How Can Collaborative Augmented Reality Support Operative Work

in the Facility Management Industry?

Henri Jalo, Henri Pirkkalainen, Osku Torro, Hannu Kärkkäinen,

Jukka Puhto and Tuomas Kankaanpää

Faculty of Business and Built Environment, Tampere University of Technology,

Korkeakoulunkatu 8, 33720 Tampere, Finland

Keywords: Augmented Reality, Collaboration, Facility Management, Knowledge Management.

Abstract: Augmented reality (AR) enables effective knowledge transfer in synchronous and asynchronous modes of

collaboration independent of the users’ location. Researchers have emphasized that collaborative

characteristics of AR could change how companies carry out knowledge management. However, there is little

research about this subject. We address this gap specifically in the context of the facility management (FM)

industry. A qualitative multiple-case study was carried out to explore how collaborative AR can bring value

to FM companies. This study’s contribution to research is a better understanding of the application of

collaborative AR in the context of FM. As a managerial contribution, companies can better understand what

type of collaborative AR solutions can be adopted in the short- and long-term. The factors that enable the

adoption of these solutions are discussed.

1 INTRODUCTION

Augmented reality (AR) has previously had only

limited use in industry and in the consumer market

due to multiple technical limitations (Chi et al., 2013).

However, the recent rapid technological

advancements in AR-related technologies and new

applications, such as Pokémon Go, have now brought

AR into the public consciousness (Porter and

Heppelmann, 2017). The use of AR is expected to

grow rapidly. For example, Digi-Capital (2018)

predicts the AR market will grow from less than $5

billion in 2017 to between $85 and $90 billion by

2022. Google and Apple are also investing heavily in

AR with the releases of their ARCore and ARKit AR

development platforms, respectively (Kharpal, 2017).

Because of these factors, AR technologies are

likely to be adopted widely by industry within the

next ten years (Chi et al., 2013; Irizarry et al., 2013).

AR is also recognized as a significant technological

trend, and it is beginning to move on from the hype

and disillusionment phase to offering real business

value (Gartner, 2017). More than ever, AR is now

poised for a breakthrough.

According to Azuma et al. (2001), AR combines

the real world with virtual objects in real time while

being interactive. The core potential of AR is in

combining relevant digital information with real-

world objects. This can enhance the way people

interact with the world and enable people to utilize

digital information more intuitively and efficiently

(Williams et al., 2015). AR can enhance the

collaboration between a company’s employees in

many different ways resulting in cost-savings and

better service for customers (Martínez et al., 2014).

These aspects are especially relevant in the labor-

intensive facility management (FM) industry

(Lehtonen, 2006) where employees need to

collaborate with each other while staying mobile

throughout the workday as they maintain facilities

they are not necessarily familiar with.

The current work methods in FM lack the infusion

of technology and have been argued to be outdated

(Irizarry et al., 2013). Most of the costs of a facility

are incurred during the operation and maintenance

phase (Becerik-Gerber et al., 2011). The potential for

new efficiencies through the use of new digital

solutions, such as collaborative AR, is significant in

the FM industry (Zakiyudin et al., 2013).

Collaborative AR has the potential to support

effective knowledge transfer between multiple

employees by enabling them to interact with each

other in a context-sensitive manner.

Jalo, H., Pirkkalainen, H., Torro, O., Kärkkäinen, H., Puhto, J. and Kankaanpää, T.

How Can Collaborative Augmented Reality Support Operative Work in the Facility Management Industry?.

DOI: 10.5220/0006889800410051

In Proceedings of the 10th International Joint Conference on Knowledge Discovery, Knowledge Engineering and Knowledge Management (IC3K 2018) - Volume 3: KMIS, pages 41-51

ISBN: 978-989-758-330-8

The use of AR in FM and especially its

collaborative characteristics have not been studied

extensively. This study aims to address that gap in

research. The research questions of this paper are:

RQ1: What are the most relevant application areas of

collaborative AR in the FM industry context?

RQ2: What added value can collaborative AR bring

in the context of the FM industry?

