Companies across the world are discovering the benefit of implementing virtual reality (VR) training as a way of safely teaching employees new skills. Immersive Factory is a specialist in VR-based training exercises for occupational health, safety and environment (HSE) and was part of HTC’s Vive X accelerator in London, UK. Today, the company has announced that £850k has been raised towards further programme development.
The investment was thanks to WaterStart Capital, helping to scale up Immersive Factory’s customer support on a worldwide level as well as renew training methods on occupational health and safety. Customers currently include Shell, Colas, Siemens, Moët Hennessy, Suez, Volvo, P&G, Engie, Airbus, EDF, Veolia and Saint Gobain, and Immersive Factory has set up an international retailer network of 40+ partners to aid them.
Currently employing almost 30 people between its administrative and sales headquarters in Paris and its R&D centre in Albi, Immersive Factory has created a range of VR training exercises aimed at reducing the rate of accidents at work and improving behaviour. VRFocus saw this first-hand last year at an HTC Vive event where Immersive Factory demoed a cherry picker simulation on a Vive Focus Plus and what can happen when you don’t attach the safety harness.
“Virtual reality allows us to reproduce workplace situations with life-like accuracy. It represents a real asset for improving our customers’ occupational health and safety training. Courses are tailored to both new employees and people who left high school many years ago. The fun approach with our courses can rekindle everyone’s interest in learning, increase their ability to absorb new information and break down any cultural barriers. Virtual reality is a leading-edge technology that can be used to achieve these ambitious teaching goals,” said Olivier Pierre, CEO of Immersive Factory in a statement.
“Since Immersive Factory was founded, we have endeavoured to mainstream and simplify access to VR-based HSE courses by offering our customers an entire multilingual catalogue that can be downloaded online from our platform and used immediately with VR headsets, which nowadays are standalone and easy to deploy.”
There are myriad of VR companies working in this field and while Immersive Factory focuses on HSE, FundamentalVR looks at surgical training, while Bohemia Interactive Simulations (BISim) concentrates on immersive military training solutions. For further updates on VR training, keep reading VRFocus.