Lockheed Martin: Rustici Engine case study

Lockheed Martin, a global security, innovation and aerospace company, now has the ability to deliver their learning environment, built on the SAP Learning Solution (LSO), via mobile devices to employees thanks to the use of Twine™, a player created by HCLabs in partnership with Rustici Software. Using Twine™, Lockheed Martin empowers their employees and contractors to take their courses from any location, an effort that well-aligns with the company’s overall vision, and ensures that their content is compatible with new and evolving standards like the Experience API (xAPI).

HCLabs is a software provider that extends the capabilities of SAP and SuccessFactors Learning solutions. Rustici Software was chosen as HCLabs’s strategic partner in an effort to deliver a more stable and dependable content player to their customers, particularly those in highly regulated industries. SCORM Engine solves customer issues around publishing and playback in addition to opening a path forward for SAP Learning Solutions by accommodating a variety of SCORM “flavors” produced by third party content tools and vendors.

Todd Newton, Partner, Development Services at HCLabs says of the partnership, “By incorporating Rustici Software’s SCORM Engine as a component of Twine™, HCLabs is able to give customers the content-related user experience and reliability they need to enable them to focus on optimizing learning for their employees rather than the underlying technology.”

Twine™ customers like Lockheed Martin can rest assured: no matter where eLearning content was created, it can easily be played on mobile or desktop if it’s compatible with eLearning standards.

The challenge

Lockheed Martin uses the SAP Learning Solutions (LSO) to manage employee training for 97,000+ full-time employees worldwide and countless contractors. In 2014, Lockheed Martin issued a directive to provide mobile applications for all of their training. However, LSO is a traditional web application that does not support mobile devices. Additionally, Lockheed Martin wanted to ensure that both learners and managers could easily view/set training requirements, take online training and self-acknowledge training completions.

At that time, HCLabs, which is a SAP Silver Partner, commonly heard complaints from their customers regarding problems publishing and playing their learning content in the SAP Learning Solution. They wanted to offer their customers a long-term solution to this challenge so customers could continue to use LSO as their consolidated platform for distributing, managing and understanding employee training.

The solution

Lockheed Martin developed a solution using Fiori as their design methodology, SAPUI5 as their underlying technology to support Fiori development and HCLabs’s Twine™ player as SAP LSO’s alternate content player. HCLabs’s Twine™ player, which features SCORM Engine, is pre-integrated with SAP’s Learning Solution and provides Lockheed Martin a playback solution that can be used from mobile applications and existing desktop implementations.

By using SCORM Engine, Twine™ accounts for common problems for SAP Learning Solution customers, ensuring that eLearning content is played reliably no matter whether it uses SCORM, xAPI, AICC or cmi5.

The benefits

Provides access to eLearning leadership
Both Lockheed Martin and HCLabs’s decision was influenced by Rustici Software’s leadership in the eLearning space. Lockheed Martin knew they could trust the playback of HCLabs’s responsive player because it was powered by SCORM Engine. HCLabs knew their product would reliably evolve with eLearning standards because of Rustici Software’s role as a global leader in developing eLearning specifications, including xAPI.

Seamless interoperability
SCORM Engine provides Twine™ customers the opportunity to import, launch and track eLearning standards like xAPI, SCORM, cmi5 and AICC. Further, Twine™ provides the ability to convert SCORM and AICC data to xAPI data (statements). The product also includes access to a Learning Record Store (LRS).

Offers an easy set up
For HCLabs, the most appealing aspect of SCORM Engine is its simplicity. SCORM Engine eliminates the difficulties of implementing support for the eLearning standards and keeping up with their evolution. Similarly, Lockheed Martin was drawn to Twine™ because it was easy to install and required minimal configuration. It integrated seamlessly into their existing LSO product, requiring them only to add a few lines of code and bring in a couple of transports.

The results

Using SCORM Engine, HCLabs has been able to deliver a more stable and dependable content player for SAP LSO customers, which is exactly what they need. They have found their customers to be more satisfied with their experience and more empowered to leverage the latest trends in the eLearning space such as xAPI and responsive design. Lockheed Martin has achieved their company’s vision of delivering mobile-friendly training. Now, all new training development is created with an aim of “mobile-first.”