Modern technical training is evolving at a breakneck pace – but the difficulty of creating, maintaining and delivering that training remains the same. There is intense demand for more effective training, provided globally at a lower cost to the business. Yesterday’s “death by PowerPoint” is being replaced by immersive virtual training that provides on-demand asynchronous delivery, which delivers an immersive experience that creates muscle memory and improves employee performance.
New platforms like virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), mobile devices and Amazon AppStream are the “must-have” technologies that now promise the right results. They allow us to immerse and engage students, to reinforce proper technique, and to improve safety and efficiency. Virtual training saves on equipment wear and tear and enables students to train at their own pace in a safe environment. Late adopters still wonder whether the results justify the means. They ask: ”who is being successful at adopting and leveraging the technology for real business and cost improvements?”
DiSTI has been working with Siemens to address the challenge of creating and managing virtualizing training and cross-platform delivery to drive measurable results. For example, DiSTI has demonstrated a 66 percent reduction in course length by reducing a three-day instructor-led course to nine online hours while improving first-time assessment scores to 93 percent or better. Student interviews revealed that the self-paced and interactive environment improved their engagement levels among both novice and experienced engineers.
DiSTI has also enabled delivery of that course to thousands of students globally using Amazon AppStream to consume that training anywhere in the world. The baseline training has expanded from a familiarization trainer to a digital twin model of their 8000H gas turbine for virtual training on the desktop, mobile and cloud. The same data set is being used to pilot programs for both VR training and AR field services delivery.