Dynamic Working at Heights Virtual Reality (VR) Experience

PROJECT
Working at Height

OBJECTIVE
The goal of the project was to improve adherence to Golden Safety Rule and/or key lifesaving techniques used at civil construction sites, in logistics operations, at industrial manufacturing facilities, and wherever else employees are working at heights.

APPROACH
Our team developed a Virtual Reality training simulation to be used by employees and trainees to increase awareness of occupational safety hazards from working at height. The solution was designed to maximize trainee retention and engagement while maintaining a safe environment.

The Problem

One of the most frequent sources of occupational injury and fatality in civil construction, logistics, and the energy sector comes from working at height. This remains a considerable problem for maintaining HSE compliance as well as for the safety of valued employees. Safe workplaces are productive and healthy workplaces, which is why the client retained SHIIFT to address the challenges faced in real-world scenarios from working at heights and to improve HSE compliance.

In order to reduce the occurrences of injuries or fatalities, organizations such as our client require practical, immersive, and effective methods of training employees of proper protocols of safety and HSE compliance in order to increase awareness and to minimize injuries and fatalities.

The Solution

SHIIFT developed a simulated VR solution that provided an immersive learning environment for trainees. When used in conjunction with other training techniques, the simulated virtual environment engages the trainee in a realistic setting whereby they can clearly visualize the basic safety risks associated with working at height. By deploying the solution as a VR experience, trainees can learn and increase their awareness of the risks of working at height while in a secure, off-site location. This eliminates the need for on-site training where risks are present and real. Research already had already demonstrated this this type of learning had a high success rate.

Read more about the use of Virtual Reality here.

When was this completed?

The project was completed in March 2020 and the client can now provide working at height training to employees and trainees safely off-site with either a tethered or untethered headset. Although this project scope did not cover it, there is potential to integrate the working at height training into a learning management system (LMS) that can record users data for future testing and training.

How long did it take?

The project took 6 weeks to complete from the initial consultation with the client to the submission of the solution. It was built in unity which allowed easy integration of models into future training programmes with this client. Our team maintained open communications with the client to ensure that their needs were being met.

Development engine

Our immersive VR solution for working at height was completed using the Unity game development engine. This development engine was ideal for the development of virtual assets and e-learning functionality.

Which services did you use for this? Was it just VR?

The project was completed using a high-fidelity experience as well as key data analytics available to HSE supervisors for the assessment of working at heights trainees and for health and safety procedures.