Real joysticks and steering wheels, as well as a chair that moves in reaction to the real swing of cranes, forklifts and trailers. New employees at the port of Navegantes, located in Santa Catarina and one of the largest in the country, undergo many hours of training in all situations, including different types of ships and operations during the day and night.
Simulators purchased in June this year help prepare employees to deal with difficulties caused by fog, strong wind, rain, sun and even equipment failures. The items also reduce an employee's training time by 40%, explained port technology manager, Jardel Fisher.
The Port of Navegantes (Portonave), part of the Santa Catarina Port Complex, is among the largest container terminals in the country and handles more than 1 million TEUs (unit of measurement equivalent to a 20-foot container) annually and generates 10,000 direct jobs.
In addition to safety, one of the main advantages is that training can be carried out without stopping operations at the terminal. Putting an employee on a real machine to practice means taking that equipment away from moving loads.
"The port moves throughout the day, it's 24 hours, seven days a week, the operation doesn't stop. Ships can't stop. The carrier demands his cargo, so the terminal doesn't stop", summarized Fisher.
There are four simulators at the port, all of them representing fundamental stages of the cargo movement process:
Truck simulator;
Forklift simulator;
Crane simulator that places and removes the container from the ship onto a trailer;
Crane simulator that places and removes the container from a stack of containers.
Fisher details that new employees undergo 16 hours of theoretical training, 40 hours in simulators and 184 hours in real equipment. The port technology manager also explains how each of the simulators works:
Trucks
Employees learn to drive trucks that travel around the port. In real operation, these vehicles transit through the terminal and may or may not be loaded.
These trailers are used to take a container from the container stack to a ship, or vice versa. The equipment used in training is similar to that used in driving to obtain a National Driving License (CNH).
The simulator has a steering wheel and chair. The objective is to train parking, different speeds, curves and markings, for example.
The employee also needs to practice driving while other operations take place at the port, dodging stacks of containers and other machinery.
Forklifts
Another simulator that also uses a steering wheel is the forklift simulator. With this equipment, the employee practices removing and placing the container in the pile.
Ship-to-shore crane
This equipment with joysticks simulates the cranes used to place and remove containers from ships. In Brazil, this crane is also known as a portainer.
Rubber Tyred Gantry Crane
This crane lifts and places containers into large stacks of those containers. The simulator also uses joysticks. This crane is also known as a transtainer.
Equipment allows you to even simulate crane cable swing
The simulator's various equipment allows the employee to feel like they are operating the real machine. To achieve this, some effects occur:
Cab and chair swing;
Influence of weather and time on the screen, such as rain and night;
Weight and balance of the cranes' steel cable is felt by the operator;
Joysticks and steering wheels are the same as those that the employee will find on the real machine;
The screen shows the operation in the port of Navegantes itself, instead of a generic location.
Simulators can be customized.
"When you buy, you specify this simulator. You will say: 'Look, I work with cranes from this manufacturer and with such technology in those cranes'. So, it can come already customized to present the level of realism closest to the operational reality of the equipment we already work with", adds Fisher.
He also exemplified the precision of the equipment. They can imitate a windy day in the harbor. This will influence crane operation, as the steel cable will swing more than on another day without this condition.
Other situations can affect the operator, such as the sun shining directly on the employee's face, rain and night, which impair visibility.
Training can help prevent accidents
Simulators can also help prevent accidents. This way, the operator can make a mistake and learn to avoid the situation next time.
"I'm going to create simulated exercises that maybe in practice would be very complex, very risky for him to exercise this and actually have a real accident happen," Fisher said.
Technology also emulates failures. The system simulates, for example, a container locked in the back of a truck.
In real life, ports have a safety system to prevent accidents, but the virtual environment assesses whether the student can identify the error and react appropriately under pressure.
"There are studies that say it reduces the number of accidents by up to 35% due to untrained operators going into a real operation without proper training", declared the port technology manager.
