Target Groups

Short Term Target Groups

For achieving the foreseen objectives, the OPTIMUS approach has to address and solve needs coming from both trainers and trainees sides. For this reason the outcomes will be addressed to two different types of target groups:
  • Target Groups Type 1 (Vocational Training Providers): Training Departments of companies operating in the sector; Public Authorities involved in (Vocational) Training issues; Training Agencies and Professionals; Trainers; Human Resources Departments of global port and logistic sector companies.
    • Needs: Simulators are complex and expensive machine, they require specific skills, methodologies and contents for their optimal use. When requested to design, develop, organize, carry out, evaluate simulation-based training actions, people belonging to this group needs precise references for properly proceeding in a quite new sector like this one.
  • Target Groups Type 2 (Learners): People already working in port or logistic sector companies, more specifically in driving and maneuvering goods handling machines (as mobile cranes, forklift trucks, etc.). Unemployed people, first job seekers, students of technical, transport-related schools and more in general people who is willing to work in the goods transport / handling sectors, more specifically where the driving and maneuvering of goods-handling machines is an integral part of the work process.
    • Needs: People already working in this sector, before benefiting of simulation-based training, needs to acquire information about how to interact with a simulator, about procedures to be followed, about the learning contents that will be supplied, in order to properly approaching the simulation-based experience. Moreover, they needs to increase their cognitive skills and knowledge regarding maintenance procedures, safety regulations, and heightened security measures. On the other hand, people who is willing to work in this sector (unemployed, first job seekers, students) needs detailed information about jobs description, required skills, competencies and abilities, work processes description and more in general all the information needed for a proper vocational guidance activity.

 
Currently, all of the ports have staff devoted to loading and unloading from vessels. This staff, who, depending on the country involved, is employed by the companies responsible for stowage and unstowage by the port in question, will be the focus of the project throughout its lifetime. The same staff that work in the ports participating in OPTIMUS will be the ones who will receive the relevant training. Furthermore, one of the project’s objectives is to reach not only this staff, but also that of other ports who are interested in the project’s results.
 
The different companies will outline a training plan for their staff taking into account their availability and the plan’s compatibility with working hours, while encouraging the participation in these tasks of staff that already have training responsibilities with simulation media. 
 
So, it is in this way that the ports and port labour suppliers have decided that the groups who are the focus of the project will participate in the project throughout its lifetime.
 
Specific actions will be developed to get the Vocational Training Providers involved, first through WP1 by the development of methodologies for workers and through WP6 (exploitation activities).
Outcomes foreseen: WP1.1.; WP1.2.; WP1.3.; WP4.1.; WP5.1.; WP5.2.; WP5.3.; WP6.1.
 
Specific actions will be also developed to get Learners involved, first through WP2 by the development of training materials and through WP3 (pilot experiences).
Outcomes foreseen: WP2.1; WP2.2.; WP3.1.; WP5.1.; WP5.2.; WP5.3.
 

Long Term Target Groups

 

These groups are port companies, workers operating in the port sector and training agencies. The foreseen outcomes are intended not to end up in the project but to serve as a reference for these groups, for they to use the generated material.
OPTIMUS final objective is the setting up of a training system (made up of didactic methodologies, learning contents, IT tools) aimed at favouring as much as possible the adoption and the use of simulators for training activities.A spread and wide use of such innovative way of training will generate, when achieved, several benefits both for companies and for workers operating in the sectors addressed.
 
Simulation-based training activities in these sectors could, at the same time:
  • increase operators proficiency;
  • decrease risks and possibility of accidents;
  • reduce on-the-job training;
  • increase equipment availability for live cargo operations
 
Thus, in the competitive business of port privatisation and port holding operations, more widely used simulation environments for training could offer a proven competitive advantage and risk management support.
 
OPTIMUS work plan foresees specific dissemination and exploitation meetings, both at local and European level, organized and sponsored by partners who are playing relevant role in the sector addressed (as Port Authorities and Port Companies), in order to sensitize potential users to the project outcomes and for favouring the adoption of possible results exploitation policies by the port and logistic sector companies.
Moreover, the pilot experiences phase foreseen in the work plan will play an important role also for proceeding in the way of long-term objectives achievement, by demonstrating to the interested users the applicability of the developed system.
 
As the target groups are wider than just the employees of the partners participating in the project, calls will also be made to the staff of other ports and companies. These will have been previously contacted so as to inform them of the work being carried out. Within the port sector, there is a growing awareness of the need for workers to have prior training before coming into contact with machinery. This training will take the form of simulation.