Simulation Promotes Safety

Operator training is the foundation of forklift safety [1].

And whether you’re working with lift trucks or any other kind of heavy equipment, being safe “means” no incidents, no accidents. And that’s why a good equipment operator is always, first and foremost, a safe equipment operator.

The fact is, for every $1 spent in direct costs (repairs to damaged equipment, medical expenses for injured people), you’ll typically spend an additional $2 to $4 in indirect costs (downtime, delays in project schedules, workplace disruptions) [2].

Indeed, OSHA estimates that for every dollar that a company invests in safety training, it will “save” six dollars. Moreover, according to one recent study, devoting just 2.5% of your project budget to safety training will increase your project profits by up to 7% [3].

But training-to-be-safe means more than following an Operations Manual, because equipment operators need to become safety–conscious too.  How to do that?

Training simulation has all the answers.

Make Mistakes without Consequences

Everyone makes mistakes when learning anything, whether you’re learning to walk, ride a bike, or operating heavy equipment.

But in the real world, mistakes have real world consequences, and that’s what you want to avoid.

Simulation to the rescue, where mistakes have no consequences! And when the simulation graphics and physics are sufficiently realistic, simulation promotes safety in these two important ways:

• Trainees learn by doing, in a way that’s completely safe. In fact, simulation will measure how quickly and especially how carefully you work in ways that go well beyond what you could measure in the real world, to develop safe operating habits.  And when those “Performance Indicators” are sufficiently comprehensive, new operators “naturally” learn to first work slowly and carefully, and then work quickly (and still carefully) until the simulation results are good enough and trainees “graduate” to real equipment.  Note that this simulator-based “getting ready” will also help new operators “ramp up” much more quickly, shortening the duration of that real seat-time training and thereby lowering the cost.

• Experienced operators become safer, by better understanding the danger associated with bad habits. (After all, a bad habit is just a “learned mistake”.) The fact is, experienced operators are always sharing operating “tricks”, but something learned by watching others can nonetheless be unsafe. And one day, that unsafe practice will cause an “incident” or “accident”, leaving everyone to wonder why. (“I always do that and so does everyone else in my crew, and there’s never been a problem!”)  Well, comprehensive Performance Indicators will reveal that unsafe bad habit and help your operator “un-learn” it.

Make Everyone Safety-Conscious

Of course, promoting workplace safety also means making everyone else working around heavy equipment safety-conscious too, whether in a warehouse or on a construction site. (This is sometimes called “awareness training”.)

To that end, simulators can become a key part of your annual “Safety Week”, to give everyone an opportunity to become more safety-conscious by learning for themselves that

• heavy equipment is big and dangerous, especially when the engine’s running
• it can’t “stop on a dime” (or “turn on a dime”) when something’s about to happen
• the operator can’t see everything, due to blind spots in the cabin

And that’s in addition to what we noted already about making mistakes without consequences, to help

• trainees learn by doing
• experienced operators become safer

Your Bottom Line

The most cost-effective way of investing in risk reduction is better operator training, where simulation can play an important role.

The fact is, when a workplace is safer, it’s easier to retain your current workforce, avoiding staff turnover and new operator training costs. Of course a safer workplace is also a more attractive workplace, when you’re competing for qualified new hires.

Isn’t time to add simulation to your safety toolbox?

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References

[1] “Three layers of forklift safety for demanding operations”, Logistics Management, June 8, 2026.

[2] “Journey to Safety Excellence: The Business Case for Investment in Safety”, National Safety Council, White Paper, 2014. Available from www.nsc.org.

[3] “Protecting Our Greatest Assets: Our People”, Construction Users Roundtable Magazine, Issue no. 2, 2022..