Distributed Asymmetric Virtual Reality in Industrial Context: Enhancing the Collaboration of Geographically Dispersed Teams in the Pipeline of Maintenance Method Development and Technical Documentation Creation

Featured Application Based on data from multinational domain experts in the field of Industrial Maintenance, this study demonstrated the application cases and advantages of asymmetric VR set-up to address needs present in the industry. Virtual Reality (VR) is a critical emerging technology in industrial contexts, as it facilitates collaboration and supports the product development lifecycle. However, its broad adoption is constrained by complex and high-cost integration. The use of VR among devices with various immersion and control levels may solve this obstacle, and increase the scalability of VR technologies. This article presents a case study on applying asymmetry between the COVE-VR platform and Microsoft Teams to enable distributed collaboration of multinational departments and enhance the maintenance method and documentation creation processes. Overall, five remote collaborative sessions were held with 20 experts from four countries. Our findings suggest that asymmetry between head-mounted display and Teams users enhances the quality of communication among geographically dispersed teams and their spatial understanding, which positively influences knowledge transfer and efficiency of industrial processes. Based on qualitative evaluation of the asymmetric VR setup, we further suggest a list of guidelines on how to enhance the collaboration efficiency for low-cost distributed asymmetric VR from three perspectives: organization, collaboration and technology.