Brad (00:00.76)
Well, welcome back to another episode of the XR industry leaders podcast. I'm your host, Brad Scoggin, the CEO and co-founder of ArborXR along with my co-host, Will Stackable, CMO and co-founder. And today we are joined by, we have three people, so this will be fun. We have Dave Versaca, who's a senior VP at Samuro Enterprises. We've got Devin Weidinger, who's a technical director at ForgeFX. And we have Greg Myers, who is a CEO of ForgeFX.
Greg Meyers (00:01.018)
Bye.
Greg Meyers (00:19.298)
Yeah.
Brad (00:28.486)
And today they are here to share how Somero and ForgeFX are redefining what's possible in manufacturing training with VR, setting a new industry standard in the process. Guys, thank you so much for joining us today.
Greg Meyers (00:36.643)
So.
Dave Raasakka (00:42.023)
Yeah, great to be here.
Devin Weidinger (00:44.409)
Thanks for having us.
Brad (00:47.118)
Dave, I'd love to start with you. Many people probably are not familiar with what Someru offers. So maybe we could start there and you could explain a little bit about what you guys do.
Greg Meyers (00:53.369)
Thank
Dave Raasakka (00:58.779)
Yeah, sure, Brad. So we're really a durable goods, heavy equipment manufacturer in Michigan. And so, you know, we build these piece of heavy equipment that are similar in size to like a large tractor, for instance. And what they're used for is smoothing out concrete as it's being placed onto a job site. I always say if you've ever been in that you may not be familiar with our product, the machine.
But for sure you've walked on the end product and that would be a large scale concrete floor and a target or a large warehouse or gas station parking lot. And so yeah, we produce these machines locally in Michigan and this is a great way to get on with a training adventure using VR technology.
Brad (01:47.598)
And am I right? mean, the machine kind of looks like what in my head, like what you would see at a Target or Walmart that they use to clean the floors, almost like one those big industrial cleaners. Is that kind of what it looks like or is it bigger than that?
Dave Raasakka (02:00.295)
No, it's bigger than that. So some of the largest machines that we manufacture are right just under 20,000 pounds. Some of the very small ones are kind of snowblower size or maybe a little bit larger than a lawnmower. And those would be more typically used in like a light commercial or even a residential application.
Brad (02:08.56)
wow. Okay.
Brad (02:21.72)
Got it. And what was it that first sparked the idea to bring VR into your training programs?
Dave Raasakka (02:26.865)
Well, really it's because we're in such a niche market, you know, and everybody has manpower, especially in the trades nowadays. And to try and procure the kind of experienced individual that can go out and do broad based training within the industry, it takes not only a really difficult time to acquire that individual, but then also be able to
help them acquire experience to be able to teach and train others. So from a scalability perspective, it's really difficult to get individuals to be in a position where they can share their knowledge broadly. It takes a certain subset. So really for us, what it means is from a scalability approach is probably the first item. Secondly, you have kind of a, there's a safety element to it or a
Brad (03:18.21)
Mm-hmm.
Dave Raasakka (03:25.351)
you what I call safety without penalty. So you can, you can operate the machine. You can crash into things. You can do things that in a real world environment would be pretty costly if not dangerous. And VR has, has really been a, a great way to get past some of those barriers.
Brad (03:27.918)
Yeah.
Brad (03:35.822)
Yeah.
Brad (03:44.334)
Yeah, we talk a lot about PR being good for training and things that are difficult, dangerous or expensive. I like to think about or talk about the accessibility component, but what you just said is something I actually hadn't thought of much is the access to an expert trainer and that sometimes that could be in short supply. So that's very interesting perspective. What specific skills and scenarios are your employees being trained in?
Dave Raasakka (04:09.455)
So it's not only just the sheer operation of the machine, but also maintenance and some of the servicing aspects. We intend to keep growing this along to get into some of the trade challenges that some of the operators will be faced as an operator of our equipment. And so it may not be necessarily tied to the machine, but also just some of the hurdles that they come across in their daily job to be able to
get some training advanced, they'll learn how to handle it without causing an interruption and be able to carry on their day pretty smoothly.
Brad (04:47.576)
So what does that look like? I'm a trainee coming in to do the training. You've got a room of headsets to go put on. Walk me through what it looks like maybe in a day in the life of one of your employees being trained in VR.
