Death, Money and Facts for American Surface Mines

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.

An Online LMS for Way Less Than a Trip to the Emergency Room

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.

1.888.634.7346 – Toll Free
info@thinkconvergence.com

View a WebExpress Training Plan

 

See the Administrative Interface

 

Check out a Compliance Report

Printable Tests in PDF Format (from XPS)

Recently we’ve been getting more and more great feedback from our customers. We love to get feedback because it helps us develop better products and services for you, our customers.

Some customers have had trouble recently using our printable tests and answer guides. Currently, they are in XPS format which is an open and trustworthy format most useful for Microsoft Office 2007 users. Internet Explorer can view XPS documents, and there is even a free XPS Viewer software. Despite those viewing options, some of our customers don’t want to download additional software and are having trouble using the XPS files. To help those customers out, we have spent the time to upgrade our documents to PDF.

Now, all the tests, answer guides, and certificates for our EHS and MSHA DVD courses are available in PDF format. We have also added a name and date field for the tests. The new documents will be available online soon, but if you need them now, feel free to send us an email or give us a call and we can get them to you right away.

Convergence Training Across the United States

We are all over the country this week! From our offices in Camas, WA, to the northeast and all the way down to Orlando, FL.

Orlando, FL
Randy and Bjorn are representing Convergence Training at AGG1. Here are a couple shots of our booth with our MSHA Part 46 Products on display:

Alabama
Roman has been meeting with prospective customers in Alabama. After a few days on the road with sunny and moderate weather, he’s on his way back to cold rain here in Camas.

Northeast US
A couple of our technical writers are on-site with a new customer on the East Coast. They will be spending the week out there getting trained and gathering technical information. In addition, Matt and I will be headed out to the same location next week to install Convergence Server and provide administrator training.

Convergence Training Exhibiting at AGG1 2009 in Orlando, FL

Convergence Training will be hosting a booth at AGG1, the 2009 Aggregates Forum and Expo. The conference will take place March 9-12, 2009 and will be co-located with the World of Asphalt 2009 Show and Conference in Orlando, FL.

We will be displaying our suite of MSHA Part 46 compliancy solutions ranging from Surface Miner Training Basic ($349) up to our Surface Miner Training Advanced with MSHA Compliancy Tools ($1,399). If you would like to stop by and visit us, our booth number is 426. See a map of our booth at the convention.

For more information about AGG1, visit the official AGG1 site here.

For more information about the World of Asphalt 2009, visit the official World of Asphalt site here.

For more information about our Surface Miner Training products that offer MSHA Part 46 compliancy solutions for Surface Mines and Mining Contractors, visit our MSHASafetyTraining.com website.

MSHASafetyTraining.com Website Launched

Last week, we launched our newest website, MSHASafetyTraining.com, which focuses exclusively on helping surface mines and surface mine contractors become compliant with MSHA’s Part 46.

This new site simplifies the requirements and directs viewers to exactly what they need. We even provide free resources to help you complete your Training Plan and Records of Training.

Here are some of the things we hope you’ll find useful:

• A visual overview of MSHA Part 46 training requirements
• FREE samples of Training Plan and Record of Training templates
• FREE Part 46 resources including downloads and links to make compliance easier
• And of course, our award-winning line of Surface Miner Training products

Visit MSHASafetyTraining.com and let us know what you think. And if you still have questions, feel free to contact us. We’ll be happy to help.

MSHA DVD Site Launched

Earlier this week, we launched a new micro-site dedicated to our Surface Miner Training DVD. Our Surface Miner Training DVD boxed-set provides 8 hours of MSHA Part 46 compliancy training. When purchasing the DVD, you’ll get:

• Over 8 hours of training
• 27 training modules based on MSHA’s Part 46 requirements
• A quick and easy way to deliver required training
• Access to printable tests and answer guides
• Award winning training (1st Place at MSHA’s 2008 TRAM Conference)

Click here to visit our new site

Of course, our Surface Miner Training can also be packaged with Convergence Training Viewer, or it can be sold as a SCORM package that can be used in any SCORM conformant LMS.

Tools for Trainers – Presenter Mode

In addition to self-paced training, you can now take advantage of presenter mode to present training to groups, meetings and classrooms!

• In self-paced mode, students login to Convergence Training Viewer (CTV) and take computer-based training at their own pace. The content displays the video training as well as text and standard navigation controls. Students complete the training by taking and passing tests.
• In presenter mode, an administrator logs in and launches training in a full-screen environment. The video-training plays in one continuous feed and can be paused and discussed with the group as needed.

Training inside of CTV can be used in either mode, and presenter mode is the first of a set of new features designed to help trainers focus on training.

Already have CTV installed? Simply “Check for Updates” to unlock presenter mode. If not, click here to download.

Free Training-Course Offer

Good News! Convergence Training is offering our users a unique opportunity to receive a copy of one of our Environmental, Health and Safety courses ABSOLUTELY FREE!

Over the past year we have been working hard to develop a brand new training delivery tool – Convergence Training Viewer (CTV). With Convergence Training Viewer you can download some of the most contemporary and highly-effective training content available. Our easy-to-use setup wizard will guide you through the installation process within minutes. Once CTV is installed you can download selected titles from our integrated catalog and train as many users as you want using your personal computer.

For more information on this offer, click on the following link: Convergence Free Course Offer

The CTV Advantage

Why spend hundreds of dollars on DVDs or VHS tapes when the Convergence Training Viewer will allow you to manage, track, and update training for a fraction of the cost? CTV can work in student (self-paced) mode and will automatically track results. CTV can also work in presenter mode (for classroom presentations) for use in groups and meetings. When course updates are released, you can use our simple update feature to download the new content and be ready to train in minutes. CTV will help you get rid of the paper-nightmare and simplify your record keeping. Try it for free today and discover the most powerful new solution for the training industry on the market! Download Now!

Presenter Mode

After receiving feedback from MSHA representitives, customers, and independant trainers, we’ve added Presenter Mode to Convergence Training Viewer. Presenter mode takes advantage of our high-quality training, but gives trainers a tool to use in group settings such as classrooms, meetings, or presentations. Presenter Mode will enable Convergence Training Viewer to be used by students to take self-paced computer based training, but will also allow independent trainers to take advantage of our product to train one or many clients.

Presenter Mode is slated to be released the second week in December. Stay tuned for further updates including screenshots and a How-To for Presenter Mode.