Fortunately, that field is growing by the day. Purveyors of “augmented reality” are out in force, promising to give users information that they can use in a real-time, real-world context. In the consumer world, this revolution relies heavily on smart phones. Standing in the middle of Chicago, for instance, someone can hold his phone out and see icons on the screen that actually point him to a nearby restaurant recommended by friends and tell him how far away it is.

The technology has all kinds of possible applications for the world around you. Rob Pegoraro of the Washington Post offers a good rundown of some of the consumer apps available. Esquire magazine devoted its December issue to augmented reality, allowing readers to point their computer webcams at modified bar codes on the printed page to see additional information in the form of 3D videos, etc.

But as a manufacturer, you’re looking for more than a good restaurant or a video of Robert Downey, Jr.

Turns out that people inside manufacturing have been thinking about the implications of augmented reality for a while now. Back in 2004, researchers A.Y.C. Nee and S.K. Ong published the book, Virtual and Augmented Reality Applications in Manufacturing, which detailed technologies “that have the potential to revolutionize manufacturing processes over the next few years,” according to its synopsis.

A year before that, a workshop on virtual environments produced a white paper that noted, “Using AR-techniques, [a] physically existing production environment can be superimposed with virtual planning objects.”

It won’t be long before we learn that Al Gore invented augmented reality in 1979. But, in the meantime, brace yourself for a new paradigm in the factory or plant, the warehouse, and field service.

From my limited research, SAP appears to be in the best position to garner first-mover status in applying augmented reality to manufacturing work. In the video below, a picker on the manufacturing floor at Daimler in Germany wears a space-age monocle that superimposes picking instructions on his field of vision, freeing him from printed work instructions and improving his accuracy. It’s a great first look at a practical use of augmented reality:

Where else could you see this technology in manufacturing?