Pascal Lessard is a Product Specialist for SAP’s Augmented Reality Portfolio who traveled from Montreal to attend TechEd in Las Vegas. When I met him, he was wearing a pair of Google Glass glasses, which is something I’d never seen before, and manning a booth dedicated to SAP’s latest forays into augmented reality. His work involves Extended Warehouse Management and Google Glass and he was willing to take some time to tell me all about it.

What is SAP doing right now in augmented reality?

Currently we are developing some applications and prototypes using augmented reality. So, for example, we’re using head-mounted displays like Google Glass and other kinds of Glass, as well as iPads and tablets, to be able to leverage augmented reality and the different pillars from SAP, such as SAP Mobile Platform 3.0, and the Cloud, as well as HANA.

How did you get your hands on Google Glass?

The way it works right now for Google Glass, it’s called the Expert Program. The way it worked was you needed to provide an idea to Google and, if they agreed with the idea, they gave you the opportunity to get one device for a certain price. It [the idea] was provided by the company. A couple of ideas were provided by SAP. They were accepted for the Expert Program and they [the glasses] were sent to us specifically.

Tell me about what you are working on.

The first prototype that we actually did is Extended Warehouse Management. This allows a warehouse picker to be able to do simple and small parts picking in a warehouse environment and to have a hands free experience, so they can go into the warehouse, see what they have to pick in their smart glass, do the actual picking – that is the scanning of the bar codes with the camera that is in the glass – so everything is done hands free and allows us to display what is relevant to the user at any time.

What kinds of SAP technology are involved in that?

The warehouse that would use that [Google Glass] would be using Extended Warehouse Management from SAP.  The way we use it is that we do a native Android application on the Google Glass, or any other smart glass, and then we connect it using SAP Mobile Platform2.0, and then we go through the Cloud to the on-premise backend that is holding the Extended Warehouse Module. Then everything is transferred through the Gateway to the Odata channel, which is simplified information that is usable from the mobile device.

How well does the SAP Mobile Platform interface with Google Glass?

Using the SAP Mobile Platform, it’s pretty easy because you have the Cloud Connector. So, there is a provided SDK that allows the developer doing the native  Android application to connect easily to the on-premise backend.

Is augmented reality the way of the future?

I think that augmented reality, as well as the head-mounted display, and the different types of wearable computing is really the future for a lot of things – such as manufacturing, field service, as well as warehouse management – where we can have hands free experience, where we can have augmented information added to the user at any time. This is very valuable because we can leverage all the different pillars from SAP and get the maximum information that we can and provide it to the user without him or her having to request that information.

Do you see SAP pursuing augmented reality on a bigger scale?

I can see a big part of it [SAP] going that way and not necessarily staying locked up in desktop and thinking about the end user, which means offering a certain flexibility to win some time in their process to make them more efficient.

Jessica Sirkin

Jessica Sirkin is the managing editor of the IT and Mobile hubs of SAPexperts.  She comes to SAPexperts after being a reporter on big data and business intelligence.  She received a B.A. in English and writing from Bard College.  Send her an email or follow her on twitter @JessicaSirkin.

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