April 7, 2025
THOUSANDS UNDERGO VR TRAINING AT EMIRATES
23,000 Emirates employees are set to undergo SEP (Safety & Emergency Procedures) training on Airbus and Boeing planes in VR. With 315 aircraft on order and a projected 30,000 cabin crew hires by 2030, Emirates is turning to self-guided VR training to prime itself for growth.
The airline’s MIRA program features simulations of the Airbus A380, Boeing 777, and Airbus A350. Each aircraft is fully modeled in VR, including interiors as well as emergency slides, tarmac, airbridges, and more. The beauty of the solution is that it’s affordable, repeatable, and supports multi-user training. Eight to ten trainees can participate in a single virtual training session in order to replicate a real working environment with multiple crew members.
New and existing cabin crew employees will begin with two critical onboard safety procedures: Aircraft door operations and mid-flight fire fighting–both high-risk scenarios requiring recurring annual training. The ultimate goal, of course, is having an end-to-end virtual training experience without having to rely on or maintain complex physical training facilities and equipment.
Flexibility is key: MIRA is accessible via VR headset or as a 2D version on mobile devices and laptops. Accounting for time/location constraints, mentors can teach groups in Teach, Practice, or Assessment modules, presumably with varying degrees of self-guided learning. Metrics help to assess individual progress and refine training programs.
NESTLE TAKES CONSUMERS BEHIND FACTORY DOORS
Nestlé is using VR and generative AI to facilitate more factory visits while simultaneously reducing travel. Why would Nestlé virtually open its factory doors? To “reinforce trust” with stakeholders and reduce the brand’s carbon footprint.
Wearing a VR headset, visitors can observe how Nestlé products are made, witness the safety, quality and health measures involved in its manufacturing operations, and discover the scientific and technological innovations behind well-known nutrition brands.
First piloted earlier in the year at a child nutrition factory in Mexico, Nestlé is now rolling out the immersive factory experience across several markets in Latin America with plans to expand to other geographies. The experience is personalized, leveraging the latest in generative AI and voice synthesis to allow users to explore products from their country of choice. Though currently available only in English, Spanish and Portuguese, additional languages and locations are coming.
Nestlé isn’t the first brand to offer VR tours to the public: In 2017, Marriott trialled a virtual tour of its meeting rooms for corporate event planners. Two years later, KLM created VR tours of its entire fleet (later repurposed for training), and Marathon Petroleum let people inside its Galveston Bay refinery. More recently, Qatar Airways created a WebVR tour of its premium check-in facility and cabin interiors, and Italian furniture brand Natuzzi offered HoloLens tours of real customers’ homes with Natuzzi furniture for sale. In addition to factory tours, Nestlé also hopes to use VR to take people inside its R&D centers.
(Related: Immersive PR: XR Takes on Public Relations)
RIVIAN STAYS TRUE TO BRAND WITH VR
As you can imagine, as an EV maker, environmental considerations are pretty important to Rivian and that means achieving more sustainable processes. With a goal of zero emissions by 2040, Rivian turned to VR to minimize consumption and waste at all stages of design and production of its electric trucks and SUVs.
Rivian goes where the talent is. As a result, the company’s operations are very much dispersed: Vehicle design takes place mainly in California, with test tracks located in Arizona, manufacturing in Illinois, and additional functions in Michigan. This necessitates a better way for teams to collaborate across locations without incurring the time, costs, and especially emissions associated with travel.
Besides travel, Rivian focused on raw material supply and consumption particularly in the design process. Traditional design workflows involve physical mockups and can utilize more than 32 tons of raw materials to reach a final design. Moreover, review of physical models requires people to be in the same room. Consider that a typical clay model costs around $5,000, uses 325lbs of material, and takes about a week to review. Multiply that and you ‘get’ a serious environmental footprint.
With VR, teams are able to collaborate frequently and remotely throughout the vehicle creation process. They can iterate faster and make real-time changes to digital models, creating 2-3 times the number of design iterations than possible in clay and wood. This amounts to $1 million is cost savings per vehicle just from reduced materials. Even better, a single design review can be done in one hour, drastically speeding up the design process.
Rivian began its VR initiative in 2016. Today, every employee uses the technology, specifically Autodesk VRED software on Varjo headsets. The fidelity of Varjo headsets is critical for the kind of detailed design work involved at Rivian. In particular, the ability to view lifesize 3D models with accurate reflections and textures helps to quickly answer questions and solve design challenges.
(Related: Synergies Between XR & Sustainability in Industry)
