The real challenge: preparing people for situations that cannot be safely simulated

In high-risk environments such as the chemical industry, energy, or oil & gas, the biggest HSE challenge is not the procedures themselves, but their execution under pressure. Fires, leaks, and equipment failures occur rarely, yet require immediate and accurate response.

The issue is that traditional training is largely based on theory or simplified simulations. In practice, this often means that employees face a real emergency for the first time during an actual incident.

AR in practice: on-site training without risk

At the Attilio Carmagnani chemical terminal (EU Horizon 2020 project), an augmented reality solution based on Microsoft HoloLens 2 was implemented to simulate critical scenarios directly within the real facility environment.

Employees move through the plant while seeing AR overlays of:

• fire development
• chemical leaks
• the impact of incidents on surrounding infrastructure

and respond according to operational procedures.

Using spatial computing, these hazards are precisely anchored in the real environment, while hands-free interaction allows workers to operate in conditions that closely replicate real-life scenarios.

The key shift is that training is no longer theoretical — employees experience the situation instead of analyzing it.

Business impact: better decisions, lower risk, measurable ROI

The impact of AR training is directly visible in both safety and operational performance:

• employees are better prepared to act under stress
• decisions are made faster and with greater confidence
• human error is significantly reduced

From a business perspective, this translates into:

• lower incident risk
• reduced operational costs
• elimination of expensive physical simulations

In high-risk industries, even a single avoided incident can offset the cost of implementation multiple times over.

Users consistently highlight one key advantage: being able to see hazards instead of imagining them significantly improves understanding and confidence in decision-making.