Name: Why Microsoft Uses Virtual Reality Headsets To Train Workers
Uploaded: 2021-05-16T16:24:20.000Z
Duration: 7 min 46 s
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Virtual Reality hasn't exactly seen the booming success in gaming and

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entertainment that was once expected. "Lets do this." But this VR has a totally different

"I'm going to go ahead and say evacuate for a half mile."

At a time when headset shipments have been down four of the last five

quarters. And just a month after IMAX announced it will close all its VR

centers this year. Market forecasts predict spending on virtual and

augmented reality headsets for training is expected to reach 2.2 billion dollars by 2022.

And companies like start-up Pixo VR are taking notice.

I think we learned our lesson doing mobile apps — that it's much more

difficult, that the budgets aren't necessarily there, and this made a lot more sense for us.

Put your hand just a little bit into the wall.

Pixo VR made the switch two years ago, from creating video games, to

Like this one, which teaches first responders how to identify and react to

VR provides an opportunity for people to train in environments that

otherwise are impossible — far too risky, far too expensive.

By simply putting on an HTC Vive headset, workers can experience

life-and-death situations that are impossible to safely recreate in real

Like a rickety 15-story construction site without solid scaffolding.

I think I'm going to hook it to this rope up here.

And suffer the consequences if you choose wrong.

The sensation of falling is so real, it's immediately clear this experience

I'll remember that fall, and which safety measures I should have followed,

far longer than I'll remember any PowerPoint slide.

There's research to back this up, too. One study found students have 30

percent better knowledge retention two weeks after learning with VR as

opposed to traditional education methods.

There's a whole bunch of research that shows that if you are a human and

you interact with something in three dimensions, as opposed to just

looking at it on a piece of paper, you understand it much more profoundly

and fundamentally. It's just the way that our brains are wired.

And there's a big need for more effective training. Last month the National

Safety Council announced that preventable workplace deaths have been on

the rise in the U.S. for three years in a row.

Essentially, 14 people every day leave their homes for work and don't come

home. This is absolutely unacceptable and there are things that we can do

about it. Technology like AR and VR are really going to engineer the human

error out of these equations, but we've got to start to really do the

research to understand what's working and what just has potential, so that

we can give employers the best resources available to help make their workers safer.

This year, the NSC will begin a two-year half-million-dollar research

project to study the effectiveness of VR and AR, among other technologies, for reducing workplace fatalities.

Workplace fatalities and injuries have consistently cost society more than

$150 billion every year. So while there certainly is upfront costs in

investing in new technologies, those technologies will save companies in

the long run with a reduction in fatalities and injuries.

One startling number — 713 workers fell to their deaths in 2017, a number

that Hurwitz is hoping will go way down once workers start training on

And hopefully we'll see the numbers go down for accidents and certainly

fatalities. It's something that the entire company has got got behind

because we know we're making lives better.

Hurwitz is in good company. Most of the major players in the VR space have

begun using their software, and their headsets, for workplace training.

The return on investment in the commercial space is so profound for some of

these key scenarios, like remote assistance, like laying out physical

spaces, like guiding someone through a complex process, that these things

literally pay for themselves very quickly. So that's where we're seeing

the most interest in investment right now.

Microsoft HoloLens, technically an AR headset, has been added to Trimble

hard hats on construction and mining sites to enhance worker safety. It's

used by 20,000 ThyssenKrupp elevator technicians to make sure they're

safely strapped in when making repairs. Chevron technicians wear HoloLens

for otherwise precarious oil refinery repairs. And Japan Airways mechanics

use it to stand inside a virtual jet engine while it's running to learn how to safely maintain it.

Folks that have a tool belt or a hard hat have not benefited as directly

from the digital revolution, so mixed reality, we think, and devices like

HoloLens are one of the trends that can really bring the benefits of the

digital revolution to whole new categories of people that haven't benefited before.

Even the Army has turned to VR and AR training. In November, Microsoft

signed a two-year $480 million  military contract with the U.S. government

to deliver up to 100,000 HoloLens headsets for use in combat missions and

training. And the list goes on. Samsung's Gear VR headset is being used to

train workers on new production lines at Magna's automotive parts

manufacturing plants. DHL is using Google Glass in its warehouses. Pacific

Gas and Electric is using heart with 3D VR to teach employees valve

assembly. In 2017, Facebook launched Oculus for Business, offering bundles

of their Oculus Go and Oculus Rift headsets to businesses like Tyson

Foods, Walmart and Verizon. Tyson Foods in particular had some promising

results. It used VR modules by Menlo Park-based Strivr to train its

workers in safety and hazard awareness. And it saw a 20 percent reduction

Verizon stores plan to have 15,000 of its frontline employees put on Oculus

headsets, and be confronted by armed robbers, a high-intensity Strivr

simulation to prepare them for worst-case scenarios. And now WalMart is

using Strivr's virtual training modules in all 4,700 U.S. stores, training

more than a million employees with 17,000 Oculus headsets.

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Why Microsoft Uses Virtual Reality Headsets To Train Workers

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