Reducing Accidents With Immersive Safety Training

Wincanton, a leading supply chain partner for UK businesses employing over 20,000 people across 160 sites, provides supply chain solutions throughout the UK. With a wealth of experience and knowledge, Wincanton provides sustainable, business-critical services, including storage, handling, and distribution. They work alongside a range of British businesses, including those in sectors such as eFulfillment, Grocery & Consumer, General Merchandise, and Public & Industrial.

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Following an analysis of incidents and accidents in the UK logistics sector, it was established that 60% of the incidents came from three major areas:

• Dropped trailers 
• Cage falls 
• Red light pull-offs 

As a result, training had to be developed to reduce these incidents and their potential financial impact on Wincanton’s business. Any learning solution had to be easily accessible for all colleagues on all sites across the country.

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Wincanton and Video Interact utilized the ELB Learning virtual reality course builder CenarioVR®. 

Strategy: To fully immerse workers, specifically their drivers and warehouse staff, in the issues with virtual and interactive 360-degree environments filmed in their worksites

Video Interact created 3 narrative-led approaches to showcase the issues, using 360-degree videos as the basis of an interactive solution using CenarioVR. For additional realism, real Wincanton colleagues were cast in the scenes which accurately reflected the working environments and tasks encountered by the target audience every day. Learners must spot environmental and structural hazards and reflect on the habit-based behaviours of the characters so that they carefully consider all the aspects that contribute to these common and preventable incidents.

Design and Structure of VR Training

Each of the courses covered one of the 3 majors mentioned above. The content was captured by 360 and conventional cameras on location at a working Wincanton depot. Once edited the films were then uploaded into CenarioVR where interactive elements were added, including:

• Hazard spotting
• Drag & drop interactions
• Quizzes 
• Character situation analysis

These 360-degree videos featuring real colleagues allowed workers to feel that they are in the middle of the action in the warehouses and at busy distribution centers. Using Wincanton’s colleagues who were familiar with the equipment and situations makes the scenarios feel more realistic.

Learners can experience the mandated courses anytime on cell phones, tablets, desktops, and headsets, making it available for individuals to watch at any time, at their own pace. Furthermore, Wincanton screencasts the scenarios in group training sessions, and they can even be featured in interactive immersive rooms. To reduce risk, they also mandated this training for all colleagues linked to the three majors.

This immersive VR training using CenarioVR created in-depth, focused, reflective learning. 

After only 12 months of deployment, Wincanton achieved:

• 58% reduction in Dropped Trailers incidents
• 71% reduction in Red Light incidents
• 58% reduction in Cage Falls incidents

Overall, 80% of the surveyed audience agreed that their ability to spot and mitigate against these issues increased from Good to Very Good as a result of experiencing the 360 VR Experience.