Nearly 55 schools in the US rely on the simulation platform supplied by the IIT Madras incubated Skillveri Training Solutions Pvt Ltd to train their students in vocational skills like welding, painting, or air conditioner repair. Having succeeded in the US, the company is now looking at the domestic market by supplying its platform to various governments, including Tamil Nadu, to train lakhs of students in Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs), according to its Founder and CEO Sabarinath C Nair.

“We are in discussion with various governments, including Tamil Nadu, to use our extended reality (XR) based simulation platform to offer hands-on training on welding, spray painting, blasting, and other skills,” he told businessline. In India, the focus has so far been mainly on the industrial front with over 350 customers, including Nippon Paints and Hyundai, using the Metaverse XR Skillveri simulators.

In the US, the platform is under the Software as a Service (Saas) model wherein a school gets the headsets on their own; download Skillveri’s app, and the license is enabled for them to train the students. Over 250 devices are being used at various schools, he said.

Skillveri uses the principles of Psychophysics and advanced XR technology (combining benefits of VR, AR, and MR). It helps better quality training at much lower costs for multiple hands-on skills like welding, spray painting, and blasting, with more skills in the pipeline, he said. “In conventional training, it used to take nearly 1 year to train a person in painting. This has been reduced to less than a month using simulators,” he said.

The simulators have resulted in a reduction of 50 per cent work rejection and a cut out in 40 per cent reworking and wasting products and optimising on work efficiency. It also reduces the health hazard the training period does due to experimentation and long hours of work. It bridges the time gap and the professionals come out to the field with more perfect dexterity and accuracy in work. It is the most advanced way of learning and performing tasks, he said.

Ultra-portable

Sabarinath said the company now provides ultra-portable: classroom series to take the training centre to where the students are. The portable simulator with a realistic virtual gun controller appears as guns/tools inside the simulation. It is completely mobile with no external power needed. All that is required is a wireless VR headset and a laptop with custom Operating System to screencast and store analytics.

Sabarinath said that the portable kit fits into a backpack, and is perfect for on-site training camps. It can be used to train even in a small room of 6x6 ft floor space. This kit can be used to train students and also provide vocational training in rural areas.

Nippon Paint which has taken 18 spray painting simulators, is the first company to partner with Skillveri for XR training using their portable simulators to reach even the rural areas in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, said Mahesh Anand, President, Nippon Paint India (Decorative).

To address excessive paint wastage during painter training programs, it collaborated with Skillveri to introduce XR modules for immersive training experiences in spray painting.

“Our trainees practice multiple times and receive real-time feedback, reducing waste and improving their skills. To support our trained painters, we offer Airless Spray machines at subsidised costs through our dealers, providing 355 machines,” he said.

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