At the National Boy Scout Jamboree in August, a gathering of more than 40,000 scouts, leaders and staff in Fort Hill, Va., hundreds of young people eagerly lined up to try their hand at the latest in virtual reality.
It wasn’t a world filled with space aliens or football stars, however. It was a look at the welding industry.
Lincoln Electric, the Cleveland-based provider of welding products and services, had brought its VRTEX 360 system to the jamboree, allowing users to put on a welder’s helmet, hold a welding torch and experience a full range of welding processes without putting a torch to metal.
The hope is that the new, high-tech approach to welding training will attract a younger, talented group of professionals to the industry and increase the quality of teaching the craft.
“Over the course of the past five to 10 years, we’ve seen a decline in the number of individuals who are looking for welding as part of a career path,” says Chris Bailey, (pictured at left) general manager of Lincoln Electric’s automation division. “We have a diminished work force as baby boomers retire. … We need people who consider welding a craft and an art.”
That’s why Lincoln Electric, which uses more than 50 of the virtual reality machines in its own facilities throughout the U.S., is eager to get the VRTEX 360 into the hands of a younger generation.
The seed of the VRTEX 360 was created in 2003 by VRSim Inc., a Connecticut-based maker of virtual reality training devices. The SimWelder, as it was originally called, was used to train welding technicians working on submarines for military contractor Electric Boat.
But at a convention several years after its invention, a VRSim representative met Lincoln Electric’s director of training Carl Peters, and a wider purpose for the technology started to take root. “They asked if we were interested in working with them to take the virtual reality product to market on a grander scale,” Bailey says.
In 2008, Lincoln Electric purchased the intellectual property for the SimWelder and began overhauling it to include a virtual-reality welding helmet, a welding machine and a welding stand.
“We redesigned the entire machine,” says Deanna Postle-thwaite, the marketing and product manager for Lincoln Electric Automation. “We drove it toward something Lincoln Electric would want to use, including a remodeled stand that’s what we use in our welding schools. The dials replicate the dials on an actual welding machine.”
The VRTEX 360 also introduced a variety of welding techniques, processes and materials that the SimWelder didn’t include.
Lincoln Electric debuted the VRTEX 360 at trade shows and conferences in late 2009 and officially released it in the second quarter of 2010 with a list price of $46,500. Since then, hundreds of machines have been sold to schools, prisons and the military. A number of large industrial companies have even purchased the system as a cost-effective alternative to outsourcing their training, Bailey says.
Lincoln Electric released the first upgrade for the system, which is offered in five languages, in March to include increased welding functions and an in-depth electronic tutorial option to assist students when they have a question.
Lincoln Electric has only one competitor in the virtual reality welding space, a European company that came to market around the same time and supplies almost exclusively overseas. But virtual reality is being used in a number of technical fields, such as construction, in order to attract interest from a younger generation, says Postlethwaite.
“How do you get children excited in learning anymore?” she asks. “By bringing it to them in a way that’s fun and exciting. Virtual reality isn’t a game, but it’s attractive in that sense.”
So in October, Lincoln Electric will sponsor the WorldSkills Competition in London, where young craftspeople from around the world compete to be the best in their chosen skill. A VRTEX 360 will also travel the country to conferences and trade shows with the American Welding Society Foundation to promote the product and attract young
candidates.
“The VRTEX 360 is providing a new, fresh look at how we approach education,” Bailey says. “Welding is what we do at Lincoln Electric. We want to get people into welding. It is a good career, a lucrative career.”