Goeppingen A stone in a switch is enough to stop traffic on a railway line. This is always a problem, but especially so: Deutsche Bahn has never been so unpunctual. A small army of 11,000 maintenance workers is supposed to remedy the situation, they take care of the problems on the tracks.
More staff would be needed, but the shortage of skilled workers is also having an impact on the railways. In addition, many fitters will retire in the next few years, reports Franziska Kost, specialist qualification officer at DB Netz. It’s a challenge for them. How can you preserve and pass on the knowledge of experienced employees? And how to train as many new ones as efficiently as possible?
Kost has been using “mixed reality” for several years: new employees are trained using software from Teamviewer and data glasses from Microsoft HoloLens. With the technology, they can create and edit a virtual version of the switch, extract individual parts or practice repairs. “This results in a better illustration, deeper understanding and helps to dovetail theory and practice more closely,” says the manager.
A study by PwC consultants in the USA last year showed that training with VR glasses can be very effective. What has been learned is memorized better than, for example, after conventional lessons. There are fewer distractions just from the fact that the smartphone is not available.
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The Metaverse hit the headlines last October when Mark Zuckerberg declared the mixing of reality and virtuality to be the basic concept and a hope for growth and promptly renamed Facebook Meta. Since then there has been “an incredible wave of customer interest,” reports management consultant Tibor Merey from the consulting firm BCG.
However, many companies are still in the early stages. According to a survey commissioned by Teamviewer by the Handelsblatt Research Institute among 4,500 decision-makers in Europe, only a quarter state that they already see the Metaverse as part of the corporate world.
Teamviewer already sells Metaverse applications
Most companies are just discovering the Metaverse, but some have been interested in it for years, including Teamviewer. Product manager Hendrik Witt is certain: “The Metaverse will revolutionize the industry.”
The German software house has been following the trend it calls “industrial metaverse” for four years. It took over numerous start-ups in the field such as Ubimax or Viscopic, invested and developed “Frontline”. Companies can use the software to take inventories, assemble or maintain machines. DHL, Audi, and Coca-Cola are already using them, and Siemens joined them a few days ago. Witt speaks of “a few hundred customers”.
However: The hype is big and the Metaverse is technically demanding. VR glasses are bulky, expensive and they make you nauseous. Due to rising costs, Meta is now increasing the price of its latest Quest 2 glasses for the most powerful version by $100 to around $500.
More and more companies are recognizing the advantages of the virtual world, for example for training.
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(Foto: imago images/Xinhua)
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Many metaverses are nothing more than extended online games such as Fortnite. It is no longer just played there, but concerts take place or users can buy sneakers. But for many people that is not a reason to buy VR glasses. “I think the big adoption will come through the office and business world,” says BCG’s Merey.
The digital expert draws a parallel to other innovations. “It’s very similar to cell phones – the thick bones or the car phone were used by business people first.” Similar to the smartphone, VR glasses are not only becoming lighter and cheaper, but also more bearable. At the end of the year, Meta will release its long-awaited “Project Cambria” glasses. Patent applications show that Apple is also working on one. Microsoft has been on the market with its Holo-Lens for some time and is primarily targeting business customers.
As with the train, the new glasses no longer completely shield the user from the outside world. “Augmented Reality” or AR, the “adapted reality”, is making inroads. “VR and AR are growing together, soon you will no longer know the difference,” says Merey.
>> Read here: What Apple patents reveal about new VR glasses
The new glasses are becoming lighter, more attractive – and over time more indispensable. Much like the Metaverse brings people together through gaming or shopping, “we think the same thing will happen in the way companies do business,” says Yaad Oren, head of the SAP Innovation Center Network.
How VR glasses should enable special entertainment in cars in the future
The metaverse is called a “digital twin” in the industry, which means the virtual representation of an object or system. Whether a company is designing a machine or a production line, with the twin the project is simulated, planned and improved in real time before and during implementation. According to the industry service Markets & Markets, sales of the technology are still around $6.9 billion worldwide this year, but according to a forecast, they will rise sharply to $73.5 billion in the next five years.
Companies like Siemens are working with providers like Teamviewer to develop construction kits that companies can use to create digital twins. With their help, engineers can design countless versions of machines or city planners can simulate in real time the effect of new buildings on the airflow in a neighborhood – all with almost no programming knowledge.
Applications without programming knowledge
When Teamviewer product manager Witt talks to potential customers, he has good arguments. Reduce costs, increase efficiency. For example, Audi trains its employees in the Brussels factory for the e-tron model, which went into operation a few years ago, in quality assurance with Teamviewer. Instead of reading a 150-page operating manual, the employees quickly and intuitively learn what is important for the final inspection of the vehicles: they have to check 150 quality features in five minutes.
“Until now, digitization has taken place in the office,” says Witt. “Now it’s finally reaching the skilled worker.” According to Teamviewer, 80 percent of the world’s workers do not sit in an office, a total of 2.7 billion people. Their skills, qualifications and also examinations are increasingly accompanied by software and data collection and transmission.
Employee concerns must be addressed
Training courses such as those at Deutsche Bahn are an important application. According to the consulting firm PwC, “soft skills” in particular, i.e. social competence, are learned well with VR. A difficult conversation with employees can be practiced and behavioral instructions can be internalized. According to the analysis, they are “more emotionally connected” than in the classroom. What is taught there in two hours is learned in 29 minutes via VR.
The investment in the VR glasses is necessary, they cost around 1000 euros including the screen and other hardware. But according to PwC, VR training pays off for 375 or more participants, since the VR version is just as expensive as traditional training. From 3000 users it should be more than half cheaper.
However, not every employee accepts the new technology immediately. Overall, the feedback is “very positive,” reports Kost from DB Netz. Younger and tech-savvy employees in particular are enthusiastic, but sometimes they also hear other comments: “I haven’t needed that for 20 years either.” Nevertheless, the path towards virtual reality in the professional world should be unstoppable.
More: Billion market or billion grave? What the Metaverse is really capable of
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