Are Simulators Effective at Training Heavy Equipment Operators?

Summary

Modern heavy equipment simulators are proven, data-driven tools for developing safe, confident, and skilled operators. This blog explains why simulation-based training is so effective, and why organizations around the world are turning to simulators to boost training capacity and safety.

Are simulators effective at training heavy equipment operators? The answer is: Today’s best-in-class simulators are extremely effective. Here’s why.

It’s a reality of life that people learn by doing. This is when they make their mistakes, and it’s when they learn by their mistakes.

The question is: Do you want your heavy equipment trainees making their mistakes on machines that run from hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars? For a long time, there was no choice. Training simulators either didn’t exist, or were far less effective than they are today.

What Makes Simulators Effective

Today’s training simulators are sophisticated, precision machines. They take advantage of years of advances in software and graphics technology to create a life-like experience.

CM Labs’ simulation-based training solutions go even further, to deliver the most transferable operator skills anywhere, outside the real equipment. That’s because they are the only solutions that incorporate CM Labs’ Smart Training Technology™.

Smart Training Technology is comprised of CM Labs’ proprietary and patented algorithms. Built on a high-fidelity real-time physics engine, it includes a mechanical engineering layer with multi-body constraints, transmission, tire models, cables, and other real-time simulation features that are unique on the market.

The result: training that’s based on real data and real machines, as backed by in-the-field training validation with subject matter experts including the IUOE, OETIO, Manitowoc, and others.

Development of Smart Training Technology is driven by first-rate system engineering practices that ensure the right approaches produce the right training—and avoid negative training.

So your trainees can safely make their mistakes while they develop their skills. Skills they can readily transfer from the simulator to the real world of heavy equipment and job sites.

Incidents with real equipment can be catastrophic, with damage to machinery and property, personal injury and even loss of life. But simulators offer a flexible, reliable, and controlled environment where these problems simply don’t exist.

Why CM Labs Simulators Are Growing in Popularity

Modern, state-of-the-art simulators are not glorified computer games, nor do they run on computer game engines. Authentic machine behavior is at the heart of every CM Labs simulator, and this is what is fueling their increasing popularity.

The number of simulators we’ve provided to construction companies, unions and training schools has grown to the point where CM Labs is now the largest construction simulator vendor in the world.

That’s because the results and benefits are proven. Here are just three examples:

“Using the CM Labs simulator, we were able to cut crane training costs by around $30,000 per operator.”

A mid-Atlantic US construction company uses CM Labs simulators to save $30,000 for each crane operator they train

“Deploying CM Labs simulators is our answer to being able to train twice as many people in the same amount of time.”

IUOE Local 150 increased training capacity by more than 100% with CM Labs simulators

“Students are learning more quickly because we are able to integrate environmental issues into their training”

Del Mar College boosted the regional skilled workforce by training with CM Labs simulators

The ‘Horsepower’ to Get the Job Done

CM Labs’ simulators are powerful and life-like enough to give trainees the skills they need to become safe, efficient, and confident operators. It’s a win-win situation for training organizations and trainees alike.

Simulators are also training workhorses. They’re available 24/7 every day of the year, all the while saving wear and tear on equipment and reducing fuel costs. But we’ll save all that for another blog post on simulator training benefits.

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