Augmented reality as a solution for knowledge retention in the workplace
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Marthijn Koorn
Commercial Director
In the manufacturing industry, everything revolves around knowledge—knowledge of materials, processes, machines, and post-processing. In production environments like Pentas, this knowledge is often built up through years of hands-on experience. Traditionally, this expertise has been passed on from seasoned operators to new employees—a method that has worked well for a long time but is now increasingly under pressure.
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The sector is changing. Experienced employees are retiring, while new colleagues with diverse backgrounds and nationalities are joining. At the same time, products and processes are becoming more complex. This makes capturing and securing essential expertise an ever-growing challenge. At Pentas, important steps have already been taken to document this knowledge, such as using visual manuals and instructions. However, in practice, these documents are not always easy to interpret, and updates are not automatically adopted by colleagues. This raises the key question: how can you not only document expertise but also make it sustainably and accessibly available to everyone in the workplace?
Augmented reality offers new possibilities. By linking digital instructions visually and contextually to the work environment, employees can be guided step by step during their tasks. Instructions are always up to date thanks to centralized version control, making every change immediately visible to colleagues on the floor. This ensures that every employee always has the right information at hand and that knowledge is delivered at exactly the right time and place—bringing learning and working together.
Collaboration as a foundation for innovation
To explore and apply these possibilities, we joined the RAAK SME project AR in the manufacturing industry. Together with Saxion University of Applied Sciences, the University of Twente, and other partners, we are working toward a common goal: developing a future-proof method for preserving and transferring expertise within production companies.
The strength of this collaboration lies in combining practical experience with academic knowledge. By linking insights from the shop floor to research and technological expertise, a multidisciplinary approach emerges that goes beyond theory. This enables the development of solutions that are genuinely applicable in a production environment.
Central research question
The project centered around the following question:
How can augmented reality be used to sustainably document and make expertise immediately available on the shop floor within SME companies?
This question formed the basis for developing and testing various applications and methods in practice.
From research to tangible results
The research project has now been successfully completed. Together with the partners, five concrete products were developed that can be directly applied in the development and implementation of AR work instructions. Practical guidelines were established for creating clear and effective AR instructions. Attention was also given to recording AR instructional videos and carefully onboarding AR applications within organizations.
The results of this project show that augmented reality can be a valuable tool for knowledge retention in the manufacturing industry. By capturing expertise and making it accessible, AR not only supports new employees but also helps to make processes more consistent and future-proof.