3

20 Days

To broaden the VR training portfolio, enhancing the training variety and quality, particularly in aseptic techniques, while making the onboarding process more robust and raising attractiveness to younger employees.

A collaborative team from the customer and Innerspace, with added input from various department representatives to ensure the training’s relevance and effectiveness.

6.217 (as of January 16, 2024)

Manual LMS Connection

The customer offers comprehensive CDMO and clinical trial solutions to companies of varied sizes and commercial manufacturing through their pharma services brand. With over 60 locations worldwide, their extensive drug development services encompass a wide variety of products and solutions.

The customer sought to enhance their training quality, especially in aseptic techniques critical to cleanroom operations. A key objective was to expand the onboarding process, increase training effectiveness, and making the company more attractive to younger employees. Convinced of the numerous benefits of Virtual Reality technology and with previous experience with an in-house developed solution, they compared different solutions and providers and decided on the Innerspace VR Cleanroom Training Simulator.

Following a Demo of the Innerspace Simulator on site in May 2022, the customer purchased three simulator subscriptions for the US site in September 2022. Additional sites followed shortly after, with one site in the United Kingdom and two sites in Italy. The following installation guided by Innerspace at the US site took just 20 days. With the simulator up and running, ready for the first trainees, the customer took over, and the project moved to normal training operations with regular check-ins between the customer and Innerspace Customer Service.

The training program was structured in distinct training waves with integrated shutdown cycles for improvement. The first wave in October 2022 targeted employees with the most impact on aseptic operations, spanning from the highest to the lowest cleanroom grades, including operators involved in cleaning processes. The subsequent shutdown training cycle in February 2023 aimed to refine the training effectiveness, with a more discerning allocation of training based on job roles, descriptions, and performance. This then refined training wave two started in May 2023 and the third training wave started in July 2023.

The customer chose the Innerspace VR Cleanroom Simulator Training to expand on their existing equipment based VR training, because it provided an increased training effect related to aseptic technique through its superior training methodology, additional features and realistic graphics and user experience.

They decided for standard training modules, that focused on essential cleanroom skills like correct body movement and surface disinfection, extended with an add-on module on first air. This module selection provides a basic understanding of cleanroom tasks and fundamental principles and is suited to initially train and onboard new and semi-skilled cleanroom operators of different departments and roles. The training modules were designed to become progressively complex, ensuring an incremental learning curve. They start with an introduction and explanatory part that makes the trainee familiar with the background knowledge for an exercise. In the following practical section, the trainee is guided through a number of exercises that are then tested in the exam section.

With innovative VR features like enhanced visualization of objects like airflow or germs that are normally invisible to the naked eye, an objective measurement system of behavior errors, overreaching, movement speeds and process steps, the training effectiveness over traditional training is greatly improved. These features also drastically increase the effect of regular re-trainings, because they unveil individual weaknesses of experienced operators that they may be unaware of. This in turn reduces the behavioral variance across operators and therefore mistakes that could lead to deviations, by measuring the performance of every operator precisely according to the same standards.

Between October 2022 and January 16, 6.217 training sessions have been completed. The VR training, being complementary to existing conventional methods, has been well-received, with positive feedback from both trainers and trainees on its ease of use, engaging interface, and the increased training impact. This was demonstrated by the results of a survey that the customer conducted before each training session and that showed increased trainee awareness for complex topics, fostered understanding of behavioral consequences and overall an immersive and fun experience. The VR Simulator was also received with praises by younger employees, that described it as being “state-of-the-art” and liked to train with it.

The VR Simulator enables employees to visualize and interact with elements such as laminar airflow, contaminants, and aseptic techniques, which are otherwise abstract concepts. According to the sites project lead, success measurements have shown a marked improvement in compliance with procedures and a decrease in contamination risks.