In an effort to train and develop a local workforce for a greenfield operation Lydian Armenia recently invested in simulators with Professional Services from Immersive Technologies. The new Amulsar gold mine has a 4 km downhill loaded haul with up to 10% grade, creating additional need for operators to be proficient in how to operate the equipment safely but also how to respond to any emergency, such as the loss of a braking system or a fire. The mine is using a fleet of Caterpillar 789D trucks loading a Cat 6040 hydraulic face shovel.
“Our selection criteria included both the quality of the simulator and the support to implement a system. Immersive’s offering for after the sale support was the best among the offerings that we looked at. Even when we looked at a 10-year old simulator, that simulator was still functioning well in the training organisation at a well-established mine,” said W. David Tyler, Mine Technical Manager, Lydian International.
“Our goal is to ensure that Lydian receives significant return on investment from Immersive Technologies and our routine Advisor Support visits add value to a mining operation by having the experience and best practice tools to avoid pitfalls in training program implementation. The end goal is to drive quantifiable operational improvement in key mine metrics,” says Bryant Mullaney, Vice President of Managed Services at Immersive Technologies.
Simulation-based training is a new venture for Armenian mines and Tyler says “our view is that this is well-established technology to train new operators. Current operations have new operators train side-by-side for long periods before they are considered well enough trained to be able to operate a multi-million-dollar piece of equipment. Our view was we needed to speed up the training to provide sufficient operators for the mining and at the same time reduce the risk in achieving our ramp up to full commercial operations.”
Lydian is the first mining company to deploy simulation-based training from Immersive Technologies in Armenia, making it the 44th country where Immersive Technologies’ systems are deployed. “The continued development of their technology and services has propelled Immersive Technologies into more mining operations as their customers seek rapid return on investment.”
