StellarX | Virtual Training for Steelwork Hazards

ArcelorMittal

2024

ArcelorMittal is the second biggest steelwork company in the world. They own infrastructure throughout Canada, including steel mills, rolling mills, a reduction plant, a steel recycling plant, and wire drawing mills.

Challenge

Safety training is critical in steel manufacturing due to the risk of dangerous incidents like explosions and equipment malfunctions, but ArcelorMittal's reliance on traditional methods limited their training’s effectiveness.

To address this, they turned to OVA’s services to leverage StellarX, seeking a solution that enables employees to safely and realistically practice high-risk tasks in a controlled environment.

"Any production stoppage affects the entire value chain. StellarX lets us rehearse maintenance and emergency procedures efficiently, minimizing production stoppages."

Francis Perreault

Senior Safety Advisor

ArcelorMittal

Solution

Using StellarX, the OVA team created a customized experience that replicates ArcelorMittal’s facilities and multiple real scenarios that employees experience in 3 months.

In VR or through a desktop computer, production workers can learn how to perform various specialized tasks, rehearse maintenance and emergency procedures, and practice endlessly using minimal resources. This provides employees the perspective in deeply understanding the consequences of a wrong decision or violating procedures, making the practice more memorable.

Early estimates indicate a boost of over 90% in job confidence. The steel giant is very satisfied with its new innovation, and plans to develop further projects in the coming year using StellarX.

Impact

ArcelorMittal reviewed the results of the project several months after it was deployed. The most notable impact was a 90% increase in job performance confidence among those being trained on the VR experience in StellarX, based on early estimates. Better confidence and safety means less stoppages on the production line, stoppages that lead to significant losses.

ArcelorMittal’s success with this project was two-fold: heightening the safety of their employees via a more engaging and realistic training scenario and a derisking of their operations by preventing production disruptions.

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The success of this project has introduced more scenarios that ArcelorMittal will be bringing to StellarX, this time including more advanced AI technologies. You can read more about that project here.