Leveraging on Immersive Technologies to Develop a Framework to Assess Worker Training in Reverse Logistics

The study of Immersive Technologies (IMT) - including Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR) and Mixed Reality (MR) - in corporate training spans nearly three decades. While extensively reviewed in high-risk domains, including the military, healthcare, and aircraft maintenance, its potential in other industries characterized by elevated workplace injury rates like transportation, warehousing, construction, and manufacturing remains underexplored. Notably, there exists an important research gap regarding the implementation of immersive training in transportation and warehousing, vital components of the logistic ecosystem. For this reason, the logistic industry requires a paradigm shift to ensure that new workers receive training in a safe environment, mitigating the risk of accidents, while guarantying that, upon completion, workers not only possess the requisite skills, but also feel confident and comfortable executing learned tasks. This paper contributes by presenting a methodological framework that companies can employ to gauge the potential advantages derived from IMT into their training processes, in contrast to conventional methods. Under this framework, a training program's success depends on multiple variables which can be classified in two categories. The first category encompasses measurable performance variables, while the second assesses how an immersive environment impacts the learning experience. Ultimately, the goal is to design and refine the framework initially in a pallet company. However, the developed framework is also intentionally designed to be sufficiently versatile so that it can be extrapolated to a broader spectrum of sectors.