In order to answer these research questions, a

multiple-case study was carried out in several Finnish

FM companies that are adopting collaborative AR

solutions. This study context is particularly

interesting because there are more than 100 highly

active VR/AR studios in Finland that are offering

innovative solutions to companies (Suominen et al.,

2017). The FM industry’s interest in digitalization has

also increased in the last few years, and there are

significant government efforts to aid FM companies

in digitalizing their businesses (Ministry of the

Environment, 2018).

The rest of the paper is organized as follows. First,

the related theoretical background of AR and its

collaborative characteristics are provided in section 2.

Second, the research methodology of the study is

described in section 3. Next, the results and findings

of the study are presented in section 4. Finally, the

findings are discussed with the theoretical and

managerial implications of the study in section 5. The

study’s limitations and proposed future research are

also discussed in this section.

2 THEORETICAL

BACKGROUND

In this section, the adoption of AR within many

industries is explored. Adoption of AR within the FM

industry is specifically addressed. Finally, the

collaborative characteristics of AR are synthesized.

2.1 AR Adoption

Previously, AR had been mainly used in military,

medicine, industry, education, marketing and

entertainment contexts (van Krevelen and Poelman,

2010; Bower et al., 2014; Mekni and Lemieux, 2014;

Billinghurst et al., 2015; Porter and Heppelmann,

2017). AR technologies have been advancing rapidly

within the last few years which have made adoption

possible in many different application areas.

However, AR is still largely in the development phase

and has yet to reach its full potential (Carmigniani et

al., 2011; Rankohi and Waugh, 2013; Murthi and

Varshney, 2018).

AR can be utilized by handheld displays, such as

smartphones and tablets, head-mounted displays

(HMDs) and projection displays (Azuma et al., 2001).

However, the vast majority of AR systems use video

see-through devices, such as smartphones, rather than

optical see-through devices found on HMDs (Wang

et al., 2013).

Bringing assembly instructions into the view of a

worker with AR is being piloted in thousands of

companies (Porter and Heppelmann, 2017). When

compared to a traditional manual, AR instructions can

decrease the number of errors by up to 82% (Mekni

and Lemieux, 2014). NASA uses Microsoft’s

HoloLens to bring in experts to remotely assist

astronauts in maintenance tasks (Hachman, 2015).

Boeing halved the error rate and shortened the

production times in their pilot project with a Google

Glass AR system (Sacco, 2016). Henderson and

Feiner (2009) demonstrated that task localization for

maintenance workers improved significantly with an

AR solution when compared to previous methods.

The commonality in all of these examples is that they

represent AR adoption in a very specific use context.

The complexity of FM brings significant challenges

to adoption of new AR solutions.

2.2 AR in Facility Management

Employees working in the FM industry require access

to a large amount of information from many different

sources to complete their work tasks (Irizarry et al.,

2013; Rankohi and Waugh, 2013). Gathering all the

relevant information has been difficult and has

required a lot of error-prone manual work due to the

heterogeneity of the maintained facilities (Bae et al.,

2013). This can also make collaboration challenging,

as it can be difficult to ensure that that the employees

are using the same and up-to-date information during

collaboration. AR can provide solutions to these

problems, but despite its potential benefits, it has not

been widely adopted in the FM industry (Rankohi and

Waugh, 2013).

One of the research areas within the construction

and FM industries is the use of building information

modeling (BIM) with the help of AR (Becerik-Gerber

et al., 2011; Irizarry et al., 2013; Irizarry et al., 2014;

Williams et al., 2015; Chu et al., 2018). However,

most of the research in combining BIM with AR has

focused on the design and construction phases of a

facility (Gheisari and Irizarry, 2016). Enabling a

remote collaborator to guide another user by allowing

him or her to interact with the remote environment

KMIS 2018 - 10th International Conference on Knowledge Management and Information Sharing

through AR has also been an area of interest (Gauglitz

et al., 2014; Billinghurst et al., 2015; Lukosch et al.,

2015). These solutions allow the users to feel as if

they are virtually co-located (Lukosch et al., 2015).

However, the applicability of these solutions has not

been explored extensively in the context of FM.

