SAN ANTONIO – A virtual reality program created by a San Antonio-based company is taking employee safety training to another level at a major vehicle manufacturing plant.
The IMG Studio created a virtual reality safety training program for Toyota San Antonio.
“When you put the goggles on, it’s full 360 (degrees),” James Chandler, president of interactive media at the IMG Studio said.
The IMG Studio was created in 2017 and started in VR really early on, before it was really adapted.
Chandler said after the team had several meetings with Toyota, they designed the program and then they went to the plant to film.
“We have two sides of the company. We have the video side that actually goes out, shoots the video. Then we have the developers who bring it in to a gaming engine and actually gamify or make it interactive,” Chandler said.
Chandler says this virtual reality program designed for Toyota has been in use since last year.
“It actually allows them to pick and choose what safety violations are happening within the scene. It scores them. It actually has a timing system,” Chandler said.
He said data collected from the program will be used to better assess training of the employees.
“We’ve since expanded this project into other Toyota plants. Our goal eventually is to have this in all North America plants and then also in some of the Mexico plants as well,” Chandler said.