## 6 Conclusions  
With a recent shift towards remote work practices, and the rapid development of emerging technologies, collaboration over the mixed-reality continuum is becoming a more prominent research topic in HCI and CSCW fields. VR in combination with other maturing technologies of Industry 4.0 offers a way to shift and optimize traditional industrial operations. Evidence has shown that VR is an efficient production tool [6; 11; 46; 49] to support product development and related processes, especially for geographically dispersed teams. Immersive VE, with realistic simulations and multi-user support, may significantly reduce costs and project span by offering a digital space for many industrial operations that are difficult, dangerous, or time consuming. However, due to many external factors, the wide adoption of VR technology is still not possible.  
This study explored the asymmetry between VR-platform and the traditional conferencing tool (Microsoft Teams) to facilitate the collaboration of multinational departmentsin the pipeline of maintenance method development and documentation creation. The study stands out from the existing work by involving domain experts as participants in realistic industrial scenarios. The study demonstrated that distributed asymmetric VR is a low-cost and scalable solution that can easily integrate with current industrial remote working practices. Furthermore, not only does it positively influence the adoption of VR in the industrial context, but also enhances Lean and Agile practices. Based on expert insight, we identified four use cases in the field of Industrial Maintenance, which would greatly benefit from distributed asymmetric VR: maintenance method development, technical documentation creation, global training, and virtual maintenance assessment. To further boost the adoption of VR technologies in the industrial context, we provided a list of guidelines on how to support the asymmetry between VR and traditional conferencing tools. The guidelines address the asymmetry from three perspectives: organization (assign roles and tasks based on the use case, explain the value of VR to the employees and nominate the key VR user), collaboration (embrace voice interaction), and technology (advance visual fidelity and support collaboration directly in VR).  
Conceptualization, A.B., P.B.P., H.H., M.T. and S.S.; methodology, A.B., P.B.P., H.H. and S.S.; software, A.B., J.M. and K.R.; validation, J.M., J.H., M.T. and S.S.; formal analysis, A.B., P.B.P. and P.T.; investigation, A.B., P.B.P., P.T., H.H. and S.S.; resources, M.T. and S.S.; data curation, A.B. and P.B.P.; writing--original draft preparation, A.B., P.B.P. and P.T.; writing--review and editing, A.B., P.B.P., P.T., J.M., J.H., H.R., M.T. and S.S.; visualization, A.B.; supervision, M.T. and S.S.; project administration, R.R., M.T. and S.S.; funding acquisition, R.R., M.T. and S.S. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.  
This research was funded by the Business Finland Human Optimized XR (HUMOR) co-innovation project, grant number # 3913/31/2019.  
Not applicable.  
Informed Consent Statement: Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study.  
Not applicable.  
We would like to warmly thank KONE researchers and employees for participating in this case and for their valuable input to the research process. We also thank research assistants [PERSON] and [PERSON] for their contribution to the COVE-VR development process.  
The authors declare no conflict of interest.