Maintenance workers would benefit from using

HMDs in utilizing AR because they leave both hands

free for work-related tasks (Bimber and Raskar,

2005). However, the majority of existing AR

solutions were developed for handheld displays, such

as smartphones and tablets, because of their

ubiquitous nature and higher mobility. Furthermore,

HMDs are still quite expensive (Porter and

Heppelmann, 2017) which limits their usage to

solving problems in highly capital-intensive and

time-critical tasks, such as repairing and maintaining

industrial machinery, where even short work

stoppages can incur high costs for companies.

This means that in the FM industry, AR solutions

will be mainly used with smartphones, which are

becoming ever more powerful and suitable for AR

due to the many different sensors and upgraded

functionalities (Carmigniani et al., 2011). A key

benefit of AR is in reducing the user’s need to shift

his or her attention from his work task to supporting

documentation (Woodward et al., 2014). For

example, users could enhance their collaboration by

embedding relevant digital information, such as a

maintenance manual, in their shared view of a work

task. Thus, a core value of AR is likely to reside in its

potential for more effective collaboration.

2.3 Collaborative AR

Historically, most AR systems have made been for

single users (Wang et al., 2013). AR has been

developing toward a more collaborative direction

with solutions that enable interaction between

individuals. However, these collaborative

characteristics and their research are in their infancy.

This section provides an overview of those

collaborative characteristics.

Collaborative AR is defined as an AR system

where “multiple users share the same augmented

environment” locally or remotely (Regenbrecht et al.,

2002, p. 152) and which enables knowledge transfer

between different users. Collaborative AR has

significant potential because AR can be widely

adopted within different functions in a company’s

value chain (Porter and Heppelmann, 2017). Some

studies have also found that users prefer AR over

virtual reality (VR) in collaborative situations

(Billinghurst et al., 2001).

According to Ellis et al. (1991), collaboration and

communication can be classified in four categories

depending on whether the collaboration happens

synchronously or asynchronously and whether the

users are located in the same place or not.

Collaborative AR solutions can also be classified by

the participating stakeholders. Collaboration can

happen inside a company, between companies or

between a company and its customers.

The collaboration type can be further divided

based on the number of participating users (Jensen,

2001). Collaboration types can be classified into one-

on-one, one-on-many and many-on-many categories.

The device used in the collaboration also has an effect

on communication. For example, ensuring that every

user has the same view and a shared understanding of

the virtual content has been a challenge if the users

view the AR content through their own devices

(Azuma et al., 2001).

Collaboration in AR can happen in a multitude of

ways. According to Azuma et al. (2001), all five

human senses can be used in AR. However, thus far

developers have focused almost entirely on the visual

aspects of AR (Wang et al., 2013). Correspondingly,

most AR functionalities utilize visual digital

information, such as text, pictures, videos and

information models. The available functionalities of

the AR system also have an effect on collaboration.

All these different factors should be taken into

consideration in exploring collaborative AR. The key

characteristics of collaborative AR are presented in

Figure 1.

Figure 1: Characteristics of collaborative AR.

3 METHODOLOGY

Five Finnish FM companies participated in this study.

We focused on companies that were adopting

emerging collaborative AR solutions. Some of the

How Can Collaborative Augmented Reality Support Operative Work in the Facility Management Industry?

companies participating in the study were more

involved in the maintenance phase of a facility, while

others were involved in a facility’s whole lifecycle.

This enabled us to explore the views of companies

involved in different lifecycle phases of a facility. The

study used a qualitative approach. The chosen

research strategy was multiple-case study (Yin,

2009).

Semi-structured interviews were used as the data

collection method (Ghauri and Grønhaug, 2005).

Interviews were chosen because they are a useful

method in exploring new research areas, such as

collaborative AR, where limited research is available.

This method also allowed us to explore interesting

themes that emerged during the interviews more

thoroughly.

The aim of the interviews was to find out what

added value collaborative AR can bring to each FM

company. Usage scenarios of new collaborative AR

solutions pertinent to each company were explored

during the interviews. In addition, a list of questions

and themes were used in the interviews. The

collaborative AR characteristics presented in Figure

1 were utilized in formulating the questions in order

to explore the usage of AR. In the pilot tests, a remote

AR video collaboration tool called POINTR was

tested (Delta Cygni Labs, 2018).

