Augmented Reality in Manufacturing: Exploring Workers’ Perceptions of Barriers

Augmented reality (AR) integrates virtual information realistically into a user's field of view. While research and industry forecasts agree that it will take several years for AR to be developed into a mass market technology, companies have already started rolling it out as an enterprise tool. By providing their workers virtual work-related information into the field of view, companies expect higher levels of efficiency. While some studies have tackled the positive aspects of AR, very little is known about potential barriers to AR in manufacturing. In this article, we constitute the first attempt to close this research gap by drawing on technology resistance research, incorporating findings from pilot studies, and analyzing data received from 263 manufacturing workers. As a result, it complements the extant literature by identifying multiple barriers to AR adoption on the worker level, assessing the magnitude of these barriers across different groups of workers, and identifying their relationships with technology resistance and acceptance factors. The findings extend technology resistance research, contribute to AR user research, and provide multiple recommendations for AR managers.