Adapting Virtual Training Systems for Industrial Procedures to the Needs of Older People

Integration of older employees into the workforce is critical for a successful manufacturing industry due to demographic change. However, technological developments to create more flexible manufacturing environments are leading to increasingly complex machinery that has to be operated by an aging workforce. Virtual training systems prepare operators for the interaction with industrial machines. Current virtual training systems do not address the perceptive and cognitive abilities of older users to enable a satisfying and efficient training. This article develops adaptations of the visualization and the interaction techniques of a virtual training system to address the abilities of older operators. The results of a between-subjects study indicate that the adaptations improve the subjective perception of the training system and decrease the training time. The paper concludes that adaptive training systems can support the participation of diverse user groups in the manufacturing industry by providing more effective and satisfying training.