Dave Raasakka (05:00.387)
Sure. Right now, what we do is, so we have a, we have a very formal classroom and concrete placing environment. called the Someril Concrete Institute. And that's down at our training center in Fort Myers, Florida. Great facility. We do concrete placements there all the time, recycle the concrete. It's a very smooth process. But even, even when you try to maintain a very tight ratio of the number of
attendees to the trainer. you know, we'd like to keep it at about a one to five or a one to six ratio, just for that individuality that everybody's looking for. But even then, when you start to, do some of the one-on-one type situations where you have a trainer working with a person operating the machine and, giving them some direction, you've got four or five other people in the background that are kind of, you know, they're looking for something else to do.
So what we've implemented with them is, okay, now you get into the VR training aspect of it. And then they get going through the VR and as their turn comes up in the system, it keeps progressing that way. So we're really leveraging the dwell time and not only at the Concrete Institute, but also we send headsets out to our customers in lieu of some of this type of classroom training. Maybe they haven't experienced
They may have a fleet with experienced operators and they've acquired one or two more people. And so rather than sending them to the training Institute, we've been able to give out some of the headsets to them in lieu of that training and, they've been able to take it up that way. So again, it's a, it's a scalability, matter as well as being able to leverage, some of the dwell time to really come out of it with a higher sense of training.
Brad (06:59.66)
Yeah, I love that. And when they put on the headset, me like what specifically are they doing inside the headset?
Dave Raasakka (07:05.147)
Yeah, so really you end up in kind of a somer or an arbor lobby that really is just going to take them into the VR training app. So once you get into the training app, then you can choose either a guided or an unguided methodology. Typically people start off with a guided methodology. And so you start off with some of the basics, just a machine walk around, if you will. So in
You know, in simplest terms, you're walking around your vehicle trying to, you know, figure out how to unlock the doors and lift the hood and check the air pressure and the tires. You're doing some of the same things on our machine. Although it becomes a little more technical and in certain aspects. And then from there, it keeps progressing to different phases of, of machine movement. And ultimately ending up screening.
you know, virtual concrete, which is really, really cool in itself. one of the other other things that I find really intriguing is that, and it, and it's not something that we outwardly train other than like a written manual or a video series, but it's, it's loading the machine onto a trailer. So these large machines, they have to be pulled around on a, on a flatbed behind a semi truck. And so if you can imagine having to drive it up on onto the truck,
Brad (08:27.416)
Mm-hmm.
Dave Raasakka (08:31.289)
or onto the trailer, you know, it's kind of an unsettling experience. And if you do drive off the side, there's a high penalty and cost or, you know, potential danger. So the program will take you through that exercise and really help build the muscle memory to get it done properly.
Brad (08:50.208)
And safely and you make a mistake. It's okay. Right. one last question for you, Dave, before we get go over to Greg and Devin, you mentioned screening concrete and I saw that as we were preparing a no clue what that means. So probably most people don't know what that means. Do you want to quickly just explain what that is and then we'll kick it over to Greg and Devin.
Dave Raasakka (08:51.673)
safely. Yeah.
Dave Raasakka (09:07.591)
Sure, yeah, you got it. So when concrete is being placed into the forms or the, you know, ultimately what's going to become the flooring structure, it's dumped out of a concrete truck or maybe it might even be pumped through a big hose to the point of displacement. And so concrete being concrete, it's kind of lumpy, uneven, you know, not very nice looking, if you will.
And so our machine will then come along and based on a predetermined grade point, meaning that the top finished elevation of the floor, it comes through and using laser feedback technology, you can end up coming out with a very accurate final product. after the machine goes through and smooths out the concrete, then you have the tradespeople I get on with the power trolls and their
they're finishing the floor and doing their treatments and ultimately you end up with a beautiful finished product.
Brad (10:14.254)
Yeah, that's cool. Greg, let's kick it over to ForgeFX here. Maybe you could share with us how the partnership with Samaro started and kind of what your initial process was on identifying the first use case to begin training.
