According to Brendan Kelley, supply chain specialist at Solvay Chemical, safety is a concept that is now ingrained "in every part of our work flow."
Brendon Kelley, supply chain specialist at Solvay Chemical.
But until relatively recently, the training Solvay provided was limited to paper-based instruction and "maybe a PowerPoint presentation," Kelley said. "And for a while you get into this notion that, 'Well, that's what we've always done, and it's OK. It works, and we haven't had a safety issue in quite some time.'"
The realization that a new workforce is coming into the industry to replace retiring operators inspired Solvay to upgrade its approach to safety training.
"Newer operators coming in have basically been bred on technology - it's always been in their face. If you give [them] a book, they read one page, flip to the next, and forget every character and everything else they read on that last page," Kelley said. "We were giving them training materials on extremely dangerous chemicals, expecting them to be experts on it afterward."
The challenge, Kelley said, was finding a way "for operators to experience what they were doing without putting them in a hazardous environment."
The solution Solvay found was to adopt virtual reality (VR) technology in the safety training program.
Kelley said he had some experience with VR from his previous roles. "I've seen some of the benefits and what can happen when you immerse yourself in the technology, as opposed to just reading about something or doing something," he said, offering insight on immersive training in hazardous industries at the Industrial Virtual Reality/Augmented Reality Forum held recently in Houston.
"Right from the start," Kelley said, VR training "was the solution for me."
Beyond being more appealing to the younger workforce, Kelley noted that VR kept trainees better focused on the subject at hand.
"How many times, when you're sitting through safety training, do you want to pull out your phone or catch up on a little bit of work?" he asked. "With virtual training, you cannot do that. You can't just take out your phone and hold it in front of your face, because you're not in your own environment anymore. You're in a virtual environment."
Strategizing implementation
Kelley emphasized a few key elements that are essential to successfully implementing a VR program.
"You must have a champion - not necessarily the person writing the checks or the person who approves the project, but someone who's holding the project for themselves and ready to run with it," he said. "They understand there are going to be roadblocks - it's a new and emerging technology - but they're ready to overcome those no matter what."
Second, he said, is identifying a sponsor "either in executive leadership or on the approval process team who also understands the value of the project you're trying to push."
Kelley stressed the importance of having "the right use case" beyond proof of concept. "It can't be a one-off solution and identify a project that can be expanded upon," he said.
Operators who had been at the Solvay plant for over 40 years, operators with only one year's experience, the president and the head of purchasing were all included in the VR safety training simulation, Kelley said.
"We expected a positive rollout, but didn't expect that 100 percent of users who went through that training [would] either agree or strongly agree that VR was better than their traditional training," Kelley concluded. "It was eye-opening to us, and it's nice to see that it is being embraced."
