Assessment of virtual reality-based manufacturing assembly training system

Digital manufacturing concept is gaining a lot of attention and popularity due to its enormous benefits. It is considered as one of the pillars or component of Industry 4.0. With the advancements in technology, digital manufacturing is becoming a reality rather than a concept only. It is applied to various stages of the manufacturing process such as design, prototyping, and assembly training. Virtual reality (VR) is a cog in a wheel of digital manufacturing. It can be used in various phases of manufacturing. Planning and conducting assembly operations account for the majority of the cost of a product. It is difficult to design and train assembly operations during the early stages of product design. Assembly is a vital step in manufacturing, so firms provide training to their employees and it costs them time and money. Therefore, this research work extends VR applications in manufacturing by integrating concepts and studies from training simulations to the evaluation of assembly training effectiveness and transfer of training. VR provides a platform for “learning by doing” instead of learning by seeing, listening, or observing. A series of user-based evaluation studies are conducted to ensure that the virtual manufacturing assembly simulation provides an effective and efficient means for evaluating assembly operations and for training assembly personnel. Different feedback cues of VR are implemented to evaluate the system. Moreover, several case studies are used to assess the effectiveness of VR-based training. The results of the study reveal that participants trained by VR committed fewer errors and took lesser time in actual product assembly when compared against the participant from traditional or baseline training group.