FURUNO has made agreements with the Turkish company Özsay (OCEAN TRAINING CENTER), who is the national distributor of FURUNO in Turkey, and the Greek training centre GMC to cooperate with FURUNO in the provision of FURUNO type specific ECDIS training. Özsay has since last December provided type specific ECDIS training courses to navigators under the FURUNO NavSkills training agreement. In February GMC will start providing high quality ECDIS training to the market as a member of the FURUNO NavSkills network of training centres, which is building up at present.
The type specific ECDIS training is provided in accordance with the standards set by FURUNO, which are in compliance with the currently known requirements from the various flag states.
GMC Maritime Training Center in Greece
FURUNO established a worldwide training policy which resulted in the NavSkills training concept and product range. The aim of the NavSkills training concept is to ensure that the mariners receives the same level of quality, content and competences from the training in any accredited training centre or from any future training platform provided by FURUNO. For this reason the NavSkills training concept is based on a mutual agreement between FURUNO and the training centre, which stipulates the necessary qualifications of the local instructors, the need for compliance with STCW-2010 requirements and the commitment to provide the high level of training in an identical way to the training provided in FURUNO's own training centres in Denmark and Singapore. As part of the agreement FURUNO will educate the local instructors and provide always updated training materials and exercises and the instructors are offered refresh training when required.
It is the aim that the ship owner can use any assigned NavSkills training centre without having to worry about the quality of the training provided. Any NavSKills training centre has been thoroughly evaluated by FURUNO before entering into the agreement. This has been done to ensure that FURUNO should have the best possible partners in training and that the mariners should be able to receive the training in consistently high standard from any of the NavSkills training centres worldwide.
OCEAN TRAINING CENTER in Turkey
The type specific ECDIS training course offered by FURUNO is a 2 days training course covering the functionality and operation of FURUNO ECDIS model FEA-2107/FEA-2807 in relation to the operational tasks conducted by the navigators throughout the entire process performed by them – planning before departure, under way and after arrival at the destination.
It is the belief of FURUNO that the best way of providing training is to use training centres. In a training centre the navigator has the possibility to have a two way communication with the instructor, who can guide the navigator or advise him.
With the two training centres having joined in the NavSkills network, FURUNO is now able to provide type specific ECDIS training in Germany, Turkey, Greece, Singapore and Denmark. FURUNO is currently working on establishing similar co-operations with local training centres in South, central and North America, Europe, Africa, Oceania and Asia.