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Training plays a major role in improving work within organisations by ensuring that the appropriate level of knowledge and skills are shared among personnel. It moulds the thinking process and leads to quality performance. However, training which includes a practical aspect usually targets a specific type of trainee and can limit the learning of an individual coming from a different background than that taken into consideration when the training programme was originally developed. This research focuses on training, and attempts to develop a program using a virtual reality (VR) system as a platform to create a simulated working environment which has the flexibility to train staff members of an organisation, who may come from a variety of different professional backgrounds, in the concept of the lean enablers. The main concern of this research is the adaptation of lean training for a virtual environment. Existing training methods have been analysed, along with the various ways in which they can be implemented, and these have been used in this research as a starting point from which to construct the virtual work environment. Through the research, a method has been developed to set up and run a training session using a virtual reality (VR) system by generating a structure to design the modelling elements that compose the virtual workplace, as well as establishing a method so that a trainee can navigate the simulated environment and perform tasks. A program to collect the performance measures and visualise the results has also been developed, with the aim of enabling the evaluation of a simulation run by assessors/trainers. This research covers new ground in providing a simulated working environment, which can suit any trainee’s professional background, to facilitate learning about the lean enablers. It offers the capacity of establishing a simulated work environment which can represent the trainee’s workplace and provide the necessary practical experience in order to grasp the concept taught through the training program. Additionally it offers the capacity for assessors/trainers to observe the performance measures and the trainee’s behaviour, simultaneously, while undertaking a simulation run. These combinations of information can be complementary and enable assessors/trainers in providing the best feedback while improving the learning curve of a trainee. Although training programmes in organisations have provided a number of improvements in completing work with high efficiency and minimum waste, the outcomes collected in this research demonstrate that their benefits can be pushed further in terms of providing a training method which can be accessible to a large variety of sectors.

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The mining industry in South Africa contributes significantly to the national economy. Despite stringent safety legislation, mining accidents cause numerous fatalities and injuries. Inadequate or insufficient training is often cited as a root cause of accidents. Conventional class-based safety training has not reduced the incidence of accidents significantly. By contrast, virtual reality training tools can provide simulated exposure to real-world working conditions without the associated risks. This study describes the application of design-based research (DBR) in the design and development of two desktop virtual reality (VR) systems for safety training in the South African mining industry. The results of a usability context analysis were applied in the design of a VR prototype on generic hazards recognition and rectification, which was used and evaluated at South Africa‘s largest platinum mine site. A case study was conducted to investigate the causes and occurrences of falls of ground, which resulted in the design and development of a second VR prototype focusing on identifying and addressing underground geological conditions. DBR was also used in the generation of an evaluation framework for evaluating VR training systems, namely the Desktop VR Evaluation Framework (DEVREF), which is the major deliverable of the research. DEVREF can make a major contribution to the domain of e-training in mines and is transferable and customisable beyond its initial application. The process flow of the research thus moved beyond merely providing a solution to a complex real-world problem and became a classic DBR study with dual outcomes, namely a practical real-world solution in the form of two VR training systems and a theoretical contribution in the form of the DEVREF evaluation framework. DEVREF evaluates the design of desktop VR training systems in the categories of instructional design, usability, VR systems design, and context-specific criteria for mining. The use of DEVREF is demonstrated by reporting the application of its criteria in evaluating the two VR training systems. Heuristic evaluation, end-user surveys, and interviews were used as evaluation methods. A third contribution is methodological, in that this work proposes a new DBR process model and an interaction design lifecycle model suitable for VR training systems. / Computing / D. Phil. (Information Systems)