21 Oct 02. Outstart has won a £1m contract from Westland Customer Training to train 68,000 military personnel as part of the BOWMAN programme to push e-learning to 68,000 military personnel in 65 locations. Using Outstart’s OutStart Evolution(r) and SoftSim(tm) e-learning platform, military trainers across the world will collaboratively develop learning content, to push to military personnel through a wide variety of media including the Web, Powerpoint and even mobile servers for those in the field. Learners will then be able to simulate the new communications system, using Outstart’s software simulator, Soft Sim.
by UK-based Westland Helicopter Ltd, an AgustaWestland company,
“The BOWMAN PROGRAMME requires advanced technical training on a massive scale,” Chris Burton, Training Solutions Manager at Westland. “The BOWMAN training programme required a wide breadth of functionality covering training content development, delivery management and training validation. Whilst coupled with the need for high levels of configuration management, process efficiency and rapid content changes in support of through-life BOWMAN equipment updates. Evolution provided us with an integrated solution that met these needs and provided future scalability through a compatible upgrade path. Additionally, OutStart’s high visibility references, professional implementation methodology and their innate understanding and flexibility to our key programme drivers de-risked the programme, providing a total solution”
“OutStart is the best choice for global organisations that need to capture and manage both knowledge and experience and make it available to learners when, where and how they need it,” said John Feighan, Managing Director of EMEA at OutStart. “We are delighted that Westland recognised our unmatched strength in powering global learning initiatives.”
Westland will use OutStart Evolution and SoftSim as an integrated solution. By using Evolution, the armed forces of the UK will easily capture unique knowledge about the BOWMAN PROGRAMME as learning content assets. The review cycle for developing these assets will be a collaborative process that involves authors located throughout the world. Evolution will store learning assets in a repository, and then deliver the assets to the right person, at the right time, the right way, to make him or her proficient on the BOWMAN technology.
The same learning content can be delivered through the Web, classroom materials, printed documents, PowerPoint slides, or whichever medium is most effective for learners. In addition to these traditional, multi-channel delivery environments, delivery will also occur through mobile servers, which will allow training to be driven to members of the military in the field via mobile vehicles. OutStart SoftSim will provide real life simulations of software environments that are used to support the BOWMAN technology. Users will be able interact with, receive tutorials on, and test themselves within simulated environments of the software to become highly proficient more quickly, without risking the integrity of the actual production system or software.
OutStart provides a proven, content-centric learning platform for corporations seeking to increase individual and organizational performance to create a sustainable competitive advantage. Most learning software was initially administration-centric, focusing on class scheduling, catalog creation and user registration. The next generation, being led by OutStart, is content-centric, focusing on the creation, storage, reuse, management, and intelligent delivery of learning content. This content-centric approach enables an organization to transform its unique business knowledge into practical learning assets, deliver those learning assets to the right person, the right way, at the right time, and capitalize on those assets throughout the extended enterprise to drive sustainable competitive advantage. OutStart enables world