BNSF Railway implements VR into its mechanical coaching packages

April 1, 2024 – North American railway firm BNSF Railway has not too long ago introduced that it’s at present implementing immersive know-how into its mechanical coaching packages to maintain employees protected, using digital, augmented and combined actuality (VR/AR/MR) to boost security methods and enhance function readiness amongst the mechanical workforce.

BNSF said that with the assistance of its VR Studying Options supplier, Roundtable Learning, the coaching simulations at present being examined are designed to handle risk-specific eventualities with a purpose to assist employees keep away from potential incidents and accidents whereas on the job.

The VR coaching packages complement BNSF’s current instructor-led mechanical packages by reinforcing studying methods that can not be replicated in conventional coaching modalities. Constructed for in-depth publicity to step-by-step processes, the VR program offers experiential studying alternatives for mechanical workers to construct their data of the significance of private safety gear (PPE), enhance threat consciousness, and hone different procedures. Every time workers encounter security hazards inside the VR expertise, warnings alert learners to pressurized methods and reinforce protected lifting practices.

Christopher Skinner, locomotive mechanical supervisor at BNSF, mentioned: “One of many massive causes BNSF selected to deploy VR coaching inside the mechanical area is consistency. You’ve got management of a standardized technique of delivering coaching. With instructor-led coaching, the message can fluctuate relying upon the teacher and site, so there’s a chance of dropping vital data. With VR coaching, mechanical college students obtain exactly the identical data throughout the corporate.”

BNSF said that it needed to construct correct 3D fashions that had the suitable stage of element for the immersive coaching. This included something from the locomotives themselves, to the store setting, or particular person parts and tooling. In lots of circumstances, the place a digital equal of a instrument or half didn’t exist, specialists inside the BNSF Technical Coaching Heart needed to make one.

“We actually needed to type of reverse-engineer the locomotive to construct the parts that we wanted,” added Skinner. “We’d get hold of the bodily element and take a number of images from totally different angles, with a tape measure or ruler for perspective.” With that data, a digital element was created.

Within the above coaching video from BNSF, a trainee seems to be using a HTC VIVE Professional VR headset, together with the HaptX Gloves DK2, which means trainees can even be getting an enhanced sense of immersion due to haptic suggestions offered by the gloves when interacting with digital objects.

Commenting on the VR coaching program, Roundtable Studying’s Jeff Suchan mentioned: “BNSF took the initiative to suppose exterior the field by offering their workers with a brand new coaching technique to additional observe figuring out and mitigating exposures to threat. Not solely has this created a brand new approach of studying and coaching at BNSF, however these applied sciences can even assist create safer behaviors inside the rail trade as a complete.”

In accordance with Mark Stockman, BNSF’s director of mechanical coaching, the corporate closed out final yr with the bottom harm frequency charge in its 175-year historical past. This newest VR coaching initiative is due to this fact aimed toward holding BNSF’s dedication for security entrance and heart, while concurrently upholding the corporate’s requirements of innovation.

BNSF added that it continues to put money into new applied sciences equivalent to VR simulations to additional improve its mechanical coaching packages, and that such applied sciences function an integral instrument in bridging frontline work with digital enhancements with a purpose to prioritize the corporate’s imaginative and prescient of an accident and injury-free office. Lastly, the corporate famous that over time it goals to develop the vary of VR coursework out there, providing trainees a big library spanning varied departments and crafts.

Picture credit score: BNSF Railway