Operator Certification and Training Simulation
All around the world, operator certification is growing in importance to make heavy equipment operations safer by imposing (minimum) standards on what you need to know and what you need do at the controls of real heavy equipment such as forklifts (powered industrial trucks).
Think about cars. When you “know enough”, you get your Learner’s Permit. But to get your Driver’s License, you need to “do enough” at the controls of a real car with an inspector in the seat beside you, watching how well you perform standardized tasks such as changing lanes in traffic and parallel parking.
Well when it comes to operator certification for forklifts, the same applies: you need to know enough and do enough.
Practically, there are different “normative” agencies around the world that have developed standardized “Theory Exams” to test that you know enough, and standardized “Practical Exams” to demonstrate that you can do enough. Some American agencies are OSHA, the National Safety Council, and the NCCER.
Training Simulation to Prepare for Operator Certification
Because operator certification requires real heavy equipment, training simulation can only serve as a “stepping stone “, to help you prepare for that certification.
And preparing in the right way means three things.
First, to ensure that operating skills transfer from the simulated world to the real one, the simulation functionality (graphics, physics, etc.) must be sufficiently realistic. This also means you are moving your hands and feet as if you would in a real cab, and seeing and hearing the same things.
Second, for some kinds of heavy equipment such as cranes, certification works much like it does with cars, i.e. your certification applies to most any make and model, just like your Driver’s License let’s you rent most any kind of car at an airport. For that reason, training simulation should be “OEM neutral”, i.e. it should concentrate on developing the “core skills” that are common to multiple makes and models of heavy equipment. (“OEM” = Original Equipment Manufacturer).
Finally, the simulated tasks must be sufficiently “aligned” with the real world tasks that you’ll need to perform for certification, i.e. they should resemble the tasks associated with the real world “Practical Exams”. And that’s why we recently added four Simulation Modules to our “Reach Lift Truck” simulation software, to reproduce the tasks used by some key customers to certify their forklift operators.
For forklifts (powered industrial trucks), you must be certified by your employer, doing your employer’s “kind” of work. And when there’s a mixed fleet, again it’s important that the training simulation be “OEM neutral”, i.e. it should concentrate on developing the “core skills” that are common to multiple makes and models.
It’s also the case that for forklifts, operators must be re-certified, typically every three years (sometimes every year) and for that reason, Simulation Modules that reproduce the tasks associated with real world “Practical Exams” become even more important, to “double check” that your operators are, in fact, “ready” for that re-certification.
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