Greg Meyers (10:30.372)
Yeah, sure thing. I think Dave, you'll have to correct me if I'm wrong on any this, but I believe I met Dave at World of Concrete, which is a very large trade show and probably one of the biggest shows that Samuro attends. As a developer of simulation-based training applications, we go to a lot of shows similar to World of Concrete, ConExpo, World of Asphalt, those sorts of shows, because there are manufacturers of large pieces of equipment like
Samara's laser screen equipment. And so we work with a number of heavy equipment manufacturers building simulators. And so Dave and I met there, I showed him some of the work that we've done for other manufacturers. And that's what started the relationship and the conversations about how we could help them improve their training facilities and training methods.
Brad (11:24.076)
Well, I guess what was that once you connected, what was the initial use case that you kind of helped identify and what was that process?
Greg Meyers (11:30.634)
I think it was this piece of equipment, this S-22. I think I flew down to, I forget where it was, Southern California somewhere and met with Dave and watched them using the equipment to build large warehouses and looking at some of the hazards and really starting to identify where simulation-based training might be able to add direct value. And we really tried to target that and start with some of those components. And I think the thing that Dave mentioned,
but maybe glossed over a little bit was the fact that their trainees have to lay down real world concrete in order to learn how to use this piece of equipment, which then has to be scrapped and torn up and recycled. And so our simulator allows us to let these people, these trainees lay down virtual concrete, which has no cost and no associated use of materials and consumables. So I think that was one of the real pain points that we identified and tried to tackle early on.
Will (12:30.781)
Greg, I want to dive in a little bit more. Often when we talk to companies that are starting their XR program, they're trying to identify use case. Sometimes VR can be a bit of a bolt on shiny objects that, you know, and there's not a real pain point that's being solved. We talked to Delta recently and they went through a variety of use cases before landing on training their ground ramp operations crews on deicing. And previously they had to
pull a plane out to an abandoned part of a runway and spray it with chemicals in order to get that certification. Now they do it all in VR. So huge cost savings, more environmentally friendly number of benefits. But as you approach or you start working with a new company, let's just take manufacturing specifically, how do you identify a use case that actually makes sense for VR? Because we've heard this over and over again that
VR is great for a lot of things, but it's not great for everything. So how do you pick which use case or which pain point to start with?
Greg Meyers (13:33.38)
Sure, sure. And I'll just sort of preface that by saying we are not just a VR shop. We are a simulation-based training company that leverages VR. But to your question, there are some serious pain points that a lot of manufacturers face. And a lot of them are independent of the industry sector they're in. For example, travel, the amount of travel that trainees sometimes have to undertake and trainers.
Brad (13:43.822)
Mm.
Greg Meyers (14:00.132)
getting to locations, logistics involved in all of that, the cost involved to get them there, the getting pieces of equipment off of production into a training facility. That all is a big expense for companies. And so with our simulator, like Dave was mentioning, he can put a meta quest in a shoe box size box and send that to someone. They don't have to get on a plane. We don't have to ship a piece of equipment there.
So that is one of the areas that is an easy low-hanging fruit to tackle. And then I think the other thing that Dave mentioned in terms of loading this piece of equipment onto a flatbed truck, not necessarily something that's equated with the actual laser screening operation, but clearly a pain point that organizations face that if an operator drives off the side of the flatbed and damages the equipment or gets hurt,
That's a serious cost. There's insurance ramifications, there's delays and stuff like that. So we always try to identify some of those things that a user can do that can cause a lot of expensive repair, can cause injury, can cause liability. And we try to build a pilot project around fixing that challenge just to prove the point that, this is a powerful tool. And then that allows us to move forward usually with the rest of the curriculum.
Will (15:24.935)
Craig, you're probably the perfect person to ask this question because like you said, you don't just do VR. A lot of people ask why VR? This could be done with a video. This could be done textbook, PowerPoint, whatever. When does it make sense to use VR for training and when does it not?
Greg Meyers (15:43.65)
I've got a one word answer for this question and it's failure. Failure is phenomenal in training. It's the best thing. You can't really excel if you don't fail at something and figure out how to overcome that. And so just like Dave was talking about, they can't allow these guys to fail. You can't drive off the side and learn, okay, now I understand the spatial relations challenges. I understand the depth perception. You can't do that in the real world, but in virtual reality, we can do that exact thing.
Brad (15:48.086)
Ooh, that's good. I like it.
