With virtual reality games, you can fly planes, chase down the bad guys, and even tour space. But logistics professionals shouldn’t let game players have all the fun. There’s also a growing body of virtual reality training for logistics. Before you dismiss it, recognize virtual reality can play an important role in your training.
Virtual reality creates a computer-generated environment. In a game, it can be a plane flying in the sky. For logistics, it can be your warehouse or another facility. The user uses a special headset that immerses them in the new environment. They will not see or acknowledge their actual location. Their senses are manipulated, and they use remote controls or gloves for hand movements.
In virtual reality training for logistics, you can allow new employees to train for different tasks and jobs. Your employees can use virtual reality headsets to execute the processes they will use in whatever job they are training for. In these simulations, they can perform picking, driving and other roles, for example. With the virtual reality simulation, you can challenge them and add a gamification component to the training process.
Virtual reality training is becoming incredibly important for the modern warehouse for several reasons. The common setup for logistics operations is to have one or more large warehouses. With increased business comes the need for new employees because of the need for manual labor. For training, virtual reality can be applied to help newcomers learn the jobs faster. Whether it is driving a forklift or picking, training can help new employees learn their jobs and safety procedures.
Like any industry, there are constant issues companies must deal with regarding employment. The challenges for logistics make virtual reality training a great way to train employees.
For example, warehouses face high turnover for several reasons. When workers quit, you’re forced to train a set of replacements, which brings up its own problems. Sometimes you will face situations where the workers are not fluent in English. You will need to use experienced, productive workers to conduct training reducing your shop’s productivity. You may have to wait to get a large enough group to train. Plus, on-site training can cost you in other ways because warehouse jobs need to be practiced in a real setting.
Virtual reality can solve all of these problems and leads to many possibilities for new employees to learn how to optimize their workflows. It allows for flexibility in training as you can train any number of employees at a given time. With multilingual training apps, you never have to worry about language differences getting in the way of employees’ learning procedure and safety protocol. Unless you want your best employees conducting training, they can stay in their jobs and not lose time. And each session is conducted in a safe “virtual” environment. Your employees will learn the job just like they were out on the warehouse floor without any possible safety issues.
Virtual reality training is worth a look as it will help your employees learn their roles quicker. Once they do, you’ll have a more productive and efficient workforce. Your employees will get experience in their jobs and learn how to use important equipment like scanners and mobile computers made by our partner Zebra Technologies.
Strategic Systems is a leading provider of barcoding and RFID solutions. We want to help you reduce the cost and complexity of your investments. Give us a call 877-389-7255 or email sales@sstid.com to learn how you can maximize the benefits of all technology, including learning how to train your workers using virtual reality.