In total, nine interviews were carried out between

October 2017 and February 2018. The interviews

lasted from 90 to 120 minutes. The interviews had

one or more interviewees; therefore, some of the

interviews can be classified as focus groups (Ghauri

and Grønhaug, 2005). The interviewees consisted of

senior leadership who are responsible for the

company’s digitalization strategy and of the end-

users of the new collaborative AR solutions being

adopted. In each interview, three to five members of

the research team were present and acted as the

interviewers. The interviewers and the interviewees

were all Finnish.

The interviews were audio-recorded and then

transcribed in Word documents as thoroughly as

possible. The transcribed interviews were then

analyzed iteratively where the themes arising from

the interviews were constantly refined. The findings

were grouped under different themes, such as FM

industry specific challenges and application areas of

collaborative AR. The characteristics of collaborative

AR presented in Figure 1 were also utilized during the

analysis. A list of the interviews is presented in

Table 1.

Table 1: List of the interviews.

Interviewed

company

Interview type Interviewees

Company A Focus group

CEO, CEO,

Chief Real

Estate Officer

Company B Focus group

Chief

Development

Officer,

Workspace

Expert

Company C

Semi-structured

interview

CEO

Company D Focus group

CEO, Unit

Manager,

maintenance

worker,

landscape

designer

Company C

Focus

group/pilot test

CEO, 4 team

leaders, 4

cleaners,

maintenance

expert

Company D

Focus

group/pilot test

CEO, Unit

Manager

Company E

Semi-structured

interview

CEO

Company E Focus group

CEO, Chief

Real Estate

Officer,

Construction

Manager,

Construction

Engineer, ERP

Project Manager

Companies A, B

and D

Focus group

CEO, CEO,

Chief

Development

Officer

4 RESULTS

In this section, we present the results of the study. We

first present the most relevant application areas of

collaborative AR in FM. Then we present the use of

AR in remote collaboration. After that, we present the

use of AR in context-dependent asynchronous

collaboration. Finally, five different enabling factors

relating to the adoption of collaborative AR are

presented.

KMIS 2018 - 10th International Conference on Knowledge Management and Information Sharing

4.1 Application Areas of Collaborative

According to the results, the companies were

interested in utilizing AR in many different

application areas. Of all the potential application

areas, most interviewees considered that the main

value of existing collaborative AR solutions was in

enhancing the collaboration between the company’s

employees in operative work as highlighted in Figure

2. Educating the company’s employees about

different work tasks was also seen by many as a

critical source of value.

A few companies were also interested in utilizing

AR to bring their customers closer to their business

processes. However, this was seen as challenging due

to the heterogeneous customer profiles and their

different levels of technological readiness to use new

AR solutions. For example, a tenant and a

professional service buyer differ significantly in this

regard. A maintenance worker noted, “So how does

this work out when you require new devices for a

tenant? I mean, can you give an 80-year-old a new

device and tell him to give the next work order with it

and tell him not to call us. The notifications are still

very often written on the back of an old envelope and

dropped in a mail box so it’s quite a leap from that to

this new solution.” Therefore, most interviewees saw

the potential of collaborative AR to reside mainly in

improving a company’s internal business processes.

Figure 2: Application areas of collaborative AR.

4.2 AR in Remote Collaboration

The adoption of AR for remote collaboration was

seen to have huge potential. Many interviewees saw

AR to be useful for collaboration between

maintenance workers, as well as between managers

and workers. The interactive and visual nature of

existing solutions (such as Delta Cygni Labs’

POINTR) were seen as a big advantage when

compared to traditional phone calls. Many

interviewees thought that creating a remote video

connection between two workers where the workers

could augment the video stream with AR annotations

and drawings could save the workers a lot of time by

helping them avoid unnecessary site visits. As one

CEO pointed out, “The thing here is that because the

solution is interactive and collaborative, if anything

is unclear, we can go through it again and give more

accurate instructions. That gives us a better chance

to avoid unnecessary visits to facilities as their cost is

especially high in the metropolitan area.”