Greg Meyers (16:13.37)
put them in there, they've got depth perception, they've got stereoscopic 3D vision, so they can really get a sense of those spatial challenges, do the maneuver over and over, failing so that they don't fail in the real world. I think that is really one of the areas that really sets VR apart because you also have this sense of agency and presence because you've got hand tracking and head tracking and positional tracking. So when you fail, you really feel like you failed and you want to overcome that.
and not have that deficiency in your system anymore. So I think it's a really powerful tool for giving people the ability to have really immersive experiences without any of the risks and costs associated.
Will (16:57.681)
I love that answer. And I think you're so right. We were just talking recently about there's a Stanford study, kind of a famous early one, maybe you're familiar with. And in it, they have two groups of kids. The first group, they show them a video of Oscar the Grouch dancing around. And the second group, put them in VR and it's a VR experience with Oscar the Grouch. And the first group that watched the video, when they asked them about it weeks later, they say, yeah, we watched a video with Oscar. The second group that did in VR said, we met Oscar.
He was here, we danced with him. And I think if you haven't put on a headset, if you haven't experienced it, it's hard to describe that immersive sense of presence you get. There's a moment where your brain just shifts gears and says, is real, this is happening. So I can see from a training perspective, there's just no other way to do that. You can't watch a video and get that same feeling. You're not gonna, and to your point, you're not using your hands.
Greg Meyers (17:37.498)
There's a moment. Just shit.
Will (17:55.421)
I think that's really powerful. Devin, I'm curious transitioning to you talking about the complexity of building immersive experiences. What are some of the challenges you faced when you're trying to translate complex manufacturing processes into an interactive VR experience that's easy to use for people maybe that have never put on a headset before?
Devin Weidinger (18:16.861)
Yeah, you know, first off, just well said, Greg, I think I'm going to channel right back into the whole spatial aspects of it all. And one of the biggest challenges we talk about muscle memory a lot when performing actions, but we want to get more than just muscle memory, but actually tap into that spatial memory that we all have innately. So when I'm under this grid, I'm crawling there underneath it, actually checking different spots. I'm going to remember that a lot more than I would if I just watched a video doing that.
And performing those actions, whether it's actually driving with the virtual joysticks or it's crawling under the screen, you want to really make sure that all those interactions are as natural as possible. It really, with VR, it shouldn't feel like you're playing a game. It should feel like you're actually there and experiencing those things. Because it's those muscle memories and that spatial memory that's really going to give you that unique experience that's going to tap into that deep memory of actually doing something when thinking back on it.
So when we're programming against these interactions on these standalone headsets, we want to make sure that everything is as realistic as possible and doesn't feel like a game anymore. It actually feels like you're really there and doing it. So the importance of physical simulation over concrete, getting those liquids to properly disperse and seeing that screen head pushing up against it, leveling it out accurately, all the way to the joysticks, making sure that it's properly following your hands and your gestures, feeling just like you would if you were actually sitting in the machine.
Will (19:38.671)
As you're talking, I get the sense that you've become a bit of an expert on these machines. I'm curious how, through the process of working, yeah, is this...
Brad (19:44.174)
What do you have a machine at your office now? Is that part of the process? You get you get a machine?
Devin Weidinger (19:49.053)
No, but I do feel confident if I had to sit on one and drive it up on that trailer and load it up. It's an intimidating task, but I do feel somewhat confident.
Brad (19:52.686)
You could do it.
Will (19:53.841)
You beautiful. That's what, how did you go about, how did four just FX go about gathering data to create such a high fidelity machine model? Is there a digital twin? mean, if part of building training, that's effective. You have to have a model that actually is one-to-one when they're in the real world. So what did that look like?
Devin Weidinger (20:16.497)
Yeah, we spent a lot of time working with Dave and his team to get resource gathering. We can get as many CAD models as we can to process those. But we also do on-site visits to make sure that we're scanning everything in accurately, take thousands of reference photos. And we work directly with Dave and their subject matter experts to make sure that the technical accuracy of everything from models to small nuances and LED lights, all of that is accurately portrayed in the simulator to keep that presence and make sure it's real world accurate as much as possible.
So it's really just time and dedication to the quality of the product and refinements as we go with experts involved throughout the whole process.
Greg Meyers (20:53.795)
at any
Will (20:54.493)
Devin, I've got to ask you one more. And then yeah, if we want to go to whoever else can just start talking. Devin, I your background is actually you helped, you're at Alchemy, worked on Job Simulator. I made the joke earlier that you built Job Simulator and now you're doing real job simulating. Is there anything, this is a random question, but is there anything you took from building, mean, so Alchemy and Rick and Morty is two of the most popular.
