Index's on-line training tool, with graphics that accurately depict every machine component and function and precisely replicate control screens, eliminates lost production time from operators attending training courses.
CNC multispindle and Swiss-type machines are sophisticated and require well-trained operators. But many shops can't afford to lose productive personnel for weeks at a time while they attend training sessions, which is the reason Index, with Oxygen Education of Indianapolis as a licensed partner, developed an on-line software-training tool accessible anywhere and anytime.
The tool/course involves 16 chapters, and students must pass each one consecutively before advancing to the next. Courses hinge on overview — machine form, fit, function, buttons and components — and then operation.
Accurate graphics strip machines of their sheetmetal to depict every component and function, and precisely replicate control screens. Students can activate hydraulics, change modes and then run these virtual machines.
More graphics and less text, according to Index's Tessarzyk, teach students, especially younger ones, in a familiar video-game environment that typical machine-manual schematics can not produce. This learning environment also helps take the fear out of learning to run such sophisticated machines.
"The software puts all a shop's operators on a level playing field," says Joseph Kitterman, president of Oxygen Education. "And with it, supervisors know exactly what operators can and cannot do." In addition, students learn at their own paces with the on-line training, unlike actual classes that come to an end whether a student understood the material or not.
