KCS is an in-flight catering company, mainly for KLM, which has a factory line to assemble the food trays. The KCS Breakdown stimulator teaches maintenance employees to recognize and solve breakdowns in a virtual version of the factory, without needing to shut down the physical production line. The recreated factory environment in Virtual Reality, allows employees to practice their skills with the use of the developed program, which contains different levels of difficulty and shows an overview of weaknesses and strengths. This way an employee can develop their skills with a specific focus on what they need, and a supervisor can also quickly see what progress is being made.
The interactions and aesthetics of the simulation are made to be as immersive as possible, by using physics-based throwing, pressing and opening interactions, and a high level of hand presence. The used technology is widely applicable and can be adapted to the situation in the factory, knowledge of 3D modeling software and VR environments is necessary to apply this.
The final prototype is created using Unity, SolidWorks and Blender is compatible with all VR headsets, and can be downloaded using the button underneath the video tour. While the project and website was created in a project group for the master’s course ‘Virtual Reality’, the simulation is made by me and Sterre van Arum.
