Portfolio Expansion

This 16 July, Group Editor Marty Kauchak completed a brief, but wide-ranging, interview with Kishor Mistry, Group CEO at Peak Pacific, and Robert Torio, the company’s Manager Client Engagement & Business Development.

Whilethe Hong Kong-based industry expert introduces enhanced and new products fromits current competencies, it is also exploring new technology thrusts. Thecontent from their discussion follows.

PeakPacific provides strategic and innovative management of training and contentdelivery, in civil aviation and other technology-enabled environments. PeakPacific’s offerings to the aviation industry include the NetDimensions TalentSuite (NTS). “In fact, Peak Pacific is the only global partner for aviation inthe NetDimensions partner network,” Mistry pointed out. As this content waspublished, several of Peak Pacific’s legacy and low-cost airline clients wereusing the NTS. In addition, the Peak Pacific Academy platform, powered by NTS,has a growing number of additional private and charter airline clients that arealso using the suite.

PeakPacific sees two evolving trends in the Learning Management System (LMS)technology space.

“ForLearning and Development (L&D) type clients, their main requirement iscentered around the continuing development of staff and ease of use of thesystem from a user perspective,” he noted and continued, “They want a moremobile driven system, to be able to see graphical representations of the user’sprogress and monitor progress throughout their career. For L&D clients thisis still very much a ‘classroom driven and human resource-controlled’ worldwhere staff ‘learn a skill for a job’, and not necessarily focusing onmaintaining that skill through the system.”

PeakPacific’s business model is also harmonized with the aviation community’s focuson evolving regulatory standards. The company has observed that its clientswith regulatory requirements, tend to have very different users – where the enduser rarely selects a course, but is assigned to them based on regulatoryrequirements.

“Thistends not to be a ‘one-off’ event, therefore automation around the assigning ofcourses to users, re-certification and expiring certifications is moreimportant. These clients have a more operational requirement than a staff-developmentenvironment. They are teaching new skills, but they are primarily checkingexisting skills to meet the demands of regulations. The user interface isimportant, but the administration interface is critical, as most courseplanning is done by administrators, as it is the statistical information thatcomes out of the annual and multi-year course and user evaluation data. Thisdata drives the direction of content and content design updates through thecomprehensive surveys that Peak Pacific designs and builds into the courseware.Much of this will be driven by our AI initiatives in the near future,” Torioadded.

Theregulator requirements, which are evolving in Peak Pacific’s main, traditionalmarkets of the Asia Pacific, Middle East and Europe, have implications inadjacent learning technologies. The industry veteran pointed out that ingeneral, regulators are primarily focused on courseware quality with respect totraining effectiveness, system security and fidelity of data, and in somecases, user authentication. Accordingly, “The NTS LMS is built for compliance,and is probably the most robust LMS for the aviation sector, since Peak Pacifichas been working the past 10 years with NetDimensions to guide the productdirection for NTS, develop the Exam system and administration features that arecustom-tailored for aviation.”

Anotheremerging trend in the training and learning management systems sector, is thecollaborative efforts of companies to integrate legacy systems into newofferings. For its part, Peak Pacific is working with several third-partysystem vendors to look into streamlining how the LMS can become a component ofa more detailed “ecosystem”, particularly in aviation.

“Aviationhas always been a growth area for Peak Pacific and we are looking at ways toimprove the complete end to end experience for users, administrators andmanagement from training and resource management, business modelling,certification and licensing processes for airline pilots and trainingdepartments so that they get more time in the air which helps with the globalpilot shortage. Our CLEAR product (a robust competency-based assessment,grading and analysis system) is already making a difference in those airlinesthat have implemented it. Our development around combining systems for thefuture will enhance these capabilities even further,” Torio remarked.

Software andMore

Inanother part of its portfolio, Peak Pacific currently has two software productsthat have been built specifically for the aviation sector.

Thefirst is CLEAR, introduced earlier in this article, which is offered either asa comprehensive Training Management System (TMS), grading, assessment reportingor analytics tool fully integrated with HR, LMS or rostering/scheduling systemsor as a specific module, depending on what an aviation client already has inplace. Mistry explained the vision and direction, “The system is not a pre-EBT

-era legacy system, in the sense it wasn’t built 10-15years ago like many other TMSs in the aviation industry. Peak Pacific’s TMS wasdeveloped in 2013-14, when EBT was becoming more visible in the training space,thus, we had the benefit of collaborating and had guidance from industrysubject matter experts and organizations that provided input in the design ofour TMS. This included SMEs and training stakeholders from different airlinesand aviation organizations. And we are constantly engaged with airlines andaviation stakeholders even now so Peak Pacific’s TMS represents, in a small way,an industry-user driven direction.”

PeakPacific’s second product is a simulator curriculum design and development toolfor simulator and flight training assessments called eTo (Electronic TrainingObjects) – which will soon connect directly to simulators as part of its fullyground to air ecosystem for learning and training solutions. “The core of thisproduct is an EBT-based analysis capability based around the simulator lessoncurriculum. It has been developed by pilots, with complete collaboration withairlines, instructors and other stakeholders. This is what one could call a‘game changer’,” the Group CEO said.

BothCLEAR and eTo are in the market and being used by Peak Pacific’s clients andwill be among the company’s products available for demonstration to delegatesat APATS 2018. Further, Torio added, “By 2018 last quarter, you should see somesignificant announcements on both these products.”

Also,on Peak Pacific’s business horizon, the firm will release, probably by APATS,its first B2C [business-to-customer] product which is currently in testingphase. Torio emphasized, “This is the first Personal Safety app that haspotential benefit for aviation professionals and citizens in general.”

Attention toR&D

On the “state-of-the possible” side of the Peak Pacific portfolio, through the past few years, the company has been making significant R&D investments in the virtual reality and mobile content spaces, including global partnerships in platforms, and creating additional content design and development capacities. The company’s partnerships include those with well-established and recognized, VR solution providers DiSTI and Immerse. “This content segment will see a significant development by early 2019 at our end,” the corporate manager concluded.

Published in CAT issue 5/2018