New Gold’s Rainy River Project in Canada is anticipated to create 600 permanent jobs. As part of their investment New Gold is providing training in mining. Simulators from Immersive Technologies are being used to develop future mining equipment operators in the local community.

“We’re excited to bring the best technology to the Rainy River project.  The utilization of the simulator from Immersive Technologies will ensure safe and skilled operators. Immersive Technologies was able to demonstrate an excellent track record of workforce development and preparing local communities with skill sets in other industries to highly proficient mining equipment operators, while also accommodating our tight delivery schedule,” said Roger Pomerleau, Mine Training Specialist , New Gold.

As with any workforce development plan, Rainy River will be seeking outcomes common to many Immersive Technologies customers. One such customer, Ma’aden, based in Saudi Arabia faced an expansion of mining and a need for the local community to be trained for careers in mining.

The Managing Director said after utilization of simulators from Immersive Technologies the graduates of their training program had “developed self-confidence and situational decision making capabilities, enhanced their job safety requirements comprehension and reactions, improved their attitude and capacity in handling real machinery, technical terminology and best field practices as well as their team spirit, integrity, cooperation and core values on the job.”

Another Immersive Technologies customer based in Indonesia needed to train 2,000 operators per year due to explosive growth. Immersive Technologies simulators were introduced to accelerate the training process and average training time per operator was reduced by 44%.

Along with achieving their workforce development program, Rainy River will be using simulators to ensure their operators are well prepared for emergency situations.  In one of many similar examples documented by Immersive Technologies’ customers, the assessment of equipment operators at a North American coal mine highlighted that only 28% of operators could correctly respond to a machine fire event.  Following Immersive Technologies simulation based training this was quickly increased to 93% of operators.

“We’re honored our experience in the mining industry will help support Rainy River's efforts,” says David Anderson, Executive Vice President – Sales and Support, Immersive Technologies.