The Simulator Instructor Station: The Heart of Effective Training

Investing in a top-of-the-line crane simulator can feel a lot like shopping for a new car. You obviously want something that looks good and feels good—but do you know how it handles? Are you getting a car that functions well in the relevant conditions?

The glitz and glam of high-fidelity graphics, office-sized training stations, and 360° immersion are attractive, but many who want the cutting-edge in simulation technology don’t realize that the real magic happens on another computer: the instructor station.

What is an Instructor Station?

An instructor station is the management app designed to function in tandem with simulators. It’s only with a top-notch instructor station that you can provide the very best in training administration, scenario design, and mid-scenario challenges for trainees. While this is not typically a spotlight feature for the showroom floor, we at GlobalSim think it’s one of the most critical simulator elements if you want to truly reap the benefits of reducing risk and maximizing training effectiveness.

At your instructor station—operated by your best and brightest instructors—you can create true-to-your-site scenarios. With robust customization and an immersive environment that simulates your specific equipment and needs, you can focus on training and preparing your operators for the unthinkable before they sit in the real seat. 

What Equipment is Included?

An instructor station can be as simple as a desktop computer or it can be the ultimate crane trainer battle station, complete with many monitors and peripherals dedicated to total management.

Depending on the equipment and software, you can tailor an instructor station to fit a 1v1 scenario between instructor and student, or arrange a single instructor station to monitor a dozen or more concurrent simulations at once. In the broadest sense, you should expect an instructor station to have these 4 aspects (at GlobalSim, our recommended setup includes 4 monitor screens; one for each).

First Screen: Control Panel

The control panel is the master hub where an instructor has full control over a simulation—even when it’s in progress. Here, trainers can adjust the weather, mission objectives, and other challenges. We recommend that instructors induce a serious fault in the crane during a simulation without announcing it as a great way to see how a trainee reacts to the unknown.

Second Screen: Drone View

The drone view provides a flying camera under the instructor’s control, giving them full 3D visibility around the simulated rig, cargo, and port. This allows the trainer to take a bird’s-eye view of the situation or zoom in centimeters from the action to understand exactly what’s happening moment by moment.

Third Screen: Metrics and Benchmarks   

Metrics and other benchmarks allow the instructor station app to record and display relevant information for trainee review across multiple simulations. At GlobalSim, we call these After-Action-Reviews, as the tool helps highlight any area where a trainee may need more experience or support after a challenging simulation.

Fourth Screen: CCTV Livecam

The CCTV livecam gives the trainer an inside view of the cab, keeping them right there with the trainee. At a glance, instructors can see how a trainee reacts or identify if they’re struggling through body language. While it’s important to see the machine in action, it’s imperative to see the operator in action too and monitor their hand positions on the controls. This can also highlight if a trainee is either too skittish or too hard on simulation controls before they’re on-site with expensive equipment. 

These four views provide the basic tools for an instructor to adjust scenarios mid-scenario, speak directly to trainees, and evaluate overall performance from a single central location.

What Results Can You Expect?

Companies that invest in higher-quality training with immersive tools pay every dollar forward into better security, safety, and productivity at their sites. When operators are prepared for the very best and worst of conditions, they are capable of assessing and reacting to every situation appropriately. This translates into more consistent productivity, higher uptime, and significantly reduced risk. The saying, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” goes a long way when dealing with massive machines in a multi-million dollar port. Ensuring all your training is as effective as possible gets much easier when you have a robust scenario editor.

The Instructor Station’s Scenario Editor

Many instructor stations in the industry come with a wealth of prebuilt scenarios. When vetting your simulator, examine what comes already installed and also take a close look at how you can customize and build your own scenarios. 

Premade scenarios frequently feature default simulation specifications, including sunny days, clear job sites, and perfectly functioning machinery. This is great when evaluating a trainee under ideal conditions. However, as we all know, operating a super post Panamax crane in ideal conditions is never guaranteed—nor should it ever be assumed. In our experience, having a wealth of assets and a robust scenario designer is far more useful in helping trainees gain valuable muscle memory before it’s needed.

