With winter approaching there are many communities organizing their heavy equipment so they are prepared to seve the community. Roads often need clearing of snow, vehicles sometimes need digging out from under snow drifts, and of course the regular spate of black-ice instigated motor vehicle accidents.

The most common equipment used a specialized machine known as a snow plow. However, graders and bulldozers have often been called in to the same job – push the snow and ice off the road and onto the verges. Because of the snow and black ice, these can be dangerous times for heavy equipment operators.

It takes good quality training backed up with plenty of experience to safely handle heavy equipment in these conditions. Blades need to be set at the right height to ensure snow and ice is removed, yet the road surface remains untouched.

It’s cold work yet by the time your finished, you can look back on black ribbon of cleared road neatly surrounded by banks of white snow – the picture postcard setting that many from tropical regions can only dream about (if they lived through for a couple of years the dream would soon vanish).

ATS Heavy Equipment Training Schools can get your heavy equipment career off the ground by providing a thorough training program on a variety of machines. Who knows, one day you could be keeping our roads open during the cold winters.

A lot of people wouldn’t consider a ship building yard as a user of heavy equipment or heavy equipment operators. In fact this is far from the truth.

Whilst you wont find a ship yard full of heavy equipment operators, you will find crane operators, forklift operators and front end loader operators.

The role of a crane operator is fairly obvious. They raise and lower much of the heavy materials during the assembly processes.

Forklifts, or forktrucks, also help with lifting, however their role is often to unload trucks, move laden pallets and look after stores.

Front end loaders have a curious role when compared to their normal jobs. Front end loaders in ship yards can be called upon to lift materials to a working height. These materials are often the smaller, but heavy in number items, such as rivets, rivet guns, welding rods and related materials. They act as a bucket to hold these items and as a garbage collector for used materials.

The role of a heavy equipment operator in a ship building yard can be varied and interesting. To see a large ship coming together is amazing in itself. To actually be a part of the working crew is even better.

If you fancy yourself in a ship building yard – perhaps as a crane operator, then check out ATS Heavy Equipment Training Schools for a training program that may help to kickstart your career.

There is no doubt that during a recession the construction industry starts to suffer – at least certain areas like home building suffers. In general however, as governments look to spend their way out of a recession they often turn towards infrastructure. This mean roads, rail, ports and new schools and hospitals, and of course, jobs for heavy equipment operators.

The recession actually means a boom time for certain areas of construction. History shows that more miles of road and rail are built during a recession than during the good times. More hospitals and more schools are also built during periods of recession.

If your looking to get into the construction industry as a heavy equipment operator then you will need to concentrate on where the work is. Road and rail are obvious; the mining industry will be determined by base metal prices. If they start to rise then mining will again boom. House building, until the economy starts to lift, forget about working in that sector; for now although I do have one proviso. There are many smart entrepreneurs who will buy land now, and have it developed, so that when the economy starts to grow again, they have the land ready to sell and make money.

Becoming a heavy equipment operator in today’s climate is no different to a booming economy. What changes is where you work – which sectors you work in. ATS Heavy Equipment Training Schools can provide you with the skills to operate heavy equipment in most sectors of the construction industry. Get your career started now.

There is one thing in life we all have, don’t want, and get others to deal with. Our waste. We throw it into the bin which gets collected and from that point on, we don’t want to know about it.

The waste is taken to a central location where it is often used as landfill. Heavy equipment like large bulldozers push the waste around, mixing it with soil and slowly burying it. As time goes by the waste becomes compacted down.

Once the landfill area is full, fresh dirt is used to completely cover the site. Again it is the bulldozer that is called into action to bury all the waste.

It may not be everyone’s idea of the perfect job, but someone has to do it. Not only that, it actually takes a skilled operator to perform the landfill requirements properly. These operators are trained to use their equipment on a variety of surfaces and slopes. If you think about it, rubbish is soft, it cane compacted, your bulldozer is going to sink and slide around. You need good skills to handle that terrain.

ATS Heavy Equipment Training Schools can help you acquire all the skills needed to operate a bulldozer effectively. Check out our training site for more information on course start dates.

Heavy equipment training comes in many different shapes and sizes. Some training establishments use a classroom only approach which means you don’t get any hands on experience. Others employ the opposite where all your training is on the equipment but there is no classroom training on safety and other issues.

There is a ‘Q’ factor that often spoke off in business – the Q being Quality. Quality has a different meaning to different people. When it comes to heavy equipment training, the ‘Q’ factor, or quality factor, has three faces.

The quality of instructor is extremely important. No matter how good the machinery or the training materials are, if the instructor doesn’t know their stuff or cannot communicate it effectively, you are going to walk away trying to figure out what the class was all about.

The ‘Q’ factor is the training program itself. If that is of poor quality then even the best instructor will have difficulties delivering an effective training program.

The third ‘Q’ factor is the quality of the equipment. Very old and unreliable equipment will mean the hands on experience is frustrating and often not relevant to the workplace after training.

Heavy equipment training does have a set of guidelines that have been designed to train future operators to a level required to get a start in the industry. Training organizations submit their training programs to be assessed against those guidelines. If their training is approved they receive accreditation to deliver the training.

For you, the user of the training programs, you know that any accredited training has been designed to those guidelines. These guidelines include the skill required to be an instructor and the type of equipment used for training.

ATS Heavy Equipment Training Schools are proud of their tradition of delivering accredited training that is recognized within the industry for providing employers with quality skilled new operators. If your looking to get a start in the industry, start by checking us out.

