Making Safety Visible with Training Simulation

“A strong safety culture means practices and procedures that continue even when no one is watching … not about the posters on the wall or the “days-since-last-incident” signs [1],  

No surprise, new employees (during the first year of employment) are responsible for about 1/3 of all workplace injuries, despite representing just a fraction of the total workforce, according to [2]. 

But as noted in [1], “Onboarding can sometimes fall short when new hires learn informally by shadowing expedience employees, who may rely on shortcuts instead of the formal processes they were taught. A formal process defining safe-work practices before a new employee starts, can help smooth entry into the job and reinforce safe habits across the whole team.” That’s why it’s so important to learn good habits and then make them “automatic“, because a good lift truck operator is always, first and foremost, safe.

And that formal process should include training simulation that emphasizes learning-to-be-safe. But what does that mean? The fact is, everyone learns everything by making mistakes. Sadly, mistakes in the real world have real world consequences and that’s how equipment is damaged, and people are injured (or worse). Fortunately, in a simulated world, mistakes only have simulated consequences. And so learning-to-be-safe means training simulation that makes mistakes and their simulated consequences “visible” to the trainee. How can we do that?

Learning to be Safe with Training Simulation

A big part of learning to operate lift trucks safely means learning to judge distances carefully. As one example, consider a stand up counterbalanced lift truck (“dock stocker”) colliding with a rack as it backs up in a narrow aisle. In the real world, such a collision, repeated many times, will damage the lift truck and the rack. But when this happens in the simulated world, the simulation software could “play” a collision sound and, of course, stop the backing up motion. It could also count the number of collisions. But better still is to make collisions visible, and that’s what Simlog has just introduced with our Stand Up Counterbalanced Lift Truck simulation software. Thanks to this unique new-to-the-world functionality, you can now see where a collision occurred, as shown in the screen capture image that accompanies this blog post, with is one red collision marker on the lift truck at the point of contact, and another on the rack at the point of contact. Even better, when the trial (exercise) ends, Simlog’s simulation software will present all the collisions that occurred in this same way with “paired” red collision markers, to “remind” the trainee about what happened (and what shouldn’t happen again). In this way, new operators “naturally” learn to work carefully, so slowly, to avoid collisions.  Later, after enough “drill and practice”, they pick up speed, while still working carefully (still no collisions). And that’s making safety visible with training simulation.

“Saving” Real World Costs

As noted in [3]

Preventing lift truck incidents and accidents is more than just a safety measure. It’s a cost-saving strategy that protects your people, infrastructure, and bottom line.

And that’s because the consequences would include the following:

• taking the lift truck out of service (productivity loss)
• conducting an investigation
• replacing “lost” merchandise
• repairing the damage to the rack and the lift truck
• re-certifying your lift truck operator.

That’s thousands of dollars “needlessly” spent, even before these additional direct and indirect “costs”, according to one industry expert (and Simlog customer):

• lowered morale among your staff (especially the lift truck operators)
• possible OSHA fines (penalties)
• increased insurance costs
• customer concerns about what they are buying (possible merchandise loss)
• damage to your reputation in the community

And that’s why learning-to-be-safe is so important! To comment on anything you read here, please write to “info@simlog.com” with “blog” in the Subject, to direct your message to me.

Other blog posts about Simulation for Training

References

[1] “How Manufacturers Can Make the First Year on the Job Safer”, SupplyChain24/7, October 2, 2026.

[2] “Travelers Injury Impact Report”, 2026..

[3] “The Hidden Costs of Forklift Impacts and How to Prevent Them”, Manufacturing Tomorrow Magazine, February 2026.