In launching the new driving courses, we decided to make an update to our main character, Jack. We have a brand new model, John, with many upgrades such as:
More realistic looking skin
Better facial expressions
More eye and mouth detail
Upgraded jeans and boots
Hair (and optional beard) realistically rendered
We are working on setting up the facial morphs, the skeleton and rigging system, as well as the PPE (hard hat, safety glasses, hi-visibility vest, etc) and will begin using John on our next courses.
Without further ado, we would like you to meet John:
Good News In 2008, the number of fatalities at U.S. surface mines dropped to a record low of 28. Great!
Bad News 28 American surface miners needlessly lost their lives. Not so great.
More Bad News For that same year, MSHA slammed surface mines with a record $194 million in penalties. That’s 2.6 times the amount for the previous year.
Death Last year (2008) was an all time low for surface mine deaths in the U.S. totaling only 28 lives. This statistic shows us that with the proper safety training we can reduce the number of deaths and injuries. At the same time, this also points out the loss of 28 surface miners which could have potentially been avoided with proper training.
Money As surface mine operators subject to MSHA Part 46 regulations, you should be aware of the heavy fines for safety and health violations. In 2008 MSHA assessed 198,700 penalties for violations, compared to the 130,100 violations in the previous year. The dollar amount for all these penalties in 2008 was $194 million, compared to just $74.5 million in 2007. Penalties of this magnitude indicate that MSHA is being proactive in assessing mine safety and health and that remaining out of compliance poses huge financial risks for those willing to gamble.
Facts According to MSHA, the root cause of the 28 U.S. surface mine deaths was attributed to:
Inadequate training
No risk assessment conducted
Inadequate policies, procedures, and controls
Not using personal protective equipment
Lack of pre-operation checks
Not maintaining equipment
Failure to conduct examinations
Action Record low deaths of surface miners and record high penalties for violations of safety and health go hand in hand. We see that MSHA has raised awareness in order to save lives by increasing enforcement and handing out $194 million in penalties.
At Convergence Training, we feel very strongly that we can help improve surface mine safety while keeping mine operators compliant with MSHA Part 46 training requirements. Everybody wins when miners get to go home to their families and mine operators lower their costs.
I read a really interesting blog post on replacing library books and text books with digital textbooks. The article made some really good points, and I’d like to re-spin them here, of course giving full credit to Thomas Curtis, the original author. Read the full article here.
Here is a summary of what I took away from his article:
Why pay up to $100 for an average textbook that could be missing really important events only a short time after printing? Electronic versions are cheaper and can be updated with current events such as the Iraq war, the country’s first Afican American president, and the decoding of the human genome to name a few that have occured in the last six years.
When studying a textbook, how often do you read the entire thing versus manually searching for specific pieces of information? Every wish you could use CTRL+F (the keyboard shorcut for 'Find') on a textbook and search for information? :)
What hours is your library open, and how many copies can they have of each book? Digital textbooks could be available 24/7 and available to an unlimited number of people (possibly limited by licensing)
I really liked the ideas in the article and hope more people can think outside the box on the future of textbooks for our students. Similar questions can be asked to paper mills and industrial facilities:
How many copies of user manuals or safety books does your site have sitting in a room somewhere?
If someone needs access to it, can they get it?
Can they quickly find the specific information they need?
What if someone else has it checked out or sitting on their desk?
How up to date is it?
Has your site done anything outside-of-the-box to help make information accessible? Let us know!
Convergence Training is bringing safety training tools to just about any business. Soon, pretty much any company will be able to train, track, report, and get important notifications anywhere at any time for way less than a trip to the ER.
Convergence WebExpress is our new Internet-based training delivery and management system. It's an online learning management system, or LMS, without the expensive servers or sophisticated software. Keep reading to find out more.
Old School LMS As veterans of complex technical LMS installations, we've known for years that a company's fundamental training needs don't change as they grow. They just get bigger. They just need more people trained more times in more places with reports sent to more people.
And while just about any organization could benefit from the features provided by many LMSs, the costs of these systems fall astronomically beyond the budgets of most small to medium sized enterprises. So in the past, you had to be big enough to justify the hardware and software investment.
We're changing all that.
New School Web Tools - Convergence WebExpress For less than 10% of the cost of the average emergency room visit, any company will be able to access our entire library of courses to train an employee for a full year. That's all 28 Environmental, Health and Safety courses and our complete set of 27 Surface Miner Training topics.
You'll get a scalable solution and cost structure that fits your budget with a versatile set of courses and centralized training management tools.
24/7 Training Administer required training anytime, anywhere via the Internet. Since it's online, we can update or add training content at any time. No more 80's VHS tapes or scratched DVDs to deal with. No in-house IT resource costs. Just relevant, affordable, accessible, and effective training.
Call Us For A Demo Give us a call or send us an email to get a free demo account set up. Kick the tires and make sure it's right for your business. No strings attached.
The course catalog inside of Convergence Training Viewer has been updated with a preview of our driver safety series courses (Defensive Driving, Seatbelt Safety, and Vehicle Preparedness). While these courses are still under development, we wanted to include them in our catalog to show everyone what is in the works.
Below, check out a screen shot of the catalog page in CTV:
Did you know that Convergence Training Viewer is a free mini-LMS for your desktop? It can import courses, track results, and even track non-computer training events - and its FREE! Check it out or give us a call today. We would love to get your feedback.
More than 2,300 Americans died in 2007 from occupational transportation accidents. That's 2 out of every 5 work-related deaths for the year.
In other words, that's: - 2,300 times the number of fatal shark attacks worldwide - 127 times the number of U.S. skydiving deaths - 51 times the number of fatal U.S. lightning strikes - Or over 3 times the number of global airline fatalities for that same year
But you don’t need to trudge through the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics or be a safety expert to know that number is way too high. The worst part is that virtually all of those accidents were avoidable.
As a company focused on positively impacting the safety training industry, Convergence Training constantly looking for new opportunities to help our customers reduce accidents and ultimately saving lives.
Everyone knows that safe driving habits can reduce or even avoid tragic human costs, but improving commercial driving safety also makes solid business sense. So, we plan to release our new Commercial Driving Safety series in late-August.
The first course in our Commercial Driving Safety series will be Introduction to Defensive Driving, followed by Seat Belt Safety and Vehicle Preparedness. Introduction to Defensive Driving will cover the fundamental concepts of collision avoidance, economics of safe driving, and vehicle knowledge. And as you’ve come to expect, our material will represent the insights, regulations, and best practices of leading organizations, including the National Safety Council, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and OSHA.
Do you have suggestions for other safety training courses that would make your life easier or safer? We want to hear from you. Call or email us to let us know what you need.
Convergence is a team of individuals passionate about creating engaging, effective training materials. Using 3D graphics created by top designers, we are focused on revolutionizing the way training is created and delivered.
Product feature updates, news, press releases, special projects, and social commentary on activities for Convergence Training, a division of Capstone Technology Corporation.
