Virtually Unlimited: The Future of Welding Training

As welding equipment grows increasingly sophisticated, the need for proper training to create skilled welders increases proportionately. Striking a real arc in a welding booth and generating real heat to join real metal will always be an integral part of that training process, but the role of virtual reality (VR) technology is becoming more prominent.

In the context of welding, VR training creates a simulated environment, including visual, auditory, and tactile components, wherein students can learn about welding safety and basic skills related to travel speed, travel angle, arc length, and other techniques.

Joe Kean, senior customer training instructor at Lincoln Electric, was already an advocate for the use of VR in welding training well before he joined the Lincoln Electric education team in the summer of 2025. He sees VR as a tool to help address and refine each aspect of a student’s technique in preparation for the work in the traditional welding booth and, even more importantly, in preparation for the work in a successful welding career as industry seeks to develop a new generation of welders to close the skills gap. 

Early Success

Kean’s first experience with VR, while working as an instructor at a technical college in Kansas several years ago, was both eye-opening and inspiring.

A high school student in the college’s dual-credit program was already having trouble with his technique when he was sidelined by a sports injury and required to wear a protective boot for two weeks. Kean recalled that the boot made it impossible for the student to wear the proper safety gear for the welding booth. As an alternative, Kean put the student on the school’s VR system until he was able to remove the boot and get back into the booth.

“When the student came back into the welding lab, his very first real gas tungsten arc weld looked like he took some dimes and just laid them over on their sides,” Kean said. “It was perfect. The time he had spent with VR trained him to be more aware and more mindful of every aspect of his technique and deliver consistently good welds as a result.”

Kean had similar experiences with other students after he started using VR, and the response — not just from students and instructors, but from the regional labor market — was overwhelmingly positive.

“The feedback we got from industry was, ‘I don’t know what you’re doing, but do more of that,’” he said. “Because we were producing better welders. The VR enables the student to focus on specific issues, whether it’s work angle or travel speed or putting the weld in the right spot or whatever else. And they get immediate and direct feedback from the machine as they’re doing it.”

One Piece at a Time

Kean has since brought the same philosophy and approach to Lincoln Electric. He generally recommends that students spend as much as 25% of their practice time on VR equipment to set themselves up for success in the booth using live welding equipment.

“With VR, it’s easier for the student to focus on fixing one aspect of their technique at a time,” said Kean. “If I’m the student, I can focus on just one area where I’m struggling, and then after I’ve developed the muscle memory, I can apply that improved technique in the booth and, more importantly, in the real world.”

VR also enables the student to make those course corrections in an environment that minimizes discomfort and prioritizes learning.

“When the VR tools provide the real-time feedback, they do it without the student being hot and sweaty and burdened by a lot of gear,” he said. “The student can be comfortable and work on his body position without having to be concerned about what’s going on around him as much as he would need to be in the actual welding space.”

VR should not simply be a student’s starter kit, Kean added. Instead, it should be part of the curriculum throughout the training program.

“Many instructors say, ‘I use VR with new welders,’” he said. “Some instructors only use it for the first few weeks. I hear this and I see this happening, and I think, ‘Well, aren’t they a new welder as long as they’re in welding school? Because if they are, let’s reinforce that kind of learning throughout the time they’re in welding school. Let’s have them use VR not just in those first couple of weeks. Let’s have them use it consistently throughout.”

At Lincoln Electric’s Welding Technology and Training Center, Cleveland, Ohio, VR is an integral part of the Lincoln Electric Education Partner Schools (LEEPS) curriculum. This program was developed in partnership with the National Coalition of Certification Centers (NC3). It helps school administrators and faculty by offering a full slate of stackable national welding certifications. The LEEPS train-the-trainer program provides instructors with effective teaching strategies and access to an integral support system with comprehensive instructional tools and learning management resources.

“We partnered with NC3 so that we could take instructors from all over the country through our train-the-trainer program,” said Kean. “The same welding procedure specifications that the students follow to earn their certifications are also available via the VR system.”

Virtual Madness

While VR software is sophisticated and precise enough to continuously track student progress and provide feedback in real time, it can also be calibrated for fun. One of Kean’s favorite strategies is to foster healthy competition among students by setting up a “virtual welding tournament,” complete with elimination brackets similar to those used during the NCAA March Madness tournament.

“I often see students who are kind of on an island,” he said. “They’re each doing their own thing and making their own way through life, which works to a point, but as soon as you graduate, you’re in a competition. There are several people applying for a job, for example, and maybe only one is going to get it. But we get them competing at the virtual level — complete with my elimination bracket, just like March Madness. Even if they don’t win, that’s okay, because they can try again. And it’s easy to try again with the VR, as opposed to burning through coupons or trying to hide an ugly weld.”

A Tool for the Future

Kean maintains that the use of VR in welding training is a win at every level — for the students, for the instructors, and for industry in general — for a number of reasons. It makes instructors more effective in the classroom and in the welding booth, it creates career opportunities for students, and it helps to close the industry-wide skills gap as companies seek younger welders to replace the older ones who are retiring.

“I’m currently working with a company that is becoming a LEEPS industry member,” he said. “They’re going to be using the same curriculum, including the VR, because there’s such a demand for welders in their industry that they can’t get enough from the schools or the existing labor pool. So they have to set up a training center within their facility for the purpose of developing more welders.”

Kean points to another industry partner that is building a new factory just to manufacture the equipment and materials needed to support their primary product line. “As part of this initiative,” he said, “the company is also building a welding lab at the local community college that includes VR equipment to help train welders to work at the new facility.”

For older generations of welders and instructors, VR can potentially be a hard sell, but Kean sees that perception changing over time.

“I think there are times and situations where people are not as open to it,” he said. “But as I talk to instructors and I share my experiences, I’ve learned that if you’re willing to be a lifelong learner and you’re willing to be open to trying something new to get success faster, VR can be a powerful tool in that effort. People in industry are telling me that everybody is retiring. So maybe we need to increase the speed at which we produce more workers who can weld. If this can be a tool to help them become better faster, why wouldn’t we use it?”

He added, “Are we preparing our students to do things the way we’ve always done them? If so, that’s probably not the best approach. Technology is changing. We have to change the way we teach people how to use it.”

This article was written by the LINCOLN ELECTRIC EDUCATION TEAM (Lincoln Electric, Cleveland, Ohio) for the American Welding Society.