Industrial VR Training for a Warehouse that Runs Smoothly
What Are We Looking at Here?
Modern warehousing relies on numerous interlocking processes and parts (and VR warehouse skills development can help them stay together). There’s adherence to safety procedures and proficient use of equipment like pallet jacks, barcode scanners, plus other heavy machinery. Effective inventory management and organizational skills are also essential for order accuracy in a fast paced logistics environment. Teams must communicate effectively and work in a place where smooth operations are the norm. The hope is to reach shared goals across each distribution center location.
Importance of Quality Warehouse Training
Think about this: how many corners are there in a warehouse? Four, right? In the structure itself, yes. But if there are fifty shelving towers, that’s at least 200 blind corners inside a noisy, gigantic area. It’s a loud, industrious place where two-ton vehicles with flat spears attached to the front are loading and unloading heavy amounts of inventory as fast as they safely can.
All this is to say, safety procedures are important in warehouses. Yet, speed matters too. Warehousing, freight, logistics, retail, and goods processing are volume enterprises. Not to mention, it’s essential to get the orders right. Safe operations, speed, and accuracy–good employee training in both hard and soft skills is relevant for all of these.
In any training program, it’s important to cross your t’s and dot your lowercase j’s as you prepare new hires for the reality of their roles. Two criteria we’ve already mentioned are at the top of the list for warehouse training. On that list, these criteria are typed in size 72 font, underlined and bold: reduce errors and boost productivity. Volume and safe operations are vital. In a warehouse environment, volume is the foundation, but safe operations is the bedrock. And there are actually some soft skills, including how to help everyone communicate clear expectations.
Safety Is Critical. Full Stop
Simply put–organizations with warehouses aren’t casual about safety procedures and safety training. They don’t want to be, and they can’t afford to be. If you’re reading this and you work in warehouse operations, you already know this.
Yet, there’s a lot that goes into those protocols. If you want an idea about how complex it gets, look at a chart diagramming the ideas behind this keystone of safety warehouse operations, as identified by the 5th Logistics International Conference. Indeed, it’s a tad complex.
But if we take away nothing else from the conference diagram, we can safely say pairing smooth operations with heavy machinery and logistics coordination is a complicated process. All pieces of inventory management are surprisingly complex, and Roundtable Learning found this out when we created an “decanting” program for a Fortune 10 retail client with high-volume location. It was a true use case of VR warehouse training.
Getting More Out of Distribution Center Skills (and How VR Warehouse Training Can Help)
Better volume, more safety, and increased order accuracy: we generally know what we want, at a high level, regarding a safe distribution center.
There are options for training. But how well do they work?
On-the-job training is a classic modality. It’s hard to beat, but it consumes warehouse management hours. Plus, new employees’ understanding of the warehouse skills, equipment, and many other things is incomplete. And they’re doing all this at a volume speed. That default level of speed and the complexity of certain tasks means–despite their best efforts–they’re going to make mistakes.
The result is that training errors disrupt the flow of inventory, which can interrupt operations. VR warehouse training prepares the workforce to confidently step into roles on location. Warehouse VR skills lessons can help your workplace operate safely and efficiently, promoting a higher overall company health score regardless of location. This article will cover the three biggest benefits of VR in warehousing.
First. Learner Engagement: Securing Employee’s Cognition and Action When Doing Warehouse Tasks
Locking in Sights and Sounds of Work in a Warehouse (VR Warehouse Training and Visual Hacks)
Immersive learning facilitates experiential training. This experiential training gets learners fully engaged. Here’s one fact that gives some perspective (it might sound like we’re getting a little in the weeds, but you’ll see it’s relevant) a person’s central visual focus is the one-fifth of a circle (60 degrees) directly in front of them. VR warehouse training is true visual hack.
This neuro-visual physiology is why automotive designers put certain important buttons on the heads-up display in vehicles. When the VR headset is strapped on, the learner’s entire central focus is on the task at hand. The tight turns, blind corners, and random dim spots–where a light bulb is burnt out, and maintenance needs a scissor lift to change it because it’s 60 feet up–are real hazards and hassles of the highly kinetic warehousing field. Keeping your eye on the ball matters.