The visual nature of the AR solutions was seen by

some to enable more efficient collaboration between

individuals who do not speak the same language. A

team leader remarked, “Then when you sometimes

have these workers who do not speak Finnish that

well, it’s especially difficult to try to explain

something to them verbally when you could just point

to what you were referring to [in a video].”

In addition to helping overcome the language

barrier, the solutions were seen to give the expert a

better understanding of whether the worker

understood his or her instructions. One CEO said that

“reliability is probably a good thing about this

because this gives us a better picture about whether

the instruction was actually understood or not

because there’s a lot of guesswork involved with that

right now.”

According to most interviewees, the FM industry

has been very conservative in adopting new digital

solutions when compared to other industries.

However, many interviewees thought that significant

changes in AR-enabled work methods were now

possible because a new generation of workers is

entering the industry. A CEO remarked, “I believe

more in change in the industry now because we’ve

already had a massive generational shift happen in

our companies.” Another CEO noted, “Then you

have to remember that people are constantly retiring,

and new people are coming in. They all have

smartphones, and they use it for everything in their

lives. So it’s not the problem anymore that people

wouldn’t know how to use or learn how to use them

because it’s taken for granted that everything is

handled with a smartphone.” The readiness of FM

industry employees to adopt new digital solutions was

clearly seen to be improving.

How Can Collaborative Augmented Reality Support Operative Work in the Facility Management Industry?

4.3 AR in Context-dependent

Asynchronous Knowledge Transfer

Many interviewees saw the cost of having a remote

expert on standby when needed as a downside of

synchronous remote collaboration. As one CEO

explained, “I’ll emphasize again, this is fine during

normal work hours, but then you have these night

shifts where you would need recordings because

otherwise, it just becomes impossible when you think

of the Finnish working time legislation and the costs

of having someone constantly on duty for different

expertise areas.”

Therefore, AR was also seen to be potentially

useful in asynchronous local collaboration. A core

advantage of collaborative AR is in enabling the

availability of context-dependent knowledge for

workers asynchronously. For example, a worker

could attach digital maintenance instructions to a

particular machine for other workers to read later.

This was seen to be crucial, as one CEO remarked:

“Actually, it is very common that when the worker

does not know how to do something or how to use

some machine that he just leaves the task alone. The

worker also does not tell anyone about it, and it might

resurface after a month, and then we wonder why this

was not done already.”

Asynchronous local collaboration was also seen

to save managers’ time if workers could solve

problems independently more often. A CEO

explained, “The idea here is that in the beginning we

take these different machines of ours because they

always have some top-5 problem list which the

worker could go through before he calls us that

something does not work.”

The availability of different types of instructions

was also emphasized by one CEO: “I think that partly

it can just be an instruction video that you can tap

open when you scan a machine. But then we also have

to think that a person has to have options about what

kind of instructions he wants to see. For some, the

video is not enough, someone manages with just a

picture, and written instructions are enough for

others.”

According to one CEO, one of the major problems

with the current work methods is that they are

extremely prone to errors and mistakes. He explained

that “there’s a lot of room for error right now. For

example, whether a worker remembers to bring back

the documents for billing purposes once he is finished

with a task. Or if he gets a call about a new task. He

quickly writes it down while he is driving somewhere,

and then the note perhaps falls down during a braking

situation, and then he completely forgets it. There’s

lots of opportunities for errors, and naturally,

because I’m responsible for this operation as a whole,

when people forget to bill something or don’t know

that they should bill about something, those errors

are very concerning.” Collaborative AR was seen to

have potential in solving these problems by

automating and digitalizing the current work

methods. For example, if a worker could find all

relevant documentation for a machine by simply

pointing a smartphone at it, the need for manual

information gathering would decrease substantially.

Asynchronous local collaboration between a

company and its customers was also seen as a

possibility according to one CEO: “Educating

tenants is one area where I see a use for AR. Because

no one reads that instruction folder, you need to

translate that into an AR form where you can just take

out your smartphone and check how something

works.” Collaborative AR was generally seen as an

update of the current outdated methods. However,

adopting these new solutions in the customer context

was seen to be highly dependent on the companies’

customer profile. The younger the company

customers, the more likely they were thought to be to

adopt new digital solutions.

