment to skepticism. The talk was oftentimes about a worldwide market volume of up to 200 billion dollars, and even the German federal association of digital business (Bundesverband Digitale Wirtschaft (BVDW)) already certified in the last economical year that half of all German companies were going to concentrate specifically on AR. As a matter of fact, AR has long arrived in the business world and is now an indispensable part of it.

While in the laboratories, AR technology is still in a process of continuous fine-tuning, more and more helpful tools have found their way into practice. Especially in the area of business process optimization, the use of AR technology has proven to be groundbreaking, and contributes enormously to the field’s digital transformation. This way, the Research Center for Information Technology (Forschungszentrum Informatik in Karlsruhe (FZI)) has cooperated with Horus on the further development of the Horus Business Modeler, making it deployable for Augmented Reality. By using different technologies, in-depth information is integrated into the user environment. What stands out here is the fade-in of real-time information via the AR glasses in order to visualize additional information. The user experiences process modeling in the form of so-called full-spherical 360-degree videos. Interactive holograms are generated, and the produced images appear highly realistically and can be moved with hand gestures. Compared to the previous visual display of the Horus Business Modeler via computer or tablet, the level of immersion is thus higher; the access more intuitive.

Logistics companies are already testing the so-called vision picking (commissioning concept ‘pick-by-vision’) using data glasses. The logistics staff will see a fade-in of the objects to be picked and the location of where the objects can be found. The commissioning efficiency can thus be increased by 25 per cent through augmented reality.

When it comes to ‘Smart Factory’-related processes, AR can also achieve immense improvements due to being equipped with diverse rule and measuring systems. Sensor data provide status reports on workpieces or the plant condition. All of this data is centrally stored on a server and thus available for reality extension via wearables. Here, the production staff can view real-time data via the AR glasses, enjoying the advantage of a location-independent transparency.

The market revolving around Augmented Reality has been growing rapidly and the possibilities in business process management have been making continuous developments. If companies can manage both the identification of AR applications with real added value and the deployment of advanced products, they will encounter significant advantages – and, thus, real future technologies.