SITA calculated that by the end of the project, it will have cut the time-to-market by more than a year, enabling customers to take advantage of the new software sooner and realizing significant cost savings for customers and the company itself. Moreover, customer staff reported high levels of satisfaction and acceptance, and the long-term burden of user support was significantly reduced.

When you fly with virtually any airline around the world, it is SITA’s information and communications technology that makes your trip possible. One of the most important SITA applications, used by over 100 customers (airlines and ground handlers) worldwide, is load planning. Load planning ensures that the weight distribution within an aircraft is optimal for safe takeoff and landing, plus it has a significant impact on fuel efficiency. When SITA decided to replace its legacy load-planning system, it soon identified that training-delivery lead times were going to be the limiting factor in project implementation. It needed a strategy to transition customers to the new Horizon Weight&Balance application in a timely and effective manner, using a model that could also be used as other new applications are released in future. For many years, SITA had used classroom training on a train-the-trainer basis, one customer at a time.

SITA sought a new approach to create the vast amounts of training materials required to support the Horizon development and release plan. The company proposed a "flipped classroom" model, in which students, using eLearning modules, conduct most of their learning outside the classroom at their own pace before attending a classroom session focused on real-life scenarios. The classroom session is then followed by an additional knowledge check, and finally students obtain their completion certificate. Classroom times are reduced for students, and the level of knowledge retention has proved to be far higher.

SITA selected tt knowledge force because it best suited the company’s demanding criteria, such as easy content creation and editing, integration with the company’s learning-management system (LMS) via the SCORM standard, easy re-recording of screens, and adaptability to multiple roles and multiple languages.

SITA analyzed Horizon Weight&Balance and broke it down into 133 learning objects, which were arranged into nine training modules and mapped onto three roles. Using tt knowledge force, SITA built all 133 learning objects over the course of three months with a simple workflow, together with training manuals and SCORM eLearning packs, which were loaded into the SITA University LMS.

"Creating learning modules in tt knowledge force was fast and flexible: It enabled us to train employees at multiple customer organizations in parallel, rather than sequentially using the old train-the-trainer method," according to Peg Wyse, Project Manager & Training Administrator, SITA. "As a result, our new Horizon load-planning application was up and running very quickly. Moreover, the solution is transferrable to all Horizon applications that we release in future."

tts Managing Director, Hermann Ude, commented, "Internationally active organizations like SITA are rethinking their approach to training and knowledge transfer to reduce costs and accelerate speed to market as they introduce new processes and technologies. It often makes far more sense to take the training to the user, rather than the user to the trainer, and follow this with performance support at the workplace. We are delighted that SITA has achieved such a high return on its investment in blended learning with the help of tts."

tt knowledge force and innovative training delivery methods reduced implementation time for the new load-planning application from more than three to less than two years, enabling customers to benefit from the new product sooner and increasing return on investment.