VR games that some of us who back in the day maybe remember those. Is there anything you took from those in terms of building something that's easy to use, the user experience, or even VR mechanics that are specific to VR that might be interesting for people that are listening to think about?
Devin Weidinger (21:40.957)
Yeah, I think a lot of it just boils down to understanding your audience. think a lot of those games I worked on were so physically accurate and just simple to use that they connected to people in a different way. But I think a big part of the reason they were successful is because it was approachable by anyone and it had a high level of relevance to lot of people. So anyone can imagine themselves in a convenience store clerk grabbing items, scanning items and going through those actions. And when you do those type of physical interactions, again, it doesn't really feel like a game. You just create really physical
highly physical experiences and actions that just resonate with people. And that same type of stuff just straight applies to real job simulation, going from video game job simulation to real world job simulation. They're both equally about that immersive, not breaking immersion, feeling like you're there, being persistently present to all the physical actions you're doing and how your body's in the experience. think a lot of that was just.
lessons learned in VR to not break presence and to just maintain accuracy and make it simple to use for anyone. It's really not these complicated control mappings and buttons and UI screens. You really want to make things physical and easy to use so that anyone can do it. It's the same on the enterprise side as it is at the high level consumer side.
Will (22:59.473)
Greg, I think I cut you off. You wanted to say something maybe about the machine model or?
Greg Meyers (23:04.12)
Yes, sorry to interrupt there. But, you know, along those lines, I think that one of the things that allows us to really accurately develop the digital replica of the different pieces of equipment, like the Samara piece of equipment here, is that as we go through our development cycle, we are constantly pushing builds up to the folks at Samara, to Dave and his team and their subject matter experts. And we ask them to get in the simulator to use it, to give us feedback to capture
videos from the device, you know, to really engage them with it so that we can course correct throughout our process. That really, I think, fine tunes our, you know, our development cycle. So at the end, it meets the client's expectations and that ultimately they're the best judge as to whether it's realistic or not. So that little key of involving them throughout the process really helps us deliver a stunning end product.
Will (23:59.569)
I wanna get to some of the results and the impact, but first, could you just talk a little bit about that? We often hear this, that there's an iterative process to getting VR to where it needs to go. I'm sure it's true of any simulation. What does the backend look like in order, you're pushing builds back and forth, you're managing content. This is an arbor question, obviously, but just tell us a little bit about the, like behind the scenes, how is this all working?
Greg Meyers (24:26.884)
I think that's you, Devin.
Devin Weidinger (24:26.993)
Yep, so we do continuous deployment. Yeah, no problem. Yeah, we do continuous deployment every two weeks. We're meeting with our customers and partners to get them that feedback. We can push those builds out almost automatically through all the command line tools that we've got so we can easily deploy. we know that through Arbor and the wonderful services of having all these devices on MDMs that we can get out, everyone can try out these builds very easily. We know that they're on the right version right away.
We know that their headsets turned on. If we need to see what they're doing, we can turn on casting and get a live feed of what they're experiencing. So a lot of times in our reviews, we'll actually have our partners come in there and start casting their view and we can see what they're doing and everyone on the call. So from other programmers to our artists can see live what our clients and partners are experiencing and be able to kind of collaborate live because of just all those services and just knowing that everyone's on the right version and everyone's online and active.
and that the headsets are getting used and there's good data analytics that can be paired with a small rollouts in terms of when doing smaller deployments during the proof of concept phase, we can kind of manage a large suite of these devices and ensure that all of them are getting updated and are properly set up.
Will (25:41.437)
You know, we've come a long way from, just seems like, you know, Devin, going back to the alchemy days, it wasn't that long ago where doing VR in a commercial setting was nearly impossible. We had clients that were shipping headsets, hundreds of headsets back and forth every time they needed to update a single app, plugging cables in to get anything changed. And then you had sort of a consumer experience in the headset where people could get into the web browser and everything else. And now,
It seems like that our, you know, VR is increasingly able, you're able to be an integrated part of a company's training systems. I'm curious over the last year or two, things have developed a lot, so we don't need to talk about plugging cables anymore. That's the dark ages, but what are some of the more recent challenges that you faced? And anybody can answer this, Forge or Samara, but what are some of the challenges in building an XR program?
at an organization where you're going to use it every day and you've got trainees flying out and you've got to, everything's got to be set up and ready. But what are some of the challenges that you've experienced and how have you overcome them?
