Successful collaboration between Falck Risc and E-Semble
Published: 11 January, 2010
Rotterdam-based Falck Risc has been offering virtual training courses using XVR, the software developed by Dutch company E-Semble. The collaboration between Falck and E-Semble has proved internationally successful and meets the needs of industrial fire services.
The virtual training courses are provided at both the Falck Risc training centre and on other locations. The customer can opt for either team or individual training and chooses his own training scenarios. The Falck training staff prepare the required scenarios in XVR, and draw up a timetable for the exercise. By adjusting scenarios to customer-specific wishes, the instructors can easily respond to situations the course participants come up against in their own environment.
The company fire brigade at Industrial Park Vlissingen (IPV) in Flushing, The Netherlands, was one of the first groups to receive training this year, using XVR. The purpose of the training programme was to prepare the operational manager for his task during a repressive call-out. To achieve this, IPV held the virtual exercise in the morning, followed up by matching practice follow ups in the afternoon, at the training location.
Before the virtual environment became available, these training courses often consisted of a morning session of basic training followed by practical deployment training later in the day. The response from the course participants to this new way of training was 100% positive.
Mr J.J. van den Boom, Commander of the Industrial Park Vlissingen fire brigade commented: “I certainly recognise the added value of this approach. The whole group is trained simultaneously, everyone becomes fully involved in the scenario and everyone can contribute ideas. Looking to the future I would like to see possibilities for virtual training for the entire emergency services organisation, in a simple manner. Everyone could then focus on their own specialist field, but all within a combined scenario.”
