News Releases 2002
Electra mining Africa 2002, incorporating Elenex Africa 2002
August 2002
The Electra Mining Exhibition will feature an Immersive Technologies Advanced Equipment Simulator on the Komatsu stand. Electra is held in Johannesburg from September 30th until October 4th 2002 from 9am until 5pm. The visitor numbers are expected to top 35,000 as this is one of the world's premier mining Exhibitions.
This Simulator is used by Komatsu South Africa for operator training within their territory.
Simulator training is acknowledged by Mike Blom, Komatsu SA's Operations Director
"It is a tremendous asset both from our point of view and the customers´ because it makes training so much easier, quicker and less costly than doing it on the equipment itself...use of the simulator results in cost savings in a variety of ways.
The cost savings come about mainly because having the Simulator around; you don't need to take a real piece of equipment out of production to do training on. Furthermore by the time the Trainee gets behind the controls of the actual truck or excavator, or whatever it may be, they are much more capable than they would be if they were starting their training on the actual equipment from scratch."
(Excerpt from Septembers Plant Magazine in South Africa.)
Other important advantages of Simulator training pointed out by Mr.Blom in the article are greater safety and less risk of damage to equipment as there is a greater proficiency of the operator when they start on-the-job training and operating.
The Simulator can be programed for day or night, wet or dry conditions, slippery roads and dust or fog. Various maps of mines are programed and the Trainee can be tested on different mines or quarries. Komatsu says that one of the reasons for acquiring the Simulator is that the training is more thorough.
Pieter Cronje, Trainer at Komatsu SA, recently traveled to Botswana to train Operators on the Komatsu HD785-5 rigid dump trucks; the Operators were trained in the Simulator.
