BLUFFTON, SC — As part of BEMA’s annual convention, which took place June 20-24 in Bluffton, SC, the association hosted business sessions on topics and issues facing the commercial baking industry.
During the first session, Jason Stricker, VP of sales at Shick Esteve; Justus Larson, chief engineer at US Bakery; Karl Thorson, food safety and sanitation manager at General Mills; and Mike LaValle, corporate account manager, bakery and snack team at Intralox, discussed the use cases and device functionality for RealWear’s Head Mounted Tablet (HMT) technology and how it’s impacted their companies for the better.
The HMT is a hands-free, head-mounted wearable device that helps create a safer, more productive working environment for manufacturing employees. Each speaker shared how HMT has saved them time and money when problems occur on the production floor.
For example, rather than needing a chief engineer to come to the facility to fix the problem, which could take days and stop production for hours, the technology allows bakery employees to fix the problem in several minutes.
“How much easier is it to learn how to do something when you’re physically doing it yourself as opposed to ‘Okay, I fixed that, now let me show you how I did that,’” Larson said. “And then kind of trying to walk through it. You’re going to learn better hands-on experience.”
The HMT can also improve employee safety. For example, users can shoot videos with HMT that can be used as training videos for other employees.
“I’ve had some midnight phone calls, coaching somebody through how to retime a bagger,” Larson said. “I recorded that and then that video is used for training moving forward.”
For more information on the technology, visit RealWear’s website.