Have you ever thought about the amount of work that goes into building our roads. Sure, there are little country roads. But what about the highways, multi-lanes, turnpikes, off ramps, on ramps, I could go on. Roads take a lot of careful planning and just as much careful work. Despite the complexity, the big rough and tough heavy equipment machinery that we use really do make light work of it all and it’s done accurately.

In today’s engineering environment, you can start a large six or eight lane highway in two parts, each 100 miles apart. By the time the highways meet, the will connect perfectly with hardly an inch of leeway – that is what I call accuracy. Yet we drive these roads without giving any thought to the complexities of creating them. It’s the engineers, the laborers and the heavy equipment operators that know how complex these roads are.

Road gangs rely on excavators, bulldozers and graders to get the base right. There are specialized heavy equipment that is then called in to lay the gravel and hot asphalt. Heavy multi wheeled vehicles help to cure the road. Pile drivers and cranes are often called in to construct the turnpikes, off ramps and on ramps.

The life of a heavy equipment operator is never boring when it comes to road building. Every day is different and every day brings new challenges. Working on these road crews requires training in the right equipment. ATS Heavy Equipment Training Schools provides relevant hands on training across multiple heavy equipment rigs. Check out our site and you may find yourself helping to build the roads of our nation.

I read a report a little while ago that claimed there were three major causes of workplace accidents involving heavy equipment. The first was lack of adequate training, the second was lack of experience and the third was, lack of adequate training. I know, You are going to say I have repeated myself.

That quote is right however. There is operational training and their is safety training. Whilst the two go hand in hand – they are also completely separate. We can train you to operate heavy equipment. You can find employment and get the experience, however with out that added dimension of safety training, you will not know how to avoid potentially dangerous situations. More importantly, you will not know how to remove yourself from that situation.

Workplace health and safety are becoming compulsory in almost every work environment in almost every state in almost every country. You see, there is a worldwide trend to reduce workplace accidents. Employers don’t need them, they slow down production. Employees don’t need them, they have the potential to affect pay packets and lifestyle.

At ATS Heavy Equipment Training Schools we acknowledge the need to include safety training as part of your training program so we include accredited safety training. What is the fourth cause of accidents, poor maintenance. Guess what? We include basic preventative maintenance in the training as well.

The bulldozer is one of the few machines capable of turning a waste land into prime real estate. It doesn’t matter how rough the terrain is, whether its littered with tree stumps, small hills or swamp – the bulldozer makes light work of the whole job.

Bulldozers have the strength to pull out some of the toughest stumps then turn around and cut through the earth, each pass taking of more and more until you have a smooth level surface ready to be built upon.

Of course, it doesn’t take the one pass. Depending on the layout, could take days or even weeks but the bulldozer gets it done. If you get the chance to stop and watch, look at how they gradually take more and more of the surface away, each time taking from raised areas and depositing into lower areas (for example, into a swamp) until the whole site is level.

This takes a lot of skill. Unskilled operators tend to cut to much into one area and not enough in another leaving the side uneven and looking like a rough patchwork quilt.

You can gain the skills to operate a bulldozer effectively to clear building sites through ATS Heavy Equipment Training Skills. Check us out for all your options.

I am often amazed at ingenuity of the human race. Heavy equipment like bulldozers, backhoes and graders can move huge amounts of dirt, yet they can do it with such precision. If you ever see a bulldozer in action, stop an watch. They can level an area of ground in no time at all, and I mean level.

Bulldozers can take the roughest surface and turn it into a clean flat top. Backhoes can dig a trench to an exact depth and in a perfectly straight line. Motor graders can take a rough surface and not only turn it into a smooth surface, it will have perfect camber to allow for water run-off.

These are just examples of what heavy equipment can do – and does do each and every day. Think about it though, how many workers over what period of time armed simply with shovels, mattocks, or rakes could achieve the same results? Would they achieve the same accuracy?

Heavy equipment gets a job done quickly, painlessly and accurately. Whilst they look like big toys, they are serious work horses. If you fancy working as a heavy equipment operator then check out your options at ATS Heavy Equipment Training Schools – it could2 the start of a great career. The alternative, watch them in action and dream!

One of the most important considerations when using new heavy equipment is visibility. It’s not just a safety concern, it is also an important aspect of the efficient operation of the heavy equipment. Let’s face it, the operator can’t avoid what he can’t see and he cannot work on effectively if he cannot see the work area. Before actually getting on with the job, have a test drive and check any areas of low visibility – particularly when using a scoop or digging arm.

The controls are another area that needs a careful examination particularly if you are upgrading from a rather old piece of heavy equipment. Many of the latest models use twin joystick controls; one for controling the overall movement of the vehicle and one that operates the hydraulics for the arm, scoop, or blade. These controls require much less force to operate than mechanical controls of old. In fact, if your current equipment is really old, you may find the newest models controls are over sensitive. You will need to spend a little time becoming accustomed to their sensitivity.

If your lucky, the heavy equipment will have adjustable controls. These allow the operator to adjust the sensitivity and control pattern to match their own preferences.

Finally, check the ergonomics of the cab, particularly seat adjustments. Ensure you sitting in comfortable enough to reach all controls, read all meters and see the work area with little or no obstructions.

New equipment can be tricky and will take some time to get used to. Receiving training on equipment that is fairly recent can help, however the reality is you may end up working on a site that has fairly ancient equipment. At some stage that equipment will be upgraded, or you may change employer and suddenly you are confronted with the latest piece of equipment. Don’t hesitate, remember these guidelines and you will be as right as rain.