9.5. Augmented Reality
Marketing
Another 4.0 technology that has been able to assist the Food and Beverage Industry is Augmented Reality (AR), which for this sector has been used for marketing purposes. With the available mobile technology upgrades in built-in cameras, sensors and mobile cloud computing, we now have AR on our mobile devices. This technology allows the consumer to engage personally with the products and closely examine them. The consumer is able to see details about the product such as the price, measurement and calories, though his live-camera. They are also able to play games with the food, conduct various tests and inform themselves on available promotions.
Here is an example of a LocateAR Starbucks Demo. This is an example of an Augmented Reality geolocation platform that enables businesses to rapidly design and deploy targeted location‐based AR experiences.
This advantage has not only cut costs in term of logistics, resources, advertisement materials and marketing personnel but also saves time as well as the effort for the preparation of multiple marketing gatherings. Although the technology seems to be advantageous for the marketing sector, it is also able to store and provide instant data about the customer behaviour and feedback without having to perform the traditional post-purchase survey. In addition, the use of AR enables companies to educate the consumers about their food products.
Training
Another advantage of AR is enhanced learning. An example of this achievement was in teaching. A test was administrated at plumbing students, that AR outperformed the traditional ways of teaching. The task was to assemble a water pump. The first group of students were shown the conventional 2D engineering drawings and the second group received information through AR. The second group were able to complete the task in approximately 8 times faster than learning from observing the engineering drawing.
The AR technology has progressed in many ways over last years. It has been used resourcefully to train various domestic tasks such as baking, planting and cooking. An example of this is an instructional video for the banoffee recipe which was designed by an artist Romain Rouffet, who is a Creative Technologist at Adobe. Viewers are able to drag their cursor around the screen to view and zoom in or out of the pie from different angles. Such visual recipes are potentially a sign of an innovative training method that can be applied not only in the foodservice sectors but also for other applicable operations. An advantage of this, is the reduction of cost in providing personalised trainings by using a video screen and it being available to a large number of students/trainees. This is important for the food and beverage industry as it will significantly reduce the “trouble” and cost of storing or preparing food and beverage products that have a short shelf-life and over time changing the quality. Another benefit of this technology is that trainings would now be a lot more effective. The use of visuals is able to reduce mental load and processing. This results to students/trainees being able to understand the subject faster. In food and beverage manufacturing, this type of training is important to prevent the them from disturbing the production activities.
Tasks
Additional Task: https://h5p.org/node/740249