John Deere E-Series Harvester and Forwarder Simulator

Novice loggers and forestry students in New Zealand will have the opportunity to hone their skills on harvesting machines without the worry of damage.

For, now they can train on a brand new simulator provided by John Deere to the Rotorua-based School of Forestry at Waiariki Institute of Technology as part of a world-first partnership.

In a deal brokered by local John Deere distributor, CablePrice, the forestry machine simulator is being loaned to Waiariki free of charge for a year and the school hopes it will become a permanent fixture. John Deere is treating the arrangement with Waiariki as a pilot project that could be extended to other countries.

The simulator will be used for promotional purposes at career days, as well as for training at the school and there are also plans to take it on the road in a trailer to be built especially by the faculty’s own students. Its first demonstration outside Waiariki was at this month’s PF Olsen Forest Industries Expo.

According to Jeremy Christmas, Director of the School of Forestry, Wood Processing and Biotechnology, the arrival of the John Deere simulator will make a significant difference to how young foresters are taught.

“In addition to training people to actually operate a machine, the simulator also has advanced software that can be used in our forestry management training programmes – for instance, producing better cut plans and how to optimize distance cycle times – and also for training silvicuturists on planting out, stocking ratios etc,” says Mr Christmas.

CablePrice also sees opportunities for training service and field technicians on various aspects of the latest harvesters, their optimisation software and forwarders, according to equipment specialist Terry Duncan, who helped facilitate the deal.

Mr Christmas says that without the assistance of CablePrice and Waratah (which is owned by John Deere), the forestry school would never have got its hands on the simulator. Waiariki had been looking to purchase a simulator but could not afford it, so Mr Christmas approached Waratah and CablePrice, who set the wheels in motion.

The deal finally got traction when senior John Deere executives from the United States visited New Zealand for the recent Residues-to-Revenues conference in Rotorua. Within weeks of their visit, a simulator was air freighted to New Zealand, with an engineer flying from Melbourne to help install and train staff on its operation.

The simulator is the very latest available and covers the latest wheeled E-series harvesters and forwarders from John Deere.

In harvester mode, the John Deere simulator fells virtual trees, strips the branches and cuts the stems to length just like a real million-dollar harvester and Waratah, using the same controls an operator will find in the cab of the actual machine. The operator views his/her actions on a flat screen TV, as if they are in a real and can also switch to a view from outside the cab.

Because they are identical to those of a real machine, the controls work in the same way, manoeuvring the machine into position, extending the boom and arm to set the processing head at the base of a tree, grasp the trunk, activate the saw and control the direction in which the tree falls.

Then it picks up the tree, de-limbs the branches and cuts the stem into pre-set, measured lengths entered into the computer. The simulator records the number and size of trees cut, measuring productivity as it goes – just like the real harvester.

Operators who get it wrong, for example by extending the boom too far for the weight of a tree, can get a graphic picture of the harvester tipping over or damaging the equipment. Felling a tree the wrong way can even produce a picture of it falling on the virtual cab.

The simulator includes the latest optimisation software so that operators can be trained how to make use of this tool in the classroom, rather than in the forest.

A flick of a switch it transforms it into a virtual forwarder, complete with bunk and loading crane and even mimics the rotating cab found on the 1510E and 1910E models.

For teaching large groups, the simulator can also hook up to a larger projection screen so that more people can view it.

Mr Christmas says he has already spoken with contractors who are interested in utilising the simulator for training members of their crew, but details of how this will work are still to be finalised – once the trailer is built, it could visit crews in the forest.

From experience overseas, the simulator can train an operator from scratch to be reasonably proficient on a real machine in the forest within four days.