Virtual Reality (VR) has been influencing the packaging market in recent years in different ways, but its potential still has much to offer. For example, it’s been used to visualize how packaging will present itself on a supermarket shelf, predicting shopper behavior and boosting shelf appeal. Now, however, we can go a bit further and look into the packaging process itself, preventing failures from happening and fixing potential issues without stopping production. To benefit from this trend, Bosch Packaging Technology has introduced VR technology for off-site training for machine operators and the initial results have highlighted that machine performance can be maintained with proper maintenance work without stopping the machine for training.
VR technology has been available on the market for a decade, but only in recent years it has become accessible for industrial purposes. Why? “We have recently noticed a huge technological leap, linked to the fact that the costs of VR hardware and software have significantly decreased. As a result, the technology’s use within various industries, including packaging, has grown,” said Peter Ladewig, training developer at Bosch. Another trend that has fueled this breakthrough is the popularity of gaming. Thanks to the increasing visual quality of graphic programs, engineers can recreate very realistic environments that can be used for purposes other than gaming.