For the best training results, you want to be able to create unique digital environments that mirror real-world settings with incredible accuracy. You should be able to design an arena, populate it with various elements like containers, diverse equipment, loads, and even pedestrians, and customize their interactions. The best scenario editors even allow you to add waypoints to direct vehicles or other moving elements along paths you define, ensuring a dynamic and realistic training experience. 

GlobalSim’s scenario editor does all of this and allows you to create and save an unlimited number of scenarios, offering endless possibilities for training customization. Whether incorporating vessels, additional equipment, or site-specific details, this tool ensures your simulations are as immersive and practical as possible. Functioning like an intuitive online map maker, the editor is incredibly easy to use—a feature our customers consistently praise.

By starting from your curriculum and combining it with capable software, you can draft immersive simulations uniquely relevant to your site’s needs. Through a rigorous path of unique scenarios, the instructor station and scenario editor give you all the tools to optimize trainee progress and throughput.

Real World Example

With the scenario editor at their disposal, a GlobalSim client in the Netherlands took an already-established training curriculum and translated it into their new, full-mission simulators. Their training included day-by-day scenarios of the same task but with different challenges, scaling in difficulty over the curriculum. Eventually, the training culminated in a comprehensive simulation exam where trainees had to tackle a completely different task with many of the previous challenges in play.

Tools for the Instructor Station Post-Simulation

The After Action of a simulation is almost more important than the simulation itself. This is where you can take the information in your instructor station and use it to guide your trainee’s learning. The key aspects of our After Action assessments include:

Digital Observation

The instructor station provides everything you need to both observe an ongoing simulation and record and highlight specific moments for later review. This not only includes footage of the mission but can also spotlight other aspects of the simulation, such as impacts or sudden cargo setdowns.

Physical Assessment

An often unspoken aspect of seeing how a trainee handles things is determining if they’re too hard on the equipment. Much of the work involved with these expensive cranes requires delicate handling of joysticks and other toggles. If your trainee is jamming the sticks like they’re in Top Gun with every move, you can have them adjust their behavior before they damage the on-site equipment.

Reporting Metrics

The post-simulation report is an instructor’s best friend. It can provide broad information like how long a simulation objective took to complete all the way down to specific details about cargo contents and average TEU transfers over time. Some simulations are only 10-15 minute sessions, while others may last for hours. Regardless of the length, having a report that breaks down any session into its important highlights makes the training process more efficient and effective.

This allows the most vital step in training: reflection. No trainee is going to hop into a simulator and correctly pinpoint everything they need to improve on. With an instructor station, your instructor will instead have an in-depth report tailored to your specific mission goals, making improvement more efficient and approachable.

Why Have an Instructor Station?

Over 95% of GlobalSim simulators are sold with an instructor station included because it is the industry-leading solution that provides trainers and managers advantages far beyond what a typical simulator control panel offers. Here's why GlobalSim instructor station deserves your attention:

• Build your own scenarios, organize them by curriculum, and deploy simulations capable of immersive situations relevant to your specific site.

• Adjust your scenarios before or on the fly with unexpected equipment malfunctions or other external challenges to test your trainees to their limits.

• Enable your trainees to improve effectively and efficiently with comprehensive tracking and training data.

The instructor station is a central hub designed to upgrade your simulation hardware into a truly immersive training opportunity, simultaneously saving you on costs, time, and equipment risk.

GlobalSim has been at the bleeding edge of refining this understated aspect of crane simulation for 20 years. In fact, we were the very first in the industry to install an instructor station and robust scenario editor as a key factor of our simulators. Since then, many have followed in step. As you’re considering various simulator systems, it’s critical to understand what your needs are and how a well-polished instructor station can help you maximize simulator training for your organization.

If you have further questions about the instructor station and how you can maximize the value of your simulator, reach out today.