🔒Digital Drive: CT manufacturers embrace virtual reality to recruit and train employees, test new products

From large-scale producers to small machine shops, Connecticut manufacturers are increasingly turning to virtual reality technology as a way to recruit and train employees while also testing products before they hit production.

The state has more than 100,000 open jobs, and workforce issues have plagued almost all industries since the COVID-19 pandemic hit in March 2020. As businesses compete for talent, some are turning to virtual reality programs — either internally or through third-party partners — to recruit or train young people.

The technology, along with augmented reality programs that share similar traits, gives potential employees a taste of what an aerospace or manufacturing job could look like without sacrificing the time and effort of visiting a factory or moving equipment to a school or training facility, experts said.

Some companies, like Stratford’s Sikorsky Aircraft, even use virtual reality to test product designs before they’re put into production.

“We’ve got to go where the people are, and you can’t bring a six-axis machine into a classroom,” said Paul Lavoie, the state’s chief manufacturing officer.

Lavoie said using virtual reality technology is another example of how companies can reach potential workers and give them a taste of what a job looks like.

Recruitment tool

The Northwest Regional Workforce Investment Board, which offers job training and other youth programs, held an event earlier this month at the American Mural Project in Winsted to discuss how it would use more than $2 million recently awarded through the federal Good Jobs Challenge. The program is aimed at attracting talent to the state’s manufacturing and healthcare sectors and upskilling and reskilling existing workers.

The three-dimensional American Mural Project exhibit, which highlights U.S. workers across many industries, was a fitting backdrop for the networking event during which the group’s Executive Director Cathy Awwad showcased five new virtual reality headsets the workforce group is using for recruitment and education purposes.

“We’ve landed on these VR goggles as a means of promoting career awareness,” Awwad said. “You can try it on, you can touch it, you can virtually feel what the work looks like, what the machinery looks like and what your day would look like.”

Awwad said the board signed a $16,000 contract with virtual reality company Transfr to use their technology. The plan, she said, is to bring the goggles to trade and high schools so students can virtually experience working at an aerospace manufacturer, construction company or hospital.

“I had them on and I was fueling an aircraft. Another guy had them on and he was changing oil on a car — it’s really interesting stuff,” Awwad said.

Some VR goggles are outfitted with career-readiness programming, while others have full-fledged training modules for prospective employees.

“It will allow students to see the different career pathways open to them,” Awwad said.

She said the Northwest Regional Workforce Investment Board is hoping to partner with other employment training organizations and employers that might want to use the goggles in their own curriculum.

Further, Awwad said the board plans to hold monthly virtual reality days where companies and the general public can try the goggles.

“We’re planning to take them to job fairs and career fairs and then use them within our own youth programs,” Awwad said.

Training option

East Hartford-based VRSim Inc. touts expertise in virtual reality going back more than 20 years. The company makes virtual reality goggles and programs that help train employees in specific industries.

Maggie Volz, VRSim’s marketing coordinator, said one of the company’s early markets was welding through a partnership with Lincoln Electric. Since then the company has continued to expand into other industries and has a popular painting and coating virtual reality training program called SimSpray. The technology is used across fields like automotive, aerospace, building trades, furniture and cabinetry, she said.

“Our focus really is to pull together and offer training tools that give students the ability to practice and improve their techniques without the costs and risks associated with raw materials,” Volz said. “We want to give them a chance to hone their skills without any risk involved.”

Schools and companies also use VRSim’s products to showcase different career paths and upskill and train workers, she said.

Manufacturing and trades-related industries aren’t VRSim’s only focus. The company announced in April it was piloting a certified nursing assistant virtual reality simulator.

Volz said VR technology has become more prevalent in recent years because the pandemic heightened workforce development challenges.

‘Build before you build’

At Sikorsky in Stratford, the helicopter manufacturer has been undergoing what it calls a “digital integration and transition” of its product life cycles for years.

Sikorsky Vice President of Enterprise Business Transformation Mike Ambrose said that process essentially means connecting data related to everything from an idea based on what customers need to the manufacturing and creation of a product. He said the company has invested more than $1 billion in digital technologies at its factories in the last six years to allow computer programs, machines, and employees to better share data about what they’re working on.

That’s where virtual reality comes in.

“If you think about seeing people with goggles playing tennis or golf, we have a version of that, which is much more sophisticated and integrated that essentially takes a representation of an aircraft,” Ambrose said.

Sikorsky has a large area dedicated to its virtual reality space, but the technology is also portable and can be moved around.

Sikorsky uses it to allow workers, engineers and customers to look at product designs so they can offer feedback. Ambrose gave the example of using a virtual helicopter model to ensure a soldier of any height can adequately reach components and other parts in the aircraft.

Virtual reality technology allows Sikorsky to confront potential issues in product design much earlier in the development process, resulting in significant time savings, he said.

For example, aircraft performance and build that the company formerly saw in its 100th aircraft, is now seen in its 20th.

“Virtual reality is all stuff we do before we build aircraft, before we design aircraft,” Ambrose said. “We find (issues) before we even finish the design.”