SIU Training Center Finding Success With GlobalSim Simulator

The Seafarers International Union (SIU) has been a longtime GlobalSim customer since 2001. The campus of Seafarers International Union Harry Lundeberg School of Seamanship consists of over 60 acres on the waterfront in Piney Point, Maryland. Their primary mission is to train young people entering the maritime industry. When students leave the school, they will be certified in many different areas. Training covers the duties and responsibilities of seamanship in the three shipboard departments: deck, engine and steward. Training for deck seamanship includes cargo handling with cranes. Recently SIU upgraded to a new crane GlobalSim crane simulator. The upgrade is a significant enhancement compared to their original crane simulator that GlobalSim installed back in 2001. The first crane simulator used by SIU included a large curved screen, a projector and a CRT monitor for the instructor. The training on their real crane was augmented by simulator training. When a storm damaged the real crane, the simulator became an essential part of the overall curriculum. In 2015, SIU upgraded to new technology with the installation of an Essential Plus crane simulator with three large flat panel displays to better train their students. The instructors and administrators of the training center have been very happy with the new simulator and the support they’ve received. Instructor Tim Truitt states, “The whole system is very user friendly unlike a lot of simulators that we have worked with before. It is pretty much a single push button start. There is not a whole series of set up to do.” SIU can serve can serve up to 24 students at a time, they use the simulator to train operators on both a Hagglund and Liebherr crane. Swapping software and controls between the two crane models is easy on the simulator and they appreciate that it only takes a couple of minutes so training can go much smoother. “Working with the staff has really been a great benefit. They sat down with us, they talked about how the program worked. They walked through each of the processes and then took time and trained us as instructors on how to set the scenarios up for what we want to do, how we could vary it, how we could input faults. Then sat and watched and observed us go through different scenarios, do scenario designing and create something realistic for our use and make sure it worked,” states Tim Truitt instructor at SIU on the Customer Service at GlobalSim. GlobalSim is proud to have SIU as a longtime customer and we look forward to working with them in the future as they expand their programs and offer superb training to those entering the maritime industry.