Following a training that teaches you exactly how a machine works. Safely, without expensive training rooms and without bringing the process in the factory to a standstill because someone has to be trained on a machine. Following virtual reality training has been possible for a while for the larger companies that have the budget for it, but our innovative platform now makes it possible for smaller companies too. And not only that, we are also immediately launching a dashboard in which all data from a VR training is measured!

From parent company Serious VR, entrepreneurs Ton Kuper and Marjo Nieuwenhuijse have been working together on VR practical training for industrial companies for several years. The collaboration arose when both were looking, from other quarters, for a solution to the problem: practical training was too expensive and not efficient. Marjo: "I have always worked as a business consultant in SMEs. There, I increasingly found that training in production or industrial companies cost a lot of money, time and energy. Productions were delayed or came to a standstill when someone had to be trained on the machine, and it was also not always completely safe to let a "new" person work on machines or equipment. I started looking for an alternative and then ran into Ton."

In-house virtual reality expertise

Ton already had the knowledge of virtual reality from his company C4Real, through which he mainly makes virtual reality for companies that use it as marketing material. "We made VR mostly for marketing purposes at the time, but I was looking for more possibilities for virtual reality. So VR training came my way and, together with Marjo, I started Serious VR, a company that makes virtual reality training applications for companies." Trainings developed in recent years consist of both customer- or machine-specific trainings as well as generic trainings that any industrial company could basically use.

VR training possible for everyone

Creating customised virtual reality training is a large investment. This is why mostly larger companies are currently investing in VR training. They have a shorter payback period because they have to train many people. Ton: "Through our innovative platform, we want to make VR training possible for everyone. The generic training training applications can now be purchased by industrial companies with an affordable licence. By generic training we mean, for example, the practical training we developed for the NEN3140."

They then get access to the platform where users, instructors and management can take training applications and view results. Because besides the fact that VR training can be followed via our platform, the platform also collects data on the skills and performance of training participants.

Assessing people on skills

The philosophy that Ton and Marjo share is very simple: people should be assessed on skills and therefore there should be more steering on people's performance. "I come from a family of people who work with their hands. I have experienced up close that people who work with their hands are undervalued. A CV often looks at experience, but what does that really say about whether someone is good at the job?" says Marjo.

Every organisation is looking for professionals. By professionals we mean people who put acquired skills and problem-solving abilities to practical use: the work they do. Yet Marjo points out that it remains difficult for companies to judge when someone is a professional. "Only everything you measure can be judged completely independently. That is why we started looking for a way in which skills are measurable. We ended up with the SQ: the skills quotient. Besides the fact that in society we already measure IQ or EQ, we can also make performance measurable with the SQ."

This is exactly why VR training appllications from the Virtual Training Academy are developed in such a way that, besides saving time and money compared to existing practical training, they are fully measurable.

Making skills and performance measurable

But how do you do that? Make skills and thus someone's performance measurable? Ton: "Through university research, we figured out which performance indicators someone should be assessed on. We then compared these indicators with our VR training applications and made them measurable in our performance analytics. "

After following a training, the performance indicators can all be found in the online dashboard. In this online dashboard, the performance analytics, it is made clear which skills someone scores well and less well on, where areas for improvement lie and also what the score is compared to other training participants.

Further development of the platform

Today, the first part of the innovative training platform and associated website went live. But with this first go live, it does not mean that the platform is now finished. Ton: "The team of developers is working hard to further develop the platform. We also want to expand our range of virtual reality training applicationss. Our education specialist and the VR developers are working on new generic training applications that can also be purchased under licence in the near future." Want to know what the Virtual Training Academy's current offerings are? Then you should contact us for the current offer and licence prices.

Get to know our philosophy and platform?

We firmly believe that you have to experience VR before you can judge whether it is right for your organisation. That is why we would like to invite you to a demo of our virtual reality training courses and the accompanying performance analytics dashboard. Only then can you experience the benefits for yourself!