I
INSIDE INDUSTRY
14 AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2015 www.vanguardcanada.com
or Montreal, but to Halifax — and the
Province of Nova Scotia — those jobs,
and the development of SMEs like Blue-
drop, are vitally important ingredients as
all levels of government work collabora-
tively on generating economic growth in
the region.
Boeing is a juggernaut of a business,
employing 52,000 people in their De-
fence, Space and Security sector alone,
and approximately 165,000 people over-
all. By contrast, the entire Canadian de-
fence industry employs 65,000. Needless
to say, there is a lot that Bluedrop (and
Canada) can learn from Boeing's success.
That is not lost on Siew. He explains
that the rear crew trainer will utilize the
latest gaming technologies, based on a
Bluedrop system that can be repeated
for other types of virtual trainers that the
company wants to add to their product
suite.
"The way we are approaching this,"
Siew begins, "is that we are developing
a Bluedrop-specific product [that] can be
specifically customized in this particular
case through the Chinook, but the base,
the architecture, the modules, all of those
pieces will all be Bluedrop products that
can be resused on land programs, naval
programs, and aircraft."
Bluedrop will benefit specifically from
the creation of the Chinook rear crew
trainer, but they will be leveraging that
investment to, as Siew puts it, "create a
Bluedrop piece of IP and a product suite
that we can apply to other aircraft types or
other vehicles."
In other words, the announcement on
July 8 was a partnership to create a next-
generation rear crew trainer, but that isn't
the end product. What Bluedrop will end
up with is a trainer that will be applied to
different applications.
Although Rowe never got into this dur-
ing the announcement, in reality, that's
the prize. Boeing's just given the SME a
launchpad, and that means — if all goes
according to plan — the creation of ten
jobs is actually just the beginning.
Jean-Claude Siew, Bluedrop's
Vice President of Technology and
Simulation, is heading up the
next-generation rear crew trainer
program. With over 20 years of
experience working for CAE, a
well-known leader in the field,
Siew is well-suited for the task.
Derrick Rowe, Chairman of
Bluedrop Performance Learning,
has continuously demonstrated
that he can lead and grow
organizations in challenging
economic conditions.