Warehouse VR locks in the visual attention of trainees, but it doesn’t stop there. We want learners to absorb as much information as possible in any training program. The multi-sensory elements of sound and even tactile add-ons instill a deeper impression for when they finish training and get assigned to their work location. It’s even possible to introduce they’ll be prepared to communication skills.
For warehouse workers, learner engagement ensures employee engagement, bridging soft skills with technical competence.
Skills within Industrial and Warehours VR Training; How It Improves Safety
Safety is a big concern on every job site, but it’s even more essential when we’re talking about warehouses. Stat number two surprised even us.
- A study published in PLOS One identified 21 factors (and possibly more) affecting how safe in-store warehouses are. That sounds like a lot. We can only guess how many there are in standalone warehouses with 55-foot-long semi-trucks coming and going.
- 4.8% was a recent annual injury rate among warehousing and storage personnel working full-time. If we’re reading that right, it means one in twenty warehouse workers got hurt during that year. </li>
- In a recent year transportation and warehouse employees experienced the highest injury and illness rate involving days away from work (compared per 10,000 workers)
- Another stat shows 50,000 annual injuries from falling objects in US workplaces. With high shelves used in stockkeeping, this is a greater liability. A contributing factor for this is S.L.A.P. or Storage Location Assignment Problem(s) as mentioned in the Journal of Industrial and Production Engineering.
Warehouse Skills, Including Health and Safety Protocols
High shelves, varying visibility, forklifts, trucks, pallets stacked with hundreds of pounds of goods–safe operations in a warehouse take a lot of effort, even before the human element is involved. And VR warehouse training can help with this.
The processes include driving and operating forklifts properly, lifting correctly, putting on PPE, even effective communication–these are vital training practices. All can be introduced through VR skills training, including repeated order picking scenarios that improve understanding. Consider something that might sound small but isn’t: to break down a box, cut along the tape seam, but push the blade away from your body instead of pulling toward you.
→ Roundtable Learning built this exact workplace action into our warehouse decanting station training check it out here!
By helping employees recognize common warehouse hazards, VR can prevent injury. Practicing dangerous tasks in a virtual environment lets workers step onto the floor with a higher level of understanding and preparation and better health outcomes for every location.
Cast-Iron Law of Cause and Effect with Productivity
Safe warehouse workers have higher productivity because a safe environment ensures consistent workflow. VR enhances experiential training and reduces top safety risks.
Third, the Cost Effectiveness of vR Warehouse Training
<p>Almost every incident, with or without injury, causes a hard stop in operations. Even if something unsafe almost happens but doesn’t actually happen, there might be a stop: OSHA strenuously encourages the reporting of near misses. Not doing so can leave gaps or perceived gaps in overall company safety–gaps that could be compounding factors in workplace injury lawsuits. For any serious danger or event, there’s likely to be a stop: barcode scanners stop blipping, inventory sits still, and revenue slows down. </p>
And any HR team member can fill you in on costs from workplace injuries: days missed, worker’s comp and many more. But, the average cost for a “struck by” injury, as perhaps might come from an object falling off a shelf, is almost $42,000. Warehouses can save on major expenses with VR training that reinforces order picking accuracy, logistics workflow and a deeper understanding of safety procedures.
Other Good Financial News: Data
A quality training program lets warehouse management measure KPIs. Warehouse industrial VR training can do this. Many immersive programs measure numerous facets of a trainee’s performance–in particular, repeated order picking cycles–so that training concludes faster by isolating an employee’s most difficult tasks.
How Warehouse, Logistics and Industrial VR Training Can Measure Performance
- Micro-gyroscopes and other kinetic sensors in the headset or controllers can measure motion. They measure distance, angles, and movement for tasks and subtasks.
- Newer headsets feature front-mounted cameras that can track hand motions during complex tasks, like order picking substeps.
