There is a famous exercise among safety engineers who train hazmat (hazardous materials) response teams. It involves getting a group of hazmat workers to discuss possible responses to a specific scenario.

The scenario is this:

The hazmat workers are each given the same slip of paper. The paper is a shortened version of what is known as an MSDS (material safety data sheet). The MSDS has been blanked in two important areas. The first is the name of the chemical. The second is the response recommendations (which would ruin the exercise if visible). So the team in the conference room has essentially a list of ingredients and a list of some hazards posed by the chemical.

The team of hazmat workers is then told that a truck of this chemical has spilt on a busy motorway. The vehicle carrying it has turned over and the hull has been breached, spilling all of the content on the roads and soil. This usually (depending on the size of the vehicle) equates to about 30,000 litres of whatever liquid they're dealing with. The team must decide what equipment is needed to clean it up – what tools they'll need to bring from their facility to the scene.

Safety trainers who run this exercise will tell you that typical responses include full hazmat gear, caustic neutralising chemicals (the substance, if you look it up, usually has a pH of around 9), oil pads and even equipment to ensure the chemicals don't get into the nearby groundwater. This is based on the ingredients list the trainees have been given.

At the end of the exercise, after the hypothetical equipment is submitted, the team is told what the name of the substance is and what equipment is actually needed to clean it up.

It's Crest Toothpaste. For cleaning it off a road? Most safety engineers will recommend a hose and maybe a few spades.

How does a miscalculation this massive happen? Is it because it's a training exercise and the hazmat team is inexperienced? I would argue no.

Rather than being born of ignorance or incompetence, this is a perfect example of workers being deprived of context. This is what happens when we divorce experience from information – and it's an unfair way of training someone. Granted, the toothpaste example is to prove a point, but it also illustrates the need for training in certain fields to be more interactive.

In an ideal scenario, a team should be able to arrive at the site of a spill and pull up the MSDS based on the license plate of the truck. Or, be given real-time information from a first responder while they gather equipment back at their station. This would be a good follow-up to the initial hazmat training.

And now, we have the technology to create a follow-up exercise to this semi-famous example.

To take their training programs into that second level of comprehensiveness, workplaces should be using extended reality technology in their training programs. These devices marry information and communication with experience – they let workers access and analyse data as they are learning (and doing) jobs "in the field".

What is extended reality?

Extended reality (XR) falls into three categories, two of which we'll be focusing on for the majority of this article.

1. Assisted reality refers to devices that allow access to digitally stored information (in a hard drive or the cloud) while in the field. "The field" may refer to a hospital, a construction site, an oil rig or any number of situations where workers may be deprived of immediate access to things like schematics or databases.

2. Augmented reality devices allow this same access, but also include the ability to superimpose this information onto the environment itself. They can also manipulate the data in a way that reveals information regarding its relationship to the environment. We'll get into how to visualise this below.

3. Virtual reality refers to a complete digitised environment. This is paradigmatically different from something that allows a user to interact with a real environment, and therefore is far enough away in relation to other XR equipment that we won't spend much time on it below.

Assisted, augmented and virtual reality devices usually take the form of headsets or smart glasses. Augmented reality can also be experienced with a tablet or phone, though using these devices introduces more cognitive load than using a headset.

Why use XR for training purposes?

At first blush, one may ask why assisted reality should even be a part of this discussion. What's the difference between wearing a headset and walking around a field site carrying a laptop?

The answer boils down to safety and practicality. The workers who could benefit from assisted reality are possibly doing very intricate and complicated tasks in a hectic environment. Carrying a laptop is extremely cumbersome and not conducive to efficient and effective skilled work – the kind that's carried out in hospitals, factories and construction sites.

It's also important to remember that what XR is trying to accomplish is not the unnecessary addition of technology to an already overburdened work environment. XR is attempting to resolve the problem in the toothpaste example. It is trying to join information with experience.

Having a small, easily transported device – preferably a headset – would have been ideal for the hazmat team to have when discussing their chemical spill. Really, any chemical spill. The more access to information workers have, the easier their job is. And that is the key to understanding XR. We are trying to get as many stakeholders to have the same access to information as possible, ideally in real-time.

There are myriad possibilities.

So what are we getting with assisted reality?

We'll split those possibilities up into two groups. The first group concerns remote communication. The second group concerns remote information access.

Imagine a chemical spill that's actually dangerous. A hazmat team is able to get hold of a first responder to the scene as they're gathering equipment. Imagine the first responder is wearing a headset that gives various angles of the spill, what the chemicals look like, the tracking information on the lorry that was hauling the chemicals, and – most vitally – the extent of the spill and how fast it's spreading. This kind of instant communication via remote access would be worlds better than simply estimating what kind of equipment a hazmat team should employ.

Not only can a hazmat team more safely train under these conditions, but augmented reality can even simulate this experience for trainees. We'll discuss this more in the next section.

Another common scenario for first responders is a medical emergency. Imagine again a first responder, perhaps an ambulance technician, wearing a headset while responding to an emergency. Imagine now that the emergency is non-standard – perhaps a possible stroke or seizure victim. How helpful would it be to speak with a doctor who can actually see what's going on while deciding if and how to transport the patient? This is the kind of informational bridge assisted reality can provide.

A less exciting but no less useful use for assisted reality devices is providing access to databases and the internet while out in the field. A headset is ideal for this, as it gives workers safe, hands-free access to this vital information. Think of the errors and miscommunications that could be avoided if people had access to things like schematics, diagnosis tables and even sensor readings while they were working in potentially dangerous environments.

Training with this technology is vital to skilled labourers who want to be better at their profession. Anyone who thinks these are unnecessary additions to a work environment is fooling themselves into believing the world is simpler than it is.

What about augmented reality?

Well, now we're getting into the really fun stuff, aren't we?

In 1997, Ronald Azuma set three conditions for a device to be considered capable of augmented reality.

First, it must enable interactions between the physical and virtual contents. Secondly, it enables the real-time overlay of virtual contents onto the real world. Thirdly, it should be registered in three dimensions. The realisation of these features requires the use of various techniques, including tracking techniques, display techniques, and interaction techniques.

This definition allows us to visualise what kinds of features these devices have.

In construction, the ability to map parts onto the surface in front of you is vital to the success of the operation. Up until recently, this had to be done in the heads of the architect, the foreman, and all the skilled labourers working with the thousands of tiny wires, bolts of differing sizes, and mounts of varying shapes that all had to be placed in the proper positions. Now, this can at least be simplified to some degree.

Will a headset do all the thinking that a skilled electrician has to do at a construction site? Of course not. However, quality control managers will be happy to know that the person can now check their work against a software system using tracking technology and cloud-based artificial intelligence to verify the decisions they're making are correct. So training while using this technology can reduce errors and allow workers to get trained faster.

Training is revolutionised with this technology. Whereas virtual reality gives us things such as the flight simulator, a technology still expanding and evolving, augmented reality can project onto any environment a simulation of what a skilled worker needs. A budding surgeon can make an incision at an operating table, but on a virtual heart projected onto a dummy. A pipe fitter can change the torque on a bolt, virtually, without damaging any equipment. And an operator at an oil rig can run down an emergency scenario due to a pressure gauge malfunction without being in any danger of getting thrown over the side and into the ocean.

Takeaways

Extended reality is no longer the subject of a melodramatic Ray Bradbury short story. It's here to stay, and not only can it save your organisation money, but it can even save lives.

While the toothpaste example from earlier is funny, the truth is this: potentially fatal chemical spills do occur. Training hazmat teams more effectively by projecting the conditions onto their environment helps them respond better – and giving them real-time information in a hands-free format can streamline their work even more.

The question isn't if your organisation will adopt extended reality, it's when. If nothing else, it will make your training sessions faster and more successful. And if you adopt it into your work environment, you'll need to start your prospective employees using it right away.

Want to get started? Learn how XR devices are already being used in your industry. Or jump right in and buy XR devices online at our store.