Ampco Flashlight train technical engineers in broadcast and live events sector

Ampco Flashlight is an international rental company in lighting, sound, video, motion and rigging equipment. With over 35 years of experience they offer creativity and expertise within the segments of broadcasting, theatre, live and corporate events.

The Challenge

Ampco employs over 140 technicians to operate their equipment, mostly in challenging and forever changing conditions. In addition, the same number of people works on a contract basis. All these people have to work safely, often with brand new equipment.With 30% new hires every year plus a growing number of contractors required a scalable, flexible and economical solution.

The Totara Learn Solutio

The Ampco Flashlight Academy uses Totara as a central system for serving and tracking of e-learning courses and quizzes. In addition the system is used as a central knowledge repository using the Totara page authoring tools as well as PDF’s.Amongst others, Totara Lear contains all manuals of all equipment used.The Flashlight Academy homepage includes readily accessible reference materials like:

• Certification documents relating to safety, health and environment policies.
• Manuals of all equipment used as well as other materials like trucks and forklifts.
• Links to all relevant website pages from manufacturers and suppliers.
• Knowledge banks with procedure guidelines, definitions and other practical info
• Feedback form for all training evaluatio

 Each Flashlight Academy course consists of 4 parts:

• E-learning lessons, made with Articulate Studio ’13 from MS PowerPoint sources. Each lesson consists of a short video, pictures and spoken text.
• Practice Exam made in Totara Learn with 20 multiple choice questions pulled from a 60-question bank. Students get direct feedback and need to score 70% to proceed.
• Final Exam made in Totara Learn using 30 true/false questions drawn randomly from a collection of 120. Students need to score 70% and have a maximum of 2 attemps
• Reference materials including manuals, how-to’s, standards sheets and instruction videos. The online courses are primarily used to deliver all the relevant theory.

 In addition each course has a practical instruction part to demonstrate, practice and coach on the handling of the equipment. It is worth noticing that the Ampo Flashlight Academy is accessed in large through mobile devices, specifically iPads.Using a responsive theme for Totara, Articulate ’13 and with many video experiments – Ampco has been able to solve this challenge too.

“We have never regretted our choice for standard products like Totara Learn and Articulate Studio.Both products are flexible, affordable tools for a modest-sized company to be able to offer an effective curriculum for the entertainment industry.The availability of a local partner like The Courseware Company has been instrumental in selecting the rights tools and quick system training and implementation.Their day-to-day support and experience continues to be a valuable asset.”

The Results

• Using elearning with tests as a prerequisite for the subject matter theory has resulted in cost savings as well as better utilisation of the actual face2face instruction.
• Substantial cost savings and increased scalability in training a workforce with high turnover including contractors.
• Increased service quality and a consistent compliance with relevant regulations and standards.
• One access point for learning and knowledge.