Human-driven industrial metaverse solutions

The industrial metaverse combines physical and virtual work environments for place and time-independent work. In essence, the metaverse is a virtual collaboration space that enables the use of novel tools, such as digital twins and expert avatars, and shared practices between employees. Combining real-world elements with contextualised and meaningful data in a virtual environment ensures processes run efficiently and workers are supported and well-informed.

The industrial metaverse is set to radically change the way industrial work is done, especially in labour-intensive sectors such as manufacturing, maintenance, construction and logistics where work tasks are typically bound by their location.

By harnessing technology to empower individuals, we can attract and retain employees and create the dream jobs of tomorrow.
 

Want to find out more? Explore:

• Industrial metaverse handbook – Exploring business opportunities in value networks to support strategic planning
• The Hybrid work in the human-driven industrial metaverse – Five examples of future hybrid work in industrial metaverse
• Industrial dream jobs pocketbook – Six fictional but realistic employee personas for future industrial dream jobs

Along with the metaverse and transformation of industrial work come many benefits.

• Connecting people across organisations improves productivity, flexibility, safety and multi-professional collaboration.
• Offers a solution to the labour crisis by making industrial work more attractive and enabling hybrid work.
• Helps meet tightening sustainability goals by reducing the unnecessary movement of goods and the need to travel.
• Empowers individual workers through relevant real-time data, step-by-step instructions and AI-aided problem-solving.

At the heart of the human-driven industrial metaverse are the needs of the people. This means designing and developing new tools, solutions and ways of working with the users in mind. With people as the starting point, we can find opportunities to enrich their work and better support their performance. As a result, employees feel empowered and engaged and the human–technology–AI teams work smoothly together. What is more, the human-first approach helps to attract and retain skilled employees.

To get there, we need to identify what motivates and empowers people so that we can make tasks more engaging and attractive. We also need to design tools and solutions that adapt to the user, not the other way around. When we can help employees thrive, organisations thrive as well.

The benefits of the human-driven industrial metaverse

Here are the key benefits the human-driven industrial metaverse brings to both employees and businesses:

For employees

• Harnesses people’s passions: When people can work according to their values, they are more motivated, and their work feels more meaningful.
• Enables diverse job opportunities: Assisted by technology, people can perform more varied tasks. What is more, decentralized autonomous organisations (DAOs) enable workers to offer their expertise flexibly to several different companies.
• Eases daily work: Thanks to new technologies, work becomes smoother, faster and easier. At the same time, people are required to perform fewer tasks that are dull, dirty or dangerous.
• Reduces stress: Emotionally adaptive technology can help reduce stress at work.
   

For businesses

• Helps attract and retain talent: Freedom of choice and employee wellbeing attract the best talent and contribute to longevity of employees.
• Increases productivity: Job satisfaction is one of the main contributors to productivity growth. What is more, digital models and AI can aid employees with problem-solving and enhanced data with easier work planning.
• High expert availability: Virtual work environments allow for remote hands and feet on the ground – there are no geographical restrictions. Decentralised autonomous organisations mean that companies can use their metaverse to have individual work tasks handled by remote experts, or to have these experts operate as part of a broader virtual team.
• Heightened sustainability: Place-independent work tasks mean less need for travel, among other things.

Read our blog and learn how to start a technological transition.

At VTT, we design and develop economically scalable solutions that are applicable for all industrial segments.

We understand both the potential of the metaverse and the technologies that enable it. Above all else, we know how important it is to understand the needs of employees and create solutions that people can trust and want to use. Armed with the knowledge, we can help you modify your current jobs and create new ones to make working in the industry safe, satisfying and attractive in the decades to come.

VTT’s unique combination of expertise and technology makes us a one-of-a-kind research and development partner. To enable the future of work, we combine advanced technologies with business insight, the human perspective and other critical soft skills. We have decades of experience in turning emerging technologies into viable business, and our one-of-a-kind technological infrastructure ensures we can support you in the best way possible.

The industrial metaverse is a virtual collaboration space made up of different building blocks such as efficient data handling, new collaboration models and novel tools. At VTT, we know how to piece the different parts together and build an immersive collaboration space with seamless communication between employees, robots and AI.

Here’s a taste of what we can help you with

• Future visions and opportunity identification: We’ll help you describe the desired future and identify the most potential opportunities and use cases that could benefit from novel ways of working in different industrial operations and tasks.
• Data management: We’ll help you reap the benefits of the metaverse by capturing, analysing, modelling and visualising data, among other things.
• Collaboration models: DAOs, gig economy and ad-hoc virtual teams provide flexibility and efficiency. We can help you make the most out of the new ways of organising work in a safe manner.
• Ways of working: We’ll help you apply the metaverse to everything from monitoring the progress of projects to supporting decision-making with simulations, and to remote support.
• Tools for users: We’ll enable seamless interactions between users and technology, be it extended reality, AI assistants providing support or sensors monitoring wellbeing and performance.
• Ecosystem foundation: We’ll help you manage the risks related to metaverse adoption through standards and regulations and answer tough questions about the future and ethics of AI.
• Technology foundation: Capture the data you need with state-of-the-art multimodal sensing solutions, printed and wearable electronics, and human sensing solutions. Keep your operations safe with cybersecurity and digital trust.

In VTT’s first human-driven metaverse project, VTT and 10 industrial partners explored the metaverse’s impact on industrial work in labour-intensive sectors such as manufacturing, maintenance, construction and logistics.

The aim of the project was to identify work tasks in which the metaverse could benefit both employees and organisations, and to sketch out future work scenarios. As a result, the project team produced scalable, innovative solutions across sectoral boundaries for both domestic and global markets.

The participants of the VTT-led project were Valmet Automotive, KONE, Finavia, YIT, Granlund, Telia, ZOAN, Sulava, Dazzle and Nordkapp.