Virtual Reality within a Virtual Assembly process: Its uses and values

Abstract: Background: In the time of Industry 4.0, companies must keep pace with new technological opportunities to stay competitive. One of these is Virtual reality (VR). VR can be used in the product development process for Virtual Assembly (VA).VR is a new technology, and therefore knowledge about the use of VR in product development for VA is limited. Therefore, the following research questions were formulated: Research questions: RQ1: What values does VR bring when used for virtual assembly? RQ2: What activities are important when using VR for virtual assembly? RQ3: How should a virtual assembly process using VR be conducted? Method: A literature review and a case study were performed in this thesis.The literature review was carried out to get an overview of the current knowledge about VR for VA.The case study was performed at a construction equipment company and the data collection methods used were interviews and observations. Two triangulations were used to cross-check and verify the collected data. Only data mentioned by two or more data collection methods were included in the result. Findings: The thesis resulted in 19 value categories, 20 activity categories and a VA process flowchart. The VA process should be used iteratively throughout development, especially in the early phases.It is essential to utilize the 20 activity categories when using the VA process to realize the 19 value categories. These 19 value categories benefit three users—the stakeholders, the company, and the customers. The VA process helps the stakeholders develop a product for the customer of higher quality for cheaper and faster. The company gains a more significant profit from the reduced resource consumption and the ability to be more competitive.