Alberta Construction Training Institute (ACTI) along with the Building Trades of Alberta (BTA) have forged a partnership with Alberta-based virtual reality company, Serious Labs Inc. to pilot an operator certification program for Mobile Elevated Work Platforms (MEWPs) on Serious Labs’ award-winning VR MEWP Simulator.

Serious Labs has placed six motion-based MEWP Simulators at ACTI’s Ironworkers Local 720 and IBEW Local 424 locations to train and certify the new generation of construction workers. Over the next month, ACTI will complete multiple practical assessments during the MEWP training and will complete practical assessment exercises for certification on both the real equipment and Serious Labs’ VR MEWP Simulator.

“We are confident these VR MEWP Simulators will assist the Building Trades of Alberta and its 60,000 member unionized workforce to become the most modern-trained construction workforce in the world with the goal of improving proficiency while reducing work site incidents”,

states Wade Glavine, President and CEO of ACTI.

We are excited to be partnered with ACTI and The Building Trades of Alberta, supporting Alberta’s tradesmen and tradeswomen through the adoption of technology and innovation. It takes forward-thinking organizations like ACTI and BTA to shift the training mindset by addressing human performance through objective simulation to identify and remediate the worker’s operational gaps,

explained Wade Carson, Senior Director of Product at Serious Labs.

Serious Labs has delivered VR solutions for multiple industry leaders around the globe, including United Rentals, Bechtel, DOW, Syncrude, The U.S. Department of Energy, Shell, Singapore International Airport, British Airways, Rapid Access, Loxam, Riwal, and Nationwide Platforms.

With extensive work over the last 18 months, the International Powered Access Federation (IPAF) has audited the VR MEWP’s PAL+ practical test with a goal of accepting the VR MEWP Simulator as a named alternate tool for PAL+ certification; the results of that audit are expected this fall. Serious Labs’ VR MEWP Simulator has already been recognized in Germany for MEWP certifications as the efficacy of Serious Labs’ VR solutions continues to be recognized around the world, particularly in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Source: ACTI