Facilitate Customer Story | Northern Star Resources

How Northern Star Resources Scaled Safe, Cost-Effective Underground Mining Training with Immersive Learning

Northern Star Resources is one of Australia's leading gold producers, operating multiple underground mining sites across the country. As the organization continued to grow, its internal underground mining services division sought a more effective way to onboard new employees while maintaining high safety standards across geographically dispersed operations.

The CHALLENGE

As Northern Star expanded underground mining operations, scaling onboarding and safety training meant overcoming the complexity of high-risk environments and geographically dispersed sites. Relying on traditional onboarding methods and live site exposure created major operational bottlenecks.

High Operational Impact

Experienced operators and site supervisors were frequently pulled away from production to conduct onboarding and underground site tours, reducing operational efficiency.

Increased Risk & Cost

New employees were often introduced to hazardous underground environments early in their training, increasing safety risk, while repeated site visits added significant logistical and travel costs.

Inconsistent Onboarding

Training quality varied across sites, relying heavily on individual instructors and informal knowledge transfer rather than a standardized, repeatable learning experience.

THE SOLUTION

Using Facilitate's no-code immersive training platform, Northern Star empowered its L&D and operational teams to create and maintain virtual underground site tours without relying on external developers.

Real-World Capture at Scale

Captured authentic underground mining environments using 360° video across multiple operational sites to replicate real working conditions.

Interactive Safety-First Learning Design

Developed immersive onboarding experiences featuring hazard identification, knowledge checks, and contextual learning hotspots to reinforce critical safety behaviours.

Pre-Arrival Immersive Onboarding

Embedded VR training into early onboarding so employees could experience underground conditions before entering site, improving preparedness and confidence.

Centralized, Scalable Training Hub

Established a centralized VR training hub to ensure consistent delivery across all operations while enabling fast updates as site conditions and procedures evolved.

Operator-Led Knowledge Transfer

Incorporated narration from experienced underground operators to embed practical insights and strengthen understanding of safety procedures.

THE RESULT

The immersive onboarding program delivered measurable operational and training benefits, including:

Reduced Operational Disruption

Replaced many in-person underground site tours, saving thousands of hours of instructor and supervisor time while allowing operational staff to remain focused on production.

Scalable Workforce Onboarding

Enabled consistent onboarding delivery across multiple mining sites, supporting rapid workforce growth without compromising training quality.

Improved Safety Readiness

Increased safety awareness before employees entered underground environments, helping reduce exposure to risk during early-stage training.

Enhanced Learner Engagement

Delivered a more engaging and realistic learning experience compared to traditional slide-based or LMS-based training formats.

Key Success Factors

In-House Content Creation

Empowered in-house content creation with a no-code platform, eliminating dependence on external developers.

Operators and L&D teams Collaboration

Close collaboration ensured training content reflected real underground conditions and practical safety requirements.

Use of real site environments captured in 360°

Helped ground training in authentic operational contexts rather than abstract scenarios.

Standardized delivery through a centralized training hub

Ensured all sites followed the same onboarding experience, reducing variability between locations.

Early integration of immersive training into onboarding pathways

Allowed employees to build familiarity with underground environments before entering site, improving confidence and readiness.

Explore Customer Stories

Xcel Energy | Energy

Discover How Xcel Energy Improved Training Efficiency, Safety, and Engagement with VR

Read now

ERMCO | Manufacturing

Discover how ERMCO accelerates workforce readiness through immersive simulations.