The two of the most significant promises of Virtual Reality (VR) are extensibility and connectivity. Through VR, people are able to perform and accomplish tasks that were nearly impossible or hard to be realized in the physical-offline world. Productivity and efficiency can be uplifted to a further degree in VR, relative to the reality.
Especially in the industry areas, connectivity — the capability of fast, steady, and secure bidirectional interactions between both human resources and computer systems in the process of design, research and development (R&D), manufacturing, management, etc. — is the leading factor of development and endurance from the competition. The higher the connectivity is, the more available the resources are; thus the industry becomes competent of efficiently ramping-up both the quality and quantity of final output.
One of the industries having a notable necessity in linear-frictionless relationship between design, R&D, manufacturing, and distribution is the automotive industry. Automotives are complex — from the design of model aerodynamics efficiency to the production of output in reality. Additionally due to globalization, the entire system of giant industries are highly distributed throughout numerous countries. China and Germany are the world’s largest manufacturer of vehicles and supplier of vehicle components from 2019 to 2020, respectively. Design and R&D centers of automotive industries, such as Hyundai Motor Company, are located in Europe, America, China, and India. Simply, the larger the scale is, the more complex it is, in reaching the final product. A delay in a particular area of production suspends its following procedure. In particular, currently major vehicle production sites are unable to meet manufacture objectives, ascribed to the global shortage in semiconductor chips.
The automotive industry is one of the most highly impacted sectors during the coronavirus pandemic. The forced accommodation of social distancing and limited gatherings throughout factories and offices slowed down production; resulted in declined sales.
This triggered industries to implement VR in design, manufacture training, and exhibition, which provided them new opportunities to cope with the current situation. VR tools and simulators can offer proper professional training to the technicians by maintaining the required social distance. Similarly, new designs and prototyping can be achieved from a remote location with the help of a VR headset. Furthermore, the implementation of a virtual reality showroom and in-house virtual test-driving environment for the customers is likely to boost sales.
Major industries such as Hyundai Motor Company and the Volkswagen Group were already developing this technology since the pre-pandemic era.
Hyundai Motor Company: VR design evaluation system
A maximum of 20 simultaneous users are able to participate in the design development process, with 36 motion tracking sensors detecting and tracking the locations and movement of all users, enabling each to participate accurately in real-time. Hyundai first used this system during the design assessment stages of the HDC-6 NEPTUNE Concept Class 8 heavy-duty truck, first revealed at the North American Commercial Vehicle Show in October 2019. Kia also plans to expand the design assessment capabilities of the facility for developmental use on future models.
Moreover from real-time collaborative design, the performance of a vehicle can be simulated in a variety of virtual environments, showing a tremendous potential in the vehicle’s safety technology. Individual vehicle components can be tested virtually, enabling a more efficient approach on ergonomics and aerodynamics.
Through the implementation of the new VR design evaluation system in its design and R&D processes, Hyundai and Kia are anticipating a low-cost, high-efficiency cycle. A broader range of participants from different countries or cities are able to step into the procedure whenever available, without further changes in their geographical location. Enhance in connectivity through VR reduces the time taken for resource allocation across design and R&D centers distributed globally; notably shifting up cost-efficiency.
For more detailed description, refer to the article released in Hyundai Motor’s company newsroom and check out the interview held with the developers of the VR design evaluation system. Additionally, the introduction video of Hyundai’s HDC-6 NEPTUNE Concept Class Truck can be viewed here.
Volkswagen Group: Employee training through VR
Volkswagen has several attempts in training their employees using VR; is continually putting effort in its development.
On 2018, Volkswagen revealed its plans to bring VR training to 10,000 employees of Audi, SEAT, ŠKODA, and Volkswagen. Over 30 VR training experiences cover everything from vehicle assembly, new team member training, and customer service.
On May 11, 2019, an article regarding the plans for training all their 8,000 employees at the Zwickau plant to be ready for e-car production by 2021, was released on its company newsroom. Volkswagen converted the Zwickau plant as the leading factory in electric vehicle (EV) production; due to the changes in vehicle architecture relative to internal-combustion engine vehicles and increased automation in the production process, Volkswagen reached a decision to prepare their employees for new production methods and jobs to reach that goal.
Among 8,000 employees at the Zwickau plant, 3,000 employees are planned to learn the basic e-mobility skills during a two-day training session utilized by VR and Virtual Assembly Training (VMT) technology.
On 2020, through the collaborative working with SenseGlove, a company developing real-haptic gloves for VR, Volkswagen further enhanced the realism in its VR assembly training.
Relative to on-site employee training through the guidance of professionals, companies are viewing VR training to be much more cost-efficient and fast. VR provides a clear visualization of each manufacturing process for trainees, lowering down the boundary for understanding a certain step or concept. Especially for manufacturing trainings, as each employee is provided with a designated personal guidance, they can learn at their own pace, with no need to be in hurry.
VR training especially shows its true potential for growing companies, as it can be taken place regardless of where an individual is located. A factory or an office might still be in construction or restoration; following the old-school training approach, the entire training processes are postponed until its completion. While, using VR, employees can train and self-teach themselves at home, through accessing the cloud-shared VR training platform. This significantly reduces cost and time for adoption at on-site performances.
Here are the full articles regarding Volkswagen’s plan for employee training on 2018 and 2019, respectively. For more detailed description, have a read through Volkswagen’s statement on its dedication to the future of mobility production. A brief overview of the company’s development process of its VR training platform can be viewed here.
Regardless of its field, industries of the 21st century inevitably face drastic changes on their business environment; are ought to evolve, due to the high speediness of technological development, followed up by rapid (and even merciless) growths of companies in rivalry. At intervals, unforeseen mishaps from the nature may shift the entire business model mechanism to a whole other level, at a global scale.
Faster adoption and learning abilities are the foremost prerequisite for the 21st century generation. As days go by, it’ll get hard for a company to succeed in a macroscopic scale, when it’s working out its business model to only work offline, with no connections online. Business approaches should be targeting the minimization and reduction of involved costs and time throughout the processes of transformation from raw material to final product.
This was a brief introduction of the transformation of automotive industries, through the utilization of Virtual Reality and its further interconnection to the Metaverse.