4.4 Enablers of Collaborative AR in

Facility Management

According to the findings, multiple developments

need to take place to pave the way for smooth

adoption of collaborative AR in the FM industry.

Most interviewees saw the integration of information

systems as a critical factor in enabling the adoption of

new collaborative AR solutions. The value of AR

comes from showing relevant digital information to

the user in his or her immediate context. For example,

a maintenance worker could look at a malfunctioning

machine (e.g. an air conditioning unit) with a

smartphone and see different sensor information

digitally attached to relevant parts of the machine.

This is naturally extremely difficult if the different

information systems do not transfer essential data

between them. The FM industry utilizes many types

of information systems of which many are extremely

outdated. Integrating these systems has been

challenging, as one CEO said, “We banged our heads

against a wall for two years with information

gathering, and you just could not get it done. What

happened in the end was that we have eight or nine

different software solutions which get information

from the cloud, and every software had a closed

interface and different file format. Then there are

fourteen different automation systems that we cannot

KMIS 2018 - 10th International Conference on Knowledge Management and Information Sharing

get into. That is precisely the problem with us that our

information is so fragmented.”

Open interfaces of information systems

(application programming interfaces, APIs) were also

seen to be critical for AR because AR solutions often

require real-time information to be shown to the user.

Ownership of different information systems in the

FM industry is also extremely fragmented. One CEO

pondered that “it will likely be somewhat of a

problem, because most of our clients do not own the

facility where they operate so they do not have the

authority to do that [give access to information]. I

think this is a huge question that who gives

permissions and how everyone earns with it, I think

it’s still unsolved. Because there is a lot of data in the

facilities, but if they say that these are our systems,

you cannot use them, then what can you do?”

If these challenges are to be overcome, increased

and open collaboration was seen to be needed

between different companies throughout the whole

lifecycle of a facility. A CEO succinctly encapsulated

the problem: “In that sense, it’s true that

digitalization and AR/VR are now coming through

very quickly, but we’re such a small company that it’s

difficult for us to utilize anything like this on our

own.”

Many interviewees saw further advancements in

building information modeling and indoor location

technologies as a necessity for collaborative AR

solutions. These technologies are key enablers for

context-dependent knowledge transfer, as they are

needed to save information to a specific location

inside a building. For example, they would make it

possible to provide direct access to a facility’s

maintenance manual in the actual use context. Several

interviewees had already seen what these

technologies make possible. A CEO remarked, “I

actually have experience with this. You had these

glasses on, and then they had already made the

information models in the design phase so that when

I went into a place I could see the pipes inside the

walls. That would, of course, be ideal, but that is a

long way off, especially in old buildings.” A chief

development officer also remarked that “this indoor

location technology is at least one of the

preconditions because it opens up so many

possibilities.” Table 2 summarizes the key factors

that enable adoption of more comprehensive

collaborative AR solutions. These key factors were

mentioned frequently by different interviewees.

Table 2: Five key factors that enable adoption of

collaborative AR.

Factor Description

What has to

happen

Integrated

information

systems

The different

information

systems need to

easily provide

information for

the AR solutions

Companies need

to undergo

integration

projects with

their current

information

systems or

change to new

ones

Open

information

systems

interfaces

(APIs)

AR solutions

need open access

to real-time

information from

different

information

systems

Companies need

to open their

information to

each other in a

reciprocal

manner

Open

cooperation

between

companies

Companies from

different stages

of the lifecycle

of a facility have

to be willing to

cooperate more

openly

The companies

require

incentives and

demonstrated

benefits from

cooperation

Building

information

modeling

(BIM)

The use of BIM

in construction

needs to be

adopted more

widely

BIM has to

become more

efficient and

intuitive to use;

the models also

need to be passed

on to FM

companies for

later use

Indoor

location

technologies

Users’ location

has to be easily

determined

indoors to enable

context-

dependent

knowledge

transfer

Indoor location

technologies

need further

technical

advancements

and large-scale

ubiquitous

adoption

5 DISCUSSION

In this section, we discuss the key findings of this

paper. We also present the paper’s theoretical

implications and discuss the managerial implications

for companies about to adopt collaborative AR

solutions. Limitations of the study and suggested

future research areas are also discussed.

