VR safety training that lets workers rehearse the hazard before they meet it.
An industrial operator needed to certify workers on high-hazard procedures faster, across many sites, without putting anyone at risk to practise. We built VR training on a digital twin of their own plant, where every step is scored against the written procedure.
- Client
- Industrial operator, high-hazard sites in several regions
- Engagement
- Discovery sprint, then a 12-week build
- Team
- Four CoServe engineers with the client's HSE and training leads
- Deployment
- Standalone headsets at each site, working offline, synced to the training system
Procedures that can only be practised for real, on a site that cannot afford a mistake.
Confined-space entry, isolation and lockout, working at height, hot work. The procedures that matter most were the ones workers got to practise least. Classroom sessions covered the theory, and the first real attempt happened on a live site under supervision, which was slow to schedule, hard to assess consistently, and the point at which incidents actually occurred.
Certifying a new starter took weeks and depended on a supervisor being free. Across sites, assessors judged the same procedure differently, so the training records said little about what a worker could actually do. The HSE team could not show the regulator, or themselves, that the training was working.
Off-the-shelf VR safety content existed, but it showed a generic plant. Workers did not recognise it, the procedures did not match the client's own, and nothing it recorded could be linked back to a step in the written method.
A digital twin of the real plant, a scenario engine that makes the hazard happen, and a score for every step of the procedure.
Discovery started on site with the HSE team and the workers who would use the system. We scanned the areas where the highest-risk procedures take place, worked through each procedure step by step with the people who perform them, and agreed what a correct, assessable action looks like at every step. That became the scoring standard before any scenes were built.
The build delivered a digital twin of the client's own plant, accurate enough that workers recognise the valves, gauges, and access points they use. On top of it sits a scenario engine that runs each procedure and introduces the hazards that matter: a gas reading that climbs, a permit that is missing a signature, a colleague who skips an isolation. Trainees must notice and respond, and every action is captured and scored against the written procedure.
Everything runs on standalone headsets that work offline at remote sites and sync when they can. Scores and session recordings flow to a supervisor dashboard and the client's training system, so a certification is now backed by evidence of what the worker did, step by step, under conditions that cannot be staged safely in the real world.
What changed once it was running.
Five components, one system the client owns.
- 01
Digital twin of the plant
Scanned and modelled areas of the client's own sites, optimised to run smoothly on standalone headsets without a tethered PC.
- 02
Procedure and hazard scenario engine
Each procedure as a branching scenario with configurable hazards, so the same training can be run as a walkthrough, a drill, or an assessment.
- 03
Step-by-step scoring
Every action captured and scored against the agreed standard for that step, with the session recorded for review by the trainee and the assessor.
- 04
Supervisor dashboard and training-system integration
A view of who is certified on what, where they struggled, and which steps fail most often, feeding the client's existing training records.
- 05
Multi-site headset deployment
Headset provisioning, offline operation, content updates, and sync for sites with limited connectivity, handed over with runbooks the client's IT team operates.
Safety training works when people rehearse the real procedure, in the real place, with the hazard actually present. VR makes that possible without the risk, and scoring every step turns a certificate into evidence.