- Head-position tracking can indicate the trainee’s attention level and improve understanding of posture
- Internal sensors can evaluate where a learner’s eyes focus during practice at each task location
- Collecting Data from your VR Training Program (How and Why XR Training Data Is Important)
All this data helps trainers highlight productivity levels, communicate results in real time, and align everyone around shared goals. Developers can program content to proactively correct mistakes which supports stronger understanding. New hires then walk into the warehouse with confidence, and that confidence helps reduce turnover.
VR Warehouse Training: Pixels and Headsets Are Very Scalable
With the right setup, VR can capture data for numerous learners simultaneously and feed insights to an LMS. It’s more data to inform decisions and communicate clearly to stakeholders while deepening organizational understanding.
VR also enhances inventory management by simulating barcode scanning and tracking across diverse retail workflows.
Reinvesting Time: Investing in VR Training
The warehouse is a fast-paced, high-intensity environment demanding constant risk awareness. VR bridges skill gaps, offers repeated simulations, and deepens procedural understanding. A VR warehouse approach delivers training that prepares employees for this intensity.
Virtual reality skills training fills a large gap in training protocols. VR doesn’t replace person-to-person elements but offloads routine tasks from managers and trainers (and high-maintenance forklifts). Those hours are reinvested into direct-path tasks that help meet production quotas. Such benefits are why warehouses embrace immersive solutions; Fortune 10 companies are already setting new standards for efficiency and safety at a location near you.
Where can you find this effective, efficient, digital-age training? We’re glad you asked.
🔭 🗓️ Schedule a discovery session with Roundtable Learning today!
Key Takeaways from How VR Warehouse Training Can Step-Up Your L&D Game Plus Onboarding
Industrial VR Training for a Warehouse that Runs Smoothly
- Warehousing involves interlocking tasks: equipment operation, inventory management, and team communication.
- Warehouses have numerous blind corners and operate at high speed, demanding a blend of accuracy, safety, and productivity.
- Training must reduce errors and boost productivity without compromising safety.
- Both hard and soft skills are critical: safety procedures, speed, error prevention, and communication strategies.
Learner Engagement: Securing Employee’s Cognition and Action When Doing Warehouse Tasks
- VR leverages neuro-visual design by engaging the learner’s full field of focus.
- Realistic warehouse hazards like blind spots and dark areas are embedded in training environments.
- Sound and tactile elements can increase sensory engagement and knowledge retention.
Warehousing Skills within Industrial VR Training Improves Safety
- Warehousing has high injury rates–4.8% during a recent year–and multiple injury factors (e.g., falling objects).
- Safety risks include forklifts, high shelves, poor lighting, and object handling.
- VR trains on essential tasks like safe lifting, PPE use, and hazard recognition.
- Repetition and practice in VR environments improve safety compliance and hazard response.
Cast-Iron Law of Cause and Effect with Productivity
- Safe environments lead to steady workflows and consistent productivity.
- VR reduces top safety risks, helping maintain operational uptime.
The Cost Effectiveness of Warehouse Training with VR
- Incidents–even near misses–disrupt operations and reduce revenue.
- Injuries cost companies significantly; e.g., in a recent year, a single “struck by” injury averaged $42,000.
- VR training, if done right, can improve both order accuracy and safety; reducing preventable costs.
Data Capture in VR Training
- Industrial VR training–if it has analytics software and/or users newer headsets–measures multiple KPIs to personalize and optimize learning.
- Sensors can track motion, posture, eye focus, and hand movement in real time.
- Training data is used to pinpoint errors, streamline training and can even reduce turnover.
- Programs can be updated and scaled across multiple learners and locations.
Warehouse Training with VR: Pixels and Headsets Are Very Scalable
- VR programs scale easily with enterprise-level infrastructure.
- LMS integration allow real-time insights across large teams.
- VR simulates barcode scanning and logistics workflows, supporting operations at scale.
Reinvesting Time: Investing in VR Training
- VR frees up training hours for direct-path tasks by replacing repetitive instruction.
- It reinforces procedural understanding through repeatable simulations.
- Warehouses adopt VR for its safety, efficiency, and long-term ROI potential.