How Can Collaborative Augmented Reality Support Operative Work in the Facility Management Industry?

5.1 What Value Can Collaborative AR

Bring to the FM Industry?

AR is a cutting-edge technology to which the context

of the FM industry brings its own challenges and

opportunities. Digitalization efforts have been

relatively minor in FM when compared to other

industries. Therefore, adopting new digital solutions,

such as collaborative AR, has the potential to give

companies a competitive edge. Adoption of AR

solutions is becoming increasingly relevant even in

this conservative industry.

In the light of our first research question, we

found that the most important application areas of

collaborative AR in the FM industry can be found in

the FM industry’s operative work and in educating a

company’s employees. In these use contexts,

collaborative AR can provide new methods for

enhancing a company’s internal business processes.

Based on our findings, the adoption of

collaborative AR solutions can be divided into short-

and long-term adoption. Relating to our second

research question, these solutions can bring added

value to FM companies in different ways, which will

be explored in the following paragraphs concerning

short- and long-term adoption of collaborative AR

solutions.

In terms of short-term adoption, companies can

enhance their internal business processes in

synchronous one-on-one remote collaboration

between maintenance workers and managers. The

current work methods are extremely prone to errors

and misunderstandings as problems on-site can be

difficult to explain to others via a phone call.

Collaborative remote AR solutions utilize video,

audio and digital annotations which makes it much

more likely for remote collaboration to succeed.

Because workers in the FM industry have to stay

mobile during a typical workday, there is significant

potential for new efficiencies through improved

remote collaboration. The usefulness of AR in remote

collaboration has also been recognized in scientific

literature (Billinghurst et al., 2015; Lukosch et al.,

2015). Remote collaboration between companies and

their customers with the help of AR will likely

become more popular in the future as AR solutions

become cheaper and more widely used in the

consumer market.

A key advantage of remote AR collaboration

solutions is that they do not have to be integrated with

any of the company’s other information systems. This

is critical as the integration level of the information

systems was at a relatively low level in the companies

participating in this study.

Remote AR collaboration solutions can be

adopted immediately to replace traditional phone

calls in technical communication with little need for

tailoring as the solutions are off-the-shelf. The current

devices in use were also seen to be largely sufficient

for these solutions although companies should pay

attention to the capabilities of new smartphones to

utilize AR when the companies replace their old

devices with new ones.

Smartphones are the most likely devices to be

utilized as the current HMDs are still too bulky and

expensive. Utilizing the more mobile smartphones is

also advantageous because employees do not have to

learn how to use new devices and interaction

techniques with new devices, such as HMDs.

However, companies should pay attention to

advancements in HMDs as they have the benefit of

leaving both hands free for operative work when

compared to smartphones (Bimber and Raskar,

2005).

AR solutions are generally seen to be easy to learn

and use (Martínez et al., 2014). This was also

confirmed in the pilot tests as the employees saw the

AR solution as easy to learn. This is beneficial

because of the relatively low level of education and

IT skills of employees in the FM industry.

The financial benefits of these remote

collaboration solutions start to accrue immediately as

employees save time in decreased site visits and

fewer misunderstandings and errors in

communication. Customer satisfaction is also likely

to rise as problems more often get solved with a single

visit. At a minimum, the other employee participating

in the collaboration is better prepared for the site visit

if he or she has already seen the problem visually.

In terms of long-term adoption, the companies

stressed the need for better access to context-

dependent and location-based knowledge. According

to the literature, more comprehensive AR solutions

appear to be potentially useful in accessing location-

based knowledge (Irizarry et al., 2013; Wang et al.,

2013; Chu et al., 2018). These solutions have the

potential to provide significant added value in

asynchronous collaboration. These solutions have the

potential to enhance collaboration in many different

aspects. For example, employees can view the hidden

structures of a building in co-located collaboration or

access and modify location-based knowledge for

other employees to access asynchronously in the real

use context.

