It's a sunny summer day when MA-system pays a visit to Windings training center in Värnamo, Sweden. A forklift truck course is being run the way it should be – both inside the well-equipped driving facilities and out in the driving yard. Out on the floor, five students are practising the practical elements – each with their own truck. Instructor Jonas Björkström moves among them, his eyes constantly looking for details to praise or mistakes to correct.
A highly-focused student slowly drives up to a pallet rack, picks up a pallet the way he was taught, and backs out. But, he makes a fairly common mistake – he forgets to look back as he reverses. Jonas is there in an instant. He is friendly but firm as he points out the mistake. The student nods; he understands. And tries again. Now things go better.
Jonas is pleased. He wants his students to succeed in their training. But, he is never willing to sacrifice quality.
“Every now and then, someone will come to me in the morning and tell me he needs to leave by 2 o'clock for one reason or another,” Jonas says. “My answer is always ‘That depends on whether you're done or not, don't you think? Otherwise, you'll have to come back another day’.”
On a normal day, practice driving runs from eight in the morning to four in the afternoon. It sometimes runs longer if this is necessary for someone to master ‘that last little thing’ required to earn the truck licence. By then, everyone has already completed the theory with the help of eTruck.
“A lot of students think the story told in eTruck is exciting,” says Jonas. “We were among the first to run the new version. There were a few little bugs at first, but now it works perfectly.”
Our conversation is interrupted when the com system comes to life. It's time for Jonas to instruct the students on how to perform the exercises out in the driving yard. He hurries there, and we are given the opportunity to talk to Peter Winding, the company's founder.
With his passion obvious, he provides a few facts about the company: it was founded in 2004, and last year the company trained 500 forklift truck operators, 500 crane operators, and 300 lift operators. The company started in Småland, but now also has a presence in Stockholm. The business concept is to provide good training, where each student is given plenty of time to actually drive themselves so they can learn.
We asks if he thinks there's a lot of competition; if he feels any pressure from “coffee break courses”*.
“No, not really,” he answers and chuckles. “Sooner or later, the customers usually find their way to us – when they notice their students haven't learned a thing!”
At the same time, he says that eTruck has made a clear contribution to maintaining high quality while using time effectively.
“The students have done eTruck before coming to us for practice driving,” explains Peter. “This saves a lot of time for both us and our clients.”
Once on site, each student is taken aside from the practice driving individually to take a theory test. If anything is unclear or language difficulties cause problems, the instructor is on hand to clarify terms.
“Without eTruck, there is no way we could have had the same level of efficiency – while maintaining quality,” states Peter Winding. MA-system couldn't imagine a better ending to the day.
*For the uninitiated, the term “coffee break courses” refers to the kind of sketchy quick courses that hardly last longer than a coffee break and miraculously manage to pass all participants on all truck types.