Wärtsilä Land & Sea Academy (WLSA) today opened a new training centre in Turku, Finland. This is one step for WLSA in its development programme of opening three Academies for global coverage of training and competence management services to the personnel of ship owners and power plant owners. A new training centre was opened at Subic Bay in the Philippines in November 2005 and the third is located in Fort Lauderdale, USA. The Academies will form the spine in the global network of other locations at which WLSA also provides training services.
The new WLSA training centre was opened by Tage Blomberg, Group Vice President and Head of the Wärtsilä Service business. In his remarks, he said “These new training centres of WLSA form an important service to customers, helping them to equip their staff with many skills to further enhance their business.”
Wärtsilä Land & Sea Academy is a part of Wärtsilä Corporation’s Service business. WLSA provides the full scope of training to cater for all the needs of ship owners and power plant owners. WLSA is supported globally by six product training centres.
The WLSA scope of service extends from the basic off-the-shelf, standard product courses to the full range of maritime training in connection with competence and career management.
The new training centre in Turku will hold nearly 200 courses during 2006 with some 2000 participants from around the world. The trainees will take advantage of the training centre’s ship-handling simulator bridges, as well as top-of-the-line engine room simulators, cargo-handling simulators, and steam and gas simulators, which all provide thorough hands-on training. All the simulators can be connected for full ship operation simulation. In addition to well-equipped classrooms, there are workshops for practical training also on engines, propulsion equipment, marine high-voltage electrical equipment, engine room ancillary equipment and control systems.
The provision at the new Turku training centre for supporting the growing LNG transportation market is worth special mentioning. The training centre is equipped to provide training on gas engines as well as LNG cargo handling. This is one of the ways that Wärtsilä Land & Sea Academy continuously develops its services to support the changing business demands of the customers today and for the future.
The total number of Wärtsilä personnel in Turku is 250. 150 of these works within service. The number of personnel in the new training centre increases to 14.
Further information: Ms Eeva Kainulainen, Vice President, Corporate Communications +358 10 709 5235.
