Dive Brief:
- In New Delhi, India, packers for Audi are able to easily visualize work stations back in Germany thanks to the use of Virtual Reality (VR), the Economic Times reported Monday.
- Using VR headsets and controllers resembling video game controllers, employees practice the various packing processes, learning how best to use their hands to complete tasks. They also become acquainted with IT training programs and can easily advance their training levels. Audi already employs VR in sales, technical development and production, and allows customers to customize preferred vehicle options using VR in Audi dealerships.
- Younger generations like millennials are highly interested in VR and are the key to normalizing VR deployment beyond the gaming world, according to InsideSources.
Dive Insight:
Virtual reality is most popular with younger generations, many of whom have already experienced it through gaming, but businesses — especially manufacturers — are catching on to the trend in hopes of improving efficiency. But VR could also help address the talent shortage in the manufacturing industry.
Acceptance of the growing incursion of virtual reality into everyday life is mostly high. Future drivers at UPS are using it to learn to avoid road hazards, while its integration into architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) is mostly inspired by its roots in gaming. VR technology is also being considered by such companies like Pepsi in order to simulate a grocery store experience for those shopping online.
Whether in training programs or more advanced positions within logistics or other fields, technology like VR serves as a positive draw for millennial workers, many of whom are being courted by manufacturing employers to fill technologically-savvy but currently empty positions. Demonstrating the prevalence of high-end technologies like 3-D printing, robotics and VR to younger workers may draw their attention to just how advanced modern manufacturing has become, and cultivate appeal as a career.