Currently, employees have to manually gather all

the information they need from different information

sources to complete their work tasks. This requires a

lot of work and is prone to errors. Centralizing digital

KMIS 2018 - 10th International Conference on Knowledge Management and Information Sharing

information in fewer systems to be accessed with AR

solutions appears potentially beneficial for successful

completion of work tasks in FM.

Open APIs are also required from information

systems if these solutions are to be implemented. This

was seen to be difficult to implement currently

although the trend was clearly seen to be toward more

open APIs.

Adopting these more comprehensive AR

solutions was seen to be challenging currently as

there are few off-the-shelf solutions and the needed

enabling technologies, such as BIM and indoor

location technologies, have not been adopted widely

at this time. The indoor context of most tasks of the

FM industry is a significant challenge. However, BIM

is being adopted ever more widely in construction

(Irizarry et al., 2013). Apple, Google and Microsoft,

among others, are also investing heavily in indoor

location technologies (Pichler, 2017). Thus, the

opportunities for more comprehensive AR solutions

are likely to increase in the coming years. Therefore,

adoption of these solutions should be a long-term

focus for FM companies.

A single company in the FM industry does not

have sufficient power to advance the spread of these

technologies for use in different lifecycle stages of a

facility, which, thus, necessitates more open

cooperation between the companies for this to be

achieved. FM companies are especially reliant on the

decisions of construction companies concerning

digitalization. The significant heterogeneity of the

facilities and the amount of available digital

information is also a challenge as this requires the FM

companies to utilize different solutions in different

facilities depending on their level of digitalization.

The fragmented ownership of buildings also requires

FM companies to negotiate access to digital

information on a case-by-case basis.

5.2 Theoretical Implications

The present study has two main implications for

theory. First, the study contributes to research by

exploring the concept of collaborative AR in the

context of FM. The study clarifies the use of

collaborative AR in different application areas in the

FM industry. The findings indicate that collaborative

AR has the most potential in operative work and in

educating a company’s employees in the FM

industry.

Different characteristics of collaborative AR are

also emphasized depending on the industry.

According to the present findings, collaborative AR

has potential in enabling effective knowledge transfer

in synchronous remote and asynchronous local

collaboration in the FM industry.

Second, the study identified five key factors that

pave the way for comprehensive collaborative AR

solutions in the FM industry. These findings extend

our understanding of the adoption of AR in the FM

industry with collaboration-specific factors.

5.3 Managerial Implications

This study helps FM companies understand how

collaborative AR can be used in operative work and

what factors they have to take into consideration

when adopting collaborative AR solutions. Because

of these findings, companies do not have to undergo

as much trial and error because they can easily chart

which of the enabling factors they already fulfill. This

makes it clear what solutions they can adopt

immediately and what progress they have to achieve

in other areas in order to adopt more comprehensive

collaborative AR solutions.

5.4 Limitations and Future Research

The main limitation of this study is that it is based on

only a few case organizations. Generalizing these

findings to the FM industry as a whole, therefore,

should be done cautiously. More longitudinal

research should be conducted to explore the specific

measurable benefits that can be achieved through

adopting collaborative AR solutions in FM

companies. The use of collaborative AR should also

be researched in other industry settings to gauge

whether the findings presented in this paper are

applicable in other settings as well.

The willingness and readiness of construction

companies for more open cooperation with other

companies in the different lifecycle stages of a facility

should also be explored. This will likely be a critical

factor in adopting more comprehensive AR solutions

in the future. Customers’ readiness to use new AR

solutions also needs further study.

As HMDs become smaller and more powerful,

their usage in the highly mobile work tasks of the FM

industry should also be studied more thoroughly.

Currently, the use of HMDs is largely restricted to

design tasks in a limited location.

The use of collaborative AR in the context of the

FM industry has not been researched extensively yet.

This study addresses that gap and contributes to

research in this area. This study can act as a starting

point for future research.

How Can Collaborative Augmented Reality Support Operative Work in the Facility Management Industry?

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This research was supported by Tampere University

of Technology’s Diili project.

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How Can Collaborative Augmented Reality Support Operative Work in the Facility Management Industry?