Dave Raasakka (26:51.279)
I'll go with that. First off, to us and to the demographic in the market that we're trying to bring this product to, it's kind of a new market entrance. And so I would say that the folks that we are applying this training methodology to, they learn by doing. So it's easy for them to pick up, right? When you get into the VR world, you're doing stuff. You're not just reading or you're not just watching.
Brad (27:12.194)
Mm-hmm.
Dave Raasakka (27:18.971)
you're physically moving. So it fits that demographic very well. At times we've been concerned about just technology, how tech savvy are some of our customers given the roles that they have in the construction industry. And it's really not been a problem. We have had to do some guided versions, getting people into the same working environment.
in other words, and being able to guide some of these individuals through. But that's also prompted us to start having conversations about, what if there's another entity that can kind of permanently reside in the VR app to help guide a person along when they get stuck? So with the advent of AI and all the growth there, I think we're going to see some pretty exciting things.
Brad (28:13.422)
That's great. Anything you would add to that forge from the challenges side?
Greg Meyers (28:18.692)
think the one thing I would add is that a lot of the challenges, like Dave was saying, is we are deploying enterprise-based applications on consumer devices. So that's a little bit of a challenge. And the tools like ArborXR provides really allows us to turn these consumer-based devices into enterprise devices, which with them we can scale. We can deploy our applications at scale as opposed to
You know, if it's a consumer-based device, it's a little hard to deploy at scale, as well as the security concerns, right? Like, you know, it's not always easy when you start working with a new organization to start having new devices on their network and having to be uploading and downloading software. And I think that ArborXR really allows our clients the kind of content security and user management and policy controls that's expected.
for an enterprise-based application.
Brad (29:21.624)
Yeah, I love to hear that. And it's funny, do. Will mentioned, I just have to go back to it for a second. I vividly remember maybe like 2021, we were interviewing a fortune 500 company and the guy had boxes all, he was the XR champion. He had boxes all behind him. And he said, see all these boxes. This is what we use to update headsets. And it's kind of like, could we have such a like futuristic technology, you know, with some components of it that are just so in the stone age.
Will (29:42.562)
Shipping them back and forth.
Brad (29:49.772)
I would love to hear, you know, there's some real challenges here, but obviously it's effective, right? And so I'd love to hear, I'll throw this one out there to all of you, see how goes. But how are you measuring the effectiveness of training, this specific training at Samaro?
Dave Raasakka (30:07.867)
Yeah, so right now we measured a couple of different ways. Engagement or just peer engagement isn't necessarily the right metric, but it is something that interests us. So that helps us with some of our growth metrics and things like that. But from an overall success standpoint, it's the number of completions, total scores of the candidate as they're going through the training. And so really they're quite similar to
what a person would encounter in a, in a live person to person training where it's like, look, you've got to go through, you've got a complete checklist of items and show some adequate knowledge, be able to exemplify. And then based on that, then, we will certify them. So, really that, that remains the same within the VR app. And, you know, it's, it's, it'll certainly keep growing.
but certainly has proven results thus far.
Brad (31:09.399)
What has the response been from those going through the training? mean, do they, has it been positive?
Dave Raasakka (31:14.887)
It's been absolutely positive. And it's not only from the demographic of those in the construction industry. mean, we've taken people in office roles, administrative roles, and said, hey, you have no idea what this machine is, but you're going to learn how to operate it in a couple of short steps. And they've been able to go through and then actually be able to perform. So we've measured small successes like that.
So it is pretty adaptable from a maintenance standpoint or an oversight standpoint. We like the fact that we can get in and be with our customer kind of on demand and be able to help them out whenever they get a little bit stuck and keep things moving along. So yeah, we keep looking forward to bigger and more scalable solutions.
Brad (31:56.622)
Yeah.
Will (32:08.335)
You talked earlier about world of concrete, which I'm nerding out recently about, mentioned this before we started. I'm pouring a bunch of concrete in my, my house right now. And there's so much to learn. And I didn't even know there were machines that can make it laser smooth or whatever. but you mentioned using VR in various places to show customers, which is a use case. We've started to see more of recently. Is that for, is that a sales application or is that purely training and talk a little bit about.
