San Antonio-based H-E-B Grocery Co. recently concluded a pilot program in augmented reality with an East Coast smart glasses manufacturer. The project with Vuzix Corp. involved H-E-B employees wearing augmented reality glasses to do their jobs without a separate computer terminal for instructions or training materials.

Augmented reality is when computer-generated holographic images are projected in the real world using a smartphone camera or smart glasses. It was the underlying technology behind the popular video game Pokémon Go, which projected animated characters near landmarks. It is also what powers San Antonio-based Merge Lab Inc.’s augmented reality cube that projects images on a coded plastic cube using computer software.

Rochester, New York-based Vuzix (Nasdaq:VUZI) was founded in the 1990s and has been working on smart glasses for years.

The smart glasses equipped H-E-B workers with more real-time information and visual cues to be more efficient. A machine repair technician wearing augmented reality glasses can be prompted to fix issues on the fly with a remote teacher and visual cues projected on the machine. Warehouse workers can pick up packages and scan them with the glasses by looking at the object code reader; a light around the package changes from red to green to signify that the worker is accurate.

Paul Boris, chief operating officer at Vuzix, told the Business Journal that his relationship with H-E-B dates back to his tenure at GE, where he was a vice president for manufacturing industries and other roles such as chief information officer for advanced manufacturing strategy at GE Digital.

“You can create a situation where something unusual happens and how would you respond to it without wasting product or breaking machines,” Boris said about the use of smart glasses in manufacturing. “The real value comes from giving [employees] the superpowers to see through things. If I’m standing in front of a machine and the panel is closed, without having to open it, I can see a digital rendering of what’s inside.”

“Companies are much more lean and efficient about how they use resources,” Boris said. “Instead of walking over to a computer to see, do or learn things, they carry it with them and work with both hands.”

Greg Flickinger, group vice president of manufacturing operations at H-E-B, said in a news release that the smart glasses were tested in noisy environments for audio quality and noise cancellation for employees in the field. There are “new an innovative use cases the team is developing to provide operators with the right data at the right time, while allowing them to work hands free,” he said.

H-E-B generates $24 billion in revenue and has more than 100,000 employees. It is the largest private employer in Texas and has manufacturing facilities across the state. The Houston Business Journal reported in September 2017 that H-E-B is slated to build a new snack manufacturing facility near its distribution center in Houston.

“The ability to leverage augmented reality on the plant floor will open the door to a game-changing approach to technical education and knowledge transfer,” Flickinger said.

There are potential applications in retail stores as well, Boris said. Employees pulling groceries from the shelf for online orders could wear a different version of the smart glasses that appear to be sunglasses but have a computer built in. It would direct employees to where it would be most efficient to gather items in the store and in what order. The technology company is also exploring ways to incorporate smart shelves that would enable the act of a customer pulls something off the shelf to trigger restocking and tell the manufacturing arm make more.