Familiarization trainer
A familiarization trainer is a VR training simulator built so that a person knows a piece of equipment before operating it: where each control is and in what order the sequence runs. It is the name Fyware prefers for its custom simulators, and the term comes from aviation.
Fyware's XR glossary, with the source behind each definition.
A familiarization trainer is a VR training simulator built so that a person knows a piece of equipment before operating it: where each control is and in what order the sequence runs. It is the name Fyware prefers for its custom simulators, and the term comes from aviation.
It is the same tool as a training simulator, under a name that promises something else. “Simulator” suggests an exact copy of the operation, and a simulation that matches reality one hundred percent is hard to reach: inside the headset a part has no weight, and the fine adjustment an operator makes from memory after years is earned on the equipment. “Familiarization trainer” names a job that can be delivered in full, that the person's first time in front of the equipment is no longer a first time.
The term is borrowed. In US aviation regulation, 14 CFR 1.1 keeps the name full flight simulator for a replica of the cockpit of a specific aircraft type, with a visual system and motion cues, qualified level by level; a flight training device, one step down, replicates the instruments, equipment, panels and controls. Learning where each switch sits and in what order a procedure runs is familiarization, and it is better solved before occupying that cockpit. Fyware took the term from an aviation client, who called what was built with them a familiarizador, and uses it for its plant simulators.
A familiarization trainer is built on the plant's equipment and procedure. What it copies faithfully is the space: where each control sits and how far it is from the next one. It works as pre-practice, between theory and the machine, in a stretch where a mistake costs nothing because the person is off the line. It also measures, if the plant asks: it records the time of each maneuver and the collisions, against criteria the plant itself writes. In Gerdau Corsa's crane program, the plant reports 10 hours of simulator time a month and zero production stops for training.
Practice on the equipment stays with the plant. For forklifts, 29 CFR 1910.178(l) combines formal instruction with practical training and an evaluation of the operator's performance in the workplace, and the familiarization trainer comes before that practical training. It serves first the person who has just arrived at the job.
In the Fyware Safe forklift simulator, the operator sits at a physical steering wheel, pedals and lever connected to a PC and drives through a virtual warehouse where a pedestrian crosses without warning. Each attempt leaves a record in a CSV file downloaded from the PC. The operator climbs onto the truck having already found the wheel, the pedals and the lever with their own hands.
«the name says what it is for»
Fyware uses the term for its custom training simulators, and its CEO explains why he prefers it to simulator.
«evaluation of the operator's performance in the workplace»
OSHA's powered industrial truck standard requires practical training and an evaluation in the workplace in addition to formal instruction; the familiarization trainer comes before that practical training.
«cues at least equivalent to those of a three-degree-of-freedom motion system»
US aviation regulation keeps the name full flight simulator for a cockpit replica with a visual system and motion cues at least equivalent to three degrees of freedom, qualified by level.
From aviation. There, simulator names the qualified cockpit where a pilot logs flight hours, and what is done to know the aircraft before occupying that cockpit is called familiarization. Fyware took the term from an aviation client and uses it for its plant training simulators.
The location of the controls and the sequence of the procedure, with the mistakes that on the machine would cost a stoppage or an accident. It is built on the plant's equipment and procedure, so the person walks through their own machine.
It can, if the plant asks for it: it records the time of each maneuver and the collisions, against criteria the plant writes. Practice on the equipment stays with the plant.
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