Earlier this year, the Pori College in western Finland received eight new forest machine simulators for training purposes. The simulators are a great learning tool for the students, but this does not mean that operator training will be confined to four walls.

Personnel at the Pori College are developing new models for teaching timber harvesting, and the aim is to also use more virtual methods. The college is focusing on how to use scarce resources more sensibly, how to incorporate the training wishes of the sector’s different parties, and how to make the actual training more relevant.

A central element of the training models under development are forest machine simulators. The college now has 12 simulators, including the eight new John Deere simulators that were added to the existing four at the end of January.

The best of both worlds
The Pori College is planning for the simulators to play a significant role in the teaching of harvesting and forest machine operations, but that does not mean that all the training will take place inside the classroom. The goal is to take advantage of what the simulators and the real forest machines offer best. Once the basic operation, concepts and models of machine use are learned on the simulator, the actual machine training can focus primarily on work-site planning, productivity and quality – the skills the sector expects from the college’s graduating operators.

”The fact remains that not all the characteristics of real machines are simulated. That’s why there’s no substitute for the experience gained with a real machine,” contends John Deere automation expert Markku Heikkinen. It is important, he says, that the skills learned in a simulator can be applied with a real machine as quickly as possible.

What the simulators excel at achieving is getting a new operator comfortable with the hand controls, the measuring and control system, and the computer behind the machine. They are able to gain confidence and develop their own technique at handling the wood – without risking damage to the forest or a real machine right at the start.

For more information on John Deere forest equipment simulators, click here.

Story from In the Forest, January, 2007.

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