That seems like that's a different, it's one thing if you have a facility and you've got trainers and you can prep everybody with VR. It's another thing if you're shipping somebody a headset in a box. So just go into that a little bit.
Dave Raasakka (32:49.329)
Yeah, so really what I think you're referring to is maybe something a little more along the lines of like a sales demonstration. So really when, and that's a specific process that we have, it involves shipping a machine and people out to site to be able to demonstrate the effectiveness of the machine. And obviously that can cost a lot of money. You're moving not only people, but equipment as well. And so from a sales perspective, you can actually give an operator that
that spatial experience, that muscle experience of going through and operating the machine to at least get them a certain percentage of the way there to be familiar. And so really that would be a segmented sales opportunity, but we're using a device and software that was really meant to be a training application has just found another use. So I think that's.
That's a more positive benefit even.
Brad (33:50.04)
Yeah. I really liked what Devin said earlier about the spatial. He's called this. said, you know, there's muscle memory and spatial memory. And that's such a good visual to think about. Yeah. Like the crawling under the machine. Right. And if you're doing that in VR, I mean, I can only imagine that the, you're, you're, retain more. You, you remember more. as we kind of moved to a close here, I'd love to hear from both groups. You're, you're both, I've been doing this for a while. Got a lot of experience.
you've had to implement VR training day for you at your company, Greg and Devin, probably for several companies. we do have a lot of people listening who have not,
Implemented VR before so maybe like what would some more if you're talking to somebody who's just getting started What would one or two pieces of advice be? So they don't have to maybe have some of the pain that you have felt over the years
Dave Raasakka (34:45.671)
I can give a pretty simple response to that. And that is qualify the partner that you're going to do the work with, and then try and keep the scope simple and manageable. And generally when we start to involve technology or pieces of technology into a new group of developments, let's say, it's like we're in a rush to get everything on the table.
to maximize it, which makes it overly complicated and expensive. With the right partner, they'll not only help you muscle through with all the smart things that need to be done, but they'll also be able to keep your scope on track and actionable to help you get a good result.
Greg Meyers (35:31.27)
Yeah, maybe I'll add two quick items there. One is, you know, kind of what we said before is if you're just getting started, try to identify that really challenging or expensive or problematic issue. Build a pilot project around that to prove the use case. I think that is always a very effective way to start. And then on the other end of the spectrum in terms of when you're building your application, and Dave sort of alluded to this, but the application is a networked multi-user program. So
Brad (35:31.661)
that.
Greg Meyers (36:00.868)
just the way we're on this call, we're spread out throughout the country. Dave puts on a headset in Fort Myers, Florida at the Concrete Institute. I put on a headset here in California. We're connected in the application. We're in the same virtual environment. We're seeing the same piece of virtual equipment. We can speak to each other. So by adding advanced functionality and features like that, you really take the application from a spot where maybe you have programmers develop a handful of pre-scripted lessons.
But once it's a network multi-user application, a trainer and a trainee can do anything they want. They can engage in any sort of behavior as well as give contextual feedback. So if a trainer sees someone doing something wrong in real time, they can correct that behavior as opposed to just letting them complete the lesson and give them a score at the end.
Brad (36:48.876)
Yeah, that's great. Anything you'd add, Devin?
Devin Weidinger (36:52.829)
I that was great. think starting small and focusing on that core value proposition early is just the time and it's just, yeah, it's always gonna be a good option. And getting the multi-user in there early to be able to get more options for how to collaborate is just a great way to extend those projects.
Brad (37:11.214)
Yeah, yeah. The multi-user is cool. And we definitely mean every single, several common themes across the successful deployments. And it would be start small and simple, get an early win and make sure you have that champion driving it. So I think you guys echoing what we see, you know, time and again. So we really appreciate everyone coming on today. I know you're all busy. Thanks for making the time. It's been great to chat, get to know you a little bit and
We look forward to connecting again soon.
Will (37:43.313)
Great combo.
Greg Meyers (37:43.406)
Fantastic. Thanks everybody.
Dave Raasakka (37:44.103)
Thanks so much.
Devin Weidinger (37:45.021)
Yeah, for having us.
Dave Raasakka (37:46.865)
Have a good day everyone.
