CSX Corporation

Problem: Efficiently and inexpensively train the company's many conductors, engineers, locomotive mechanics, track personnel, dispatchers, and others.

Solution: StarWare digital video networking software enables NetWare server-based interactive video delivery.

Benefit: Reduces training time by 50%, and provides consistent training delivery.

CSX faced the daunting and expensive task of delivering consistent training to thousands of employees scattered across the eastern half of the country at a reasonable cost. The company chose Starlight Networks' StarWare(r) software to deliver networked multimedia, including digital video to its employees - revolutionizing the way training is done at CSX while helping to reduce training costs in the future. In fact, CSX expects the cost of the entire system to be recouped within a three-year period.

"CSX needed a way to deliver digital multimedia training simultaneously to multiple users, smoothly and with high quality," explains Dennis Gay, Senior Director for Training and Instructional Design at CSX. "Starlight's StarWare played a key part in helping us cost-effectively solve the bottlenecks involved with delivering digital video via a network."

Until recently, CSX handled training in a more traditional manner. Gay explains, "We have been sending large numbers of instructors all over our territory to conduct classes. This met our training needs, but it was very time-consuming and expensive. Also, the training was not consistent, and people were taken away from work longer than they needed to be."

CSX is on track with its newly implemented networked multimedia training system, made possible, in large part, by Starlight Networks' StarWare. StarWare is a standard Novell NetWare NLM (NetWare Loadable Module) that converts an existing NetWare file server into a digital video and data server, making it easy to add digital video to a network.

Delivering networked digital video

After looking at the results of several government studies on the effectiveness of various training methods, Gay knew multimedia-based training using digital video would be most effective. Gay then chose a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, multimedia developer to design the system. The president of the multimedia development firm explains why the system required digital versus analog video, "The application had to run on a network and be easily updated. This would not have been possible with analog video," he says. "In addition, the application had to run without an administrator. To administer analog video, someone would need to hand analog disks to students. With digital video and StarWare, the application is loaded to a server, whereby students can access it from the network at will."

Starlight Networks' StarWare was chosen to deliver the networked multimedia. "Quality and reliability are a must in producing quality training programs. The quality and integrity of the courseware," says Gay, "are as dependent on a reliable delivery mechanism as they are on the content."

StarWare became the core multimedia server technology for the system. Today, CSX has implemented eight training "pods" consisting of five 486/50 MHz workstations connected via Token-Ring, a 486/66 server with 8+ GB of disk storage and 32 MB RAM running StarWare. Each workstation is installed with an ActionMedia II card supporting PLV digital video. Each pod is connected to the CSX mainframe at headquarters in Jacksonville, Florida, via a 3270 gateway that allows updating of student records in the Human Resources database. The user interface and courseware were designed using Authorware Professional. Multimedia content was created using a variety of software tools, including Adobe Photoshop, Animator Pro, and Wave for Windows.

According to Gay, StarWare solved many of the problems traditionally associated with setting up networked digital video applications. Gay realized that traditional networks would get bogged down and deliver digital video in fits and starts. "We found that StarWare solved the problem of delivering networked multimedia applications across the network to multiple users simultaneously," explains Gay. StarWare monitors and manages network traffic, prioritizing digital video traffic higher than nondigital video to ensure high quality, smooth playback to digital video users.

Benefits of the new system

Gay says the advantages of the new training system using StarWare are tremendous. "With our networked multