Linde Virtual
Academy

Virtual Reality Training is still a novel concept in the Industrial Plant Industry. VR technology has already become a fundamental training component for the aviation and construction sectors, but, its full potential is yet to exploited in our industry. Nowadays, the more gas companies implement virtual reality in their training program, the more they understand the 3 key reasons why VR is the future of plant operator training:

1: Safer

VR user extinguishing fires in a simulation of the plant facility

Virtual reality allows plant operators to learn from their mistakes in a safe environment and keeps their inexperienced hands away from plant assets during training. Moreover, it allows recruits to practice complex safety scenarios infinite times, and thanks to randomization, each time a scenario is replayed the conditions are always slightly different – this allows trainees to perfect their responses in a life-like scenario, without any real-life consequences.

2: Centralized

Linde VR training center

One of the biggest challenges of outdated theoretical training methods is keeping knowledge in-house. That´s because 70% of senior operators are retiring in the next 5-7 years, which means there will be a shortage of mentors for new recruits. Also, lessons learned by the current workforce, such as incident response procedures, will no longer be available. Thanks to Virtual Reality, all lessons learned can be recreated and kept in-house forever; knowledge stays in the plant even after the workforce retires. In other words, training is no longer dependent on senior operators and manuals – it becomes fully managed through a Virtual Reality library.

3: More Effective

From a classroom sketch of a compressor, to a VR training simulation in a compressor house.

70% of industrial plant accidents are a result of human error, and if operator training methods were more effective, these occurrences could easily be avoided. With Virtual Reality training, plant operators are able to learn much more effectively and respond to incidents with superhuman precision. This is because they get to learn through hands-on training, and they get to practice scenarios that cannot be replicated in reality. Studies show that VR allows for 4 times more knowledge retention compared to standard training techniques, such as classroom learning and job-shadowing.

Forward-thinking industrial plants have already begun to implement VR in their training programs, and they are observing drastic improvements in knowledge retention and performance. Head to our success stories page to discover how our latest customers are revolutionizing field operations with virtual reality.