Effective training is crucial to operations in all industries, but in medical device manufacturing and assembly, a lack of proper training can have detrimental effects for the company, its customers and patients alike.

It should come as no surprise that historically, contract manufacturers in the medical device space have implemented rigorous and standardized training courses to ensure and sustain high quality metrics across the board, as training and qualification are essential to quality management. However, faced with an ongoing skilled labor shortage in manufacturing while ramping up new product lines, the need for evolution has become evident. 

Virtual reality (VR) — having proven its capabilities during its infancy stage in entertainment — started emerging as a technology with significant growth potential especially as it pertains to training and development. The medical device industry quickly realized the opportunity and adopted this technology, and the advancement made since has only benefited businesses, cementing it as a must-have technology investment.

Revolutionizing the Training Environment

At the onset, the benefits of leveraging VR technology were felt immediately. Businesses were not just saving time, but also space, money, and resources. It also contributed to increasingly comfortable learning environments for new employees, where making mistakes feels less daunting.

For starters, workers were offered the flexibility to begin training away from the manufacturing floor and could work at their own pace without scrapping products or raw materials. In meeting trainees where they are, quite literally with the use of VR headsets, it decreased the pressure around having fellow trainees and a trainer observing over their shoulders as they learn new processes. It also gave a better insight into job placement on the line for each candidate where companies could play to everyone’s strengths.

As a result, studies show that businesses that use VR training have experienced a 76% increase in learning effectiveness due to its ability to reduce distractions and establish a greater connection between the learner and their training content. In most cases, it also decreased the amount of time it took to train new team members from weeks down to days — alleviating the stressors of labor shortages and turnover much quicker.

VR in Practice at Freudenberg Medical

For Freudenberg Medical, one of the company’s first forays into VR training was with a catheter assembly. Prior to using VR training, the company needed to shut down production lines to ensure proper training and quality assurances were met. 

There were two main issues with this standard method of training. First, any time a company must shut down one of its lines, it negatively impacts productivity. The other issue relates to the availability of raw materials. In a time when supply cannot keep up with demand as is, using those materials and resources to build training units that will not hit the market can cause delays in getting devices into the hands of medical professionals. 

The implementation of VR, however, has eliminated those logistical challenges. Now, Freudenberg Medical can train individuals in as little as three days while giving trainees the ability to conduct 100-plus repetitions before even beginning work on the line. The simulated production line also meant they no longer needed to shut down any lines nor use or limit the physical components used in the process – ensuring teams exceeded quality standards during assembly and reduced training scrap. 

The goal was to see a return on this investment over one year. However, the company ended up seeing a return on its investment in just a couple of months’ time. Furthermore, quality audits were streamlined as VR training provided a consistent course for each new team member, and detailed recordings on who completed which steps and what level of instructions they still required during the process.

How to Get Started in Your Organization

While the benefits of VR will vary for each company, the advancements with this technology as it relates to the accompanying hardware, software, and applications over the last decade have rendered it a must-have technology. 

For organizations just getting started on their VR journey, start by analyzing your operation and manufacturing processes to identify where the most time is being spent. Once those areas are identified, begin researching the different VR applications that are available that can begin reducing the time — and money — spent on that process. And take it slow.

Change within any organization can be challenging, but by taking its implementation step-by-step, it can help employees become more comfortable with the technology while serving as pilot programs for future applications.

At Freudenberg Medical, the catheter assembly process is composed of up to sixty workstations to build this medical device. To start, the company used VR at just one workstation to test its effectiveness and improve the process operationally to create the best possible experience with optimal outputs before it was rolled out to multiple other workstations and sites. 

That said, it is also important to understand that implementation takes time and resources. To successfully reap the rewards of this technology for years, companies must be committed to learning more, trying new innovations, and optimizing as new advancements and technologies are introduced.
 

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Lars Gerding serves as Vice President of Global Technology and Engineering at Freudenberg Medical, a global partner for the design, development, and manufacture of medical devices, components, and product solutions.