Thursday's grand opening was attended by company officials including Carnival Corp. chairman Micky Arison and ceo Arnold Donald. The center was named to honor Arison and his father Ted, who founded Carnival.
At 110,000 square feet, the facility at Almere, Netherlands, is more than double the size of the company’s current training center, allowing Carnival Corp. to provide annual training to more than 6,500 officers and engineers. The campus also will include an advanced medical center and an 11-story, 176-room hotel for trainees.
The centerpiece of the seven-acre campus is the new and more than two-times-larger Center for Simulator Maritime Training Academy (CSMART), a maritime training, professional development and research facility that began operating in Almere in 2009. The center will feature bridge and engine room simulators that use innovative technology and training, modeled closely after the technology and practices used in the airline and other industries.
The opening of Arison Maritime Center and expansion of the CSMART Academy are a 'major milestone in our company’s history and an exciting day for all of us at Carnival Corporation,' said David Christie, svp maritime quality assurance for Carnival Corp. He added that the center underscores 'the depth of our commitment to making sure our ships sail as safely as possible.
'Our bridge and engineering officers are the heart and soul of our ship operations, and this center takes to a new level our dedication to providing our officers with the maritime industry’s most comprehensive and progressive safety training,' Christie continued.
The CSMART Academy will feature four full-mission bridge simulators and four full-mission engine room simulators to provide a wide array of programming and exercises that recreate an extensive range of maritime scenarios. There will be 24 part-task engine simulators, eight debriefing rooms and eight part-task bridge simulators—all giving participants the visual elements of 60 ports around the world including Los Angeles, New York, Miami, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Singapore and Alaska's Glacier Bay.
The technology reflects real-world scenarios and sea conditions including ship traffic, aircraft interference, weather events and wildlife circumvention. Modeled after the bridge on Holland America Line's new Koningsdam, the CSMART Academy’s full-mission bridge simulators provide an authentic shipboard experience to build skills in navigating with complex control and automation systems.
The full-mission engine room simulators also are based on actual ship layouts and systems, scaled to size and representing a diesel electric engine room comprising six diesel generators and two propulsion motors, along with ancillary and auxiliary equipment. The simulators allow trainees to work in a realistic engine room setting to operate and repair equipment, with the genuine sights, sounds and even temperatures found shipboard.
The CSMART Academy has been key to developing and refining a function- and team-based bridge and engine room management system on a large scale. This approach is based on roles rather than ranks, with officers operating as a coordinated team, with each officer assigned a role for specific functions. The approach encourages team members of all ranks and seniority to speak up to challenge or question a decision.
The Arison Maritime Center will provide the additional space needed to implement the cruise industry's first Proficiency Training and Assessment program. This week-long course is based on a specially developed curriculum that annually refreshes and then evaluates each of the corporation's maritime officers.
The grand opening of the center included a ceremony and tours attended by Carnival Corp.'s global leadership team and board members and government officials including Maarten Camps, secretary general of the ministry of economic affairs for the Netherlands, and Franc Weerwind, mayor of Almere.
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