09.01.2010 News: Acimac launches international e-learning academy
The International Industry E-learning Academy IIEA set up by Acimac (Italian Ceramic Machinery and Equipment Manufacturers’ Association) was presented this morning at the Association’s headquarters in Villa Marchetti in Baggiovara (province of Modena).
“Our association has always been strongly committed to training activities both in Italy and abroad,” declared Paolo Gambuli, director general of Acimac. “To provide an even better and up-to-date service, we have decided to complement traditional classroom-based teaching activities with an online training method that is more versatile and effective and adapts to evolving company requirements.”
For this reason, the courses are not designed exclusively for the ceramic machinery industry but are also aimed at manufacturers, retailers and professionals in other industrial sectors.
To use the courses, all that is required is a computer and an Internet connection. The courses are interactive and multimedia, consisting of videos, texts and images that help participants maintain a high level of attention. The learning materials are available on the IIEA platform and can be consulted at any time. IIEA also offers a complete system for assessing learning progress.
“The most unique and innovative aspect of our school is the availability of courses tailored to individual companies’ requirements,” adds IIEA director Cinzia Gennarelli. “One of the most important competitive factors today, particularly in difficult periods like the present, is effective management of company knowledge, all the experience, expertise and processes that make our companies competitive in world markets. IIEA is a partner that can help companies catalogue and organise the wealth of company knowledge and expertise that is currently distributed amongst the various offices, stored on individual computers and in documents or in some cases simply passed on orally between employees. This way it can be made available to internal and external personnel (salespersons, agents, representatives, installers) who often live in countries very distant from the company headquarters.”
For this purpose, the consulting support provided by IIEA starts out from a detailed analysis of the requirements and the documentation of individual companies in order to create a comprehensive training programme that can be adapted over the years.
The IIEA courses consist of: custom courses (courses tailored to individual company requirements and capable of managing internal and external company expertise and monitoring progress and learning); standard courses (training courses on general business themes and areas of specific interest for individual industrial sectors); courses on request (IIEA receives requests for training from the market and designs courses in accordance with the high IIEA quality standards); and conventional classroom-based courses.
The IIEA technological platform is based on open source software (so expenditure for software or licences is not required) developed by the University of Cologne, which combines a high degree of customisation and versatility with excellent levels of security. All material resides on protected servers and is password protected. It is possible to trace and authorise individual PCs (identifiable via the machine’s IP address) and monitor consultation and download times.
“These are important features that encouraged us to fully embrace this training method,” said Acimac’s Vice Chairman Barbara Franchini. “We believe that it may provide effective support for all companies wishing to start up an ongoing, modern and effective training process that will enable them to remain competitive and thereby improve services and customer support all over the world.”
Acimac
Association of Italian Manufacturers of Machinery and Equipment for Ceramics
Villa Marchetti
Via Fossa Buracchione, 84 I 41100 Baggiovara (MO) IItaly
T +39 (0) 0 59 51 03 36 I F +39 (0) 0 59 51 21 75
acimac@acimac.it Iinfo@acimac.it
