PAULEY Blog - Recent Posts

Bridging the Rail Industry’s Skills Shortage with Innovation

There is a growing skills shortage across the UK within the various fields of engineering, science and manufacturing. Nowhere is this more evident than the rail industry. Cutting edge training technology using virtual and augmented reality can help to recruit new workers into the rail industry, get them up to speed rapidly and encourage them to remain within that organisation for the duration of their career.

The truth about the skills shortage

In NSARE’s Traction & Rolling Stock (T&RS) Skills Forecasting report 2015, issues such as an ageing workforce, low numbers of graduate workers and apprenticeships, and lack of gender diversity …

Blending Reality in Classrooms for the Benefit of All

Long gone are the days of rote learning around the blackboard with the teacher holding a half-broken piece of chalk. Classrooms have become more hi-tech, with interactive whiteboards now a standard centrepiece for group learning, and increasing numbers of teachers eager to experiment with the latest touchscreens and mobile devices. Could virtual reality (VR) be the next big thing?

VR training has already been widely adopted by commercial companies, games developers and the military. Even in the medical field, more devices and apps are catering to improving the skills of doctors and surgeons using both virtual and mixed reality.

Interest …

The Future of Mobile is Augmented

At the moment, augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) are focussed on industry and gaming applications, with the average consumer unlikely to start buying into the technology until 2017.

The rise of these technologies is unstoppable. AR market revenue is now forecast to reach $90 billion by 2020, eventually outcompeting VR, which is likely to reach $30 billion. At the moment, VR is more openly available and has emerging uses beyond videogames, in viewing films and sporting events.

Ultimately, we’re likely to see the two technologies merging into a new “mixed reality”. There’s huge opportunity for smartphone manufacturers …

PAULEY Takes Gold For Innovation at Learning Awards 2016

At PAULEY, we’re delighted to have won the highly coveted gold award for Innovation in Learning along with the National Training Academy for Rail (NTAR) at the prestigious Learning Awards 2016 run by the Learning and Performance Institute.

The Learning Awards—held on February 4^th at the Dorchester Hotel on Park Lane—celebrated and honoured the best of the best in the learning and development industry. Recognised as the L&D sector’s premier awards ceremony, this year saw a record 400 entries from all over the world. Now in their 20^th year, the Awards are judged by an independent panel of …

How Will Nanotechnology Drive the Future of Transportation?

Nanotechnology is the use and engineering of materials at the nanoscale. Well below the microscale, this is the molecular world, where the things we’re talking about are just a billionth of a metre across. Things behave very differently here and that’s giving engineers lots of new ideas and abilities.

Nanotechnology isn’t anything new. But what is newly emerging is that we’re starting to become capable of engineering these “super materials” to our exact specifications and produce them on a larger, more industrial scale.

Graphene, for example, is a carbon sheet the thickness of a single atom. Yet, it is stronger …

5 Ways To Drive Learning Innovation

We’re delighted with the news that PAULEY has been shortlisted for not just one, but two leading industry awards. In celebration, we’ve created a list of the five top ways to bring innovation into your organisation’s learning, training and development.

We’ve been nominated as a result of the advanced eLearning and virtual reality tools we’ve created for the state-of-the-art, multi-million pound National Training Academy for Rail (NTAR).

As a joint entry, PAULEY and NTAR are up for an award in “Training and Development” at the UK Rail Industry Awards 2016 and for “Innovation in Learning” at the Learning …

All change: Virtual becomes a reality for training in the UK rail industry

The use of virtual reality simulation in commercial training is gathering momentum. This week, Rail Minister Claire Perry opened the new £7million National Training Academy for Rail (NTAR) in Northampton and I was delighted to show Claire and other industry officials attending the launch just how much training has evolved in UK rail industry today.

PAULEY has developed the state-of-the-art virtual reality immersive training suite which sits at the hub of NTAR. We’ve used a combination of 3D modelling, virtual reality headsets and touch screen technology to deliver a real-life ‘hands on’ learning experience that will inspire and educate the …

Improve Your Website From a Gamification Perspective

A step-by-step guide

Launching a new website can be a challenging and stressful time… we should know! A few weeks ago we relaunched the PAULEY website after a major design upgrade. We’d taken advantage of the latest web technologies to create a more interesting and engaging user experience.

The website looked great, but how did we know it was working? Was it doing the job we needed it to do?

Your website is one of your most important marketing assets. But it can be tricky to figure out whether it’s working as hard as it should be.

As part …

Virtual Reality: A Leap Forward in Aerospace and Defence Training

The Global Innovation Index has just ranked the UK as the second most innovative country in the world. But are we in danger of losing our edge?

Engineering skills across a number of industries are being lost as the workforce ages and too few trainees are recruited. Closing this skills gap as soon as possible is clearly vital. And cutting edge technology—such as virtual and augmented reality—could play a large part in achieving this.

The defence engineering skills gap

The UK’s aerospace engineering and manufacturing businesses make up nearly a fifth of the industry globally, but a number of recent …

4 Reasons Why Experiential Marketing with Virtual & Augmented Reality Boosts Sales

Experiential marketing—using virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and other interactive, 3D touchscreen technologies—is a massively growing field. It places your customers into a fully immersive, branded environment, delivering an engaging and memorable physical interaction.

Consumers have always expected increasingly innovative and hi-tech ways of viewing and assessing their investments. And here’s why you should consider experiential marketing, too:

1. Let natural interaction do the selling for you

Everyone loves digital interactivity. Our brains are programmed to respond to colour, movement, sound and physical interaction. The act of physically engaging with an interface has been proven time and again to …