This blog post was written for RealWear.com
As the cost of living soars, businesses are needing to re-think how they spend money. The answer lies in increased efficiency thanks to Assisted Reality.
Inflation affects everybody from individuals to global conglomerates, particularly when it comes to fuel. As oil prices take off into the stratosphere and businesses feel the pinch, an increasing number of companies will feel the pressure and look to other facets of their operations to cut costs and offset this global price hike.
While inflation is part and parcel of the world’s economies, it’s tough to predict such rapid rises when they stem from sudden events such as political unrest. The result is a huge spike in costs that’s felt over the globe.
“Aviation fuel hits an 8-year high.” —Bureau of Transportation Statistics.
*Chart via The International Air Transport Association (IATA)
The most recent data report from March 2022 from The Bureau of Transportation Statistics stated that there has been a soaring year-over-year (2021-2022) domestic fuel cost increase of 122.9%. In basic math, this looks like: 37.5%YoY increase in fuel consumption + 62.1% YoY increase per gallon = $1.64 Billion for USA airlines. To break it down, just from January 2022 to March 2022, the cost of jet fuel has increased by 44 cents (16.7%). From pre-pandemic days, it has increased by a massive $1.02 (50.5%). You can keep up with fuel costs via the IATA’s Monitor.
Total fuel cost for U.S. airline’s total scheduled service: (data from BTS.Gov) March 2019: $3.09 billion March 2021: $1.85 billion Feb 2022: $2.98 billion March 2022: $4.18 billion
In April 2022, US airline companies reported a massive change in pressure—paying over $5/gallon! Jet fuel soared 64% since the same time the previous year (U.S. Department of Transportation and the Energy Information Administration). Prices continue to soar alongside the conflict in Ukraine, and sanctions against Russia continue to push energy prices up and up. These sky-high prices are being passed on to consumers and business travel expenses, hurting the airline industry and small-medium business recovery.
“Hotel and car rental prices are incredibly inflated and out of our budget” —Your company’s CFO.
So what’s the answer? How do you respond to high inflation?
All those dollars, all that time, and all that Co2 do NOT have to be wasted on business travel. There are real-world solutions! No wonder your CFO wants to put the brakes on travel expenses—but you still have a job to get done. The ticket you now need is Assisted Reality via the RealWear Navigator™ 500.
Our world is spinning so fast that your customers can no longer wait for you to hop on a jet, get a rental car, sit in traffic (where you waste even more of that super expensive fuel), get a short night’s sleep in an overpriced hotel, and then sit in traffic again on the way to the job site in the morning feeling exhausted and jetlagged. Your company and customers now expect INSTANT service and support. If you can’t keep up, they will find someone who will.
Time is money. Money is time. For everyone.
Assisted Reality is becoming the norm for all companies who want to ensure optimization of the triple bottom line: People, Planet, and Profit.
Companies choosing to thrive instead of just surviving this era of inflated travel costs and supply chain challenges have turned to digital transformation and the industrial metaverse. Side note: If you are curious about what trusted industrial experts have to say about the industrial metaverse, check out our powerhouse round table here!
Let’s take a trip—sans passport, jetlag, time away from family, and travel expenses—to visit thriving companies taking advantage of Assisted Reality. First stop: Romania.
MHS Truck & Bus
MHS Truck & Bus is a team of 150 technicians and a few experts that manage the sole distribution of MAN Commerical Vehicles across Romania. Since they deployed RealWear Assisted Reality, the diagnosis time of vehicle repairs has been reduced by 75% and with a 50% reduction in travel. This innovative change will also result in a staggering saving of 2700 liters of fuel per month (based on 9 experts and 300 liters/per worker).
Marius Scutaru, Customer Service Director at MHS Truck & Bus, shared: “Since our deployment of RealWear we can solve difficult problems far quicker and reduce the downtime of vehicles out on the road. As a result, customer satisfaction has increased.” Scutaru added, “We’re using assisted reality as a communications system but also to display various documents, which the wearer has real-time access to via simple voice commands.”
With remote expert guidance, the MHS’s experts can now be anywhere in an instant—without wasting resources on travel and budget—to quickly solve a problem. Assisted Reality isn’t just for industrial, it can elevate the health of a company’s triple bottom line in just about any sector. Next stop: the world!
Merck
Merck is a global research-intensive biopharmaceutical company that brings hope to humanity via leading-edge science, and they’re now harnessing the power of Assisted Reality. Merck’s award-winning Remote Assist program (powered by Apprentice.io and RealWear) has helped save a whopping $3.6 million in travel costs and nearly 54,000 hours of employee travel across the company! This means that RealWear has brought optimal health to Merck’s:
People: Cut back 54,000 hours of employees being away from their home life.
Planet: Drastically reducing Co2 emissions from travel.
Profits: What could your company do with an extra $3,600,000?!
Now, let’s go north to Norway to meet agricultural heavy machinery manufacturer, Orkel.
Orkel
Orkel started as a humble agriculture machine shop for friends and family in 1949. Now, their cutting-edge technology is delivered to over 60 countries across six continents! Here’s what technician Svein Erik Syrstad thinks about utilizing RealWear Assisted Reality solutions:
“Our customers really appreciate the value of the system because we can provide a much faster level of support when an issue arises. All too often, our service technicians would travel for what turned out to be a quick fix. Now, with RealWear, many hours of time and CO2 emissions are saved, and most importantly, customers’ machines are operational again quickly, which is imperative during the harvest season.” Wasting time, money, and CO2 just to have valuable crops go bad is now a thing of the past for Orkel’s customers. Issues are now rapidly fixed, and harvests can continue to be plentiful.
Real Solutions
RealWear’s line of products offers real, powerful solutions for any “see what I see” or “need a document but are 1,000 miles from the office” type of situation. Take a look at how other healthcare and industrial companies are using hands-free visual assistance – here are 6 use cases delivering massive ROI, safety, and productivity. RealWear Navigator™ 500 is $2,500 USD and is a future-proof, modular design. One quick and exhausting business trip could easily cost more than a device that could save you endless trips.
‘Frontline’ no longer has to mean ‘in-person’. Just ask Taylor Davis, an electrical engineer for Goodyear Tire, why she uses RealWear: “Instead of spending days traveling, I can be online in minutes with a subject matter expert to provide technical support or install a new piece of equipment. Microsoft Teams for RealWear is part of my everyday life to support my projects.” – Taylor. Check out the full story here.