Simulation Collaboration: Boeing Meets with MITAGS-PMI on Training and Assessment

This week at Pacific Maritime Institute in Seattle, Director Captain Bill Anderson Jr. and the simulation development team at MITAGS-PMI met with Dr. Barbara Holder, the lead scientist conducting research and development on training and assessment at Boeing.

The maritime and aviation industries share many of the same concerns and challenges with regard to training, technical proficiency, and safety issues. Both industries move people and goods under a variety of challenging conditions.  Both industries require highly qualified professionals in command of their assets.  The critical question is:  What is the best way to train these professionals to perform their tasks as safely as possible?

A key component in the safety record of the aviation industry is simulation training.  Boeing was a pioneer in the development and use of this technology.  Boeing makes use of simulation to create rigorous training sessions and to evaluate pilot performance and capability once the training sessions are completed.  According to Dr. Holder, simulation enables an immersion in the work context and promotes skill and knowledge integration and effective transfer to the actual work environment.

This is the sort of training and evaluation that is currently being implemented in the maritime industry.

The MITAGS-PMI Navigational Skills Assessment Program (NSAP) was discussed at length, and Dr. Holder believes that PMI’s simulation development team is creating effective training and evaluation for mariners at all levels. Dr. Holder also indicated that the scenario-based testing that is currently being implemented by MITAGS-PMI is in line with what Boeing is hoping to do in the future, in addition to their event-based simulation. This is a global aviation trend that is widely supported by the industry as the way forward.

The collaboration between Pacific Maritime Institute, the Maritime Institute of Technology and Graduate Studies, and Boeing is an exciting step toward providing both industries with fresh ideas and more effective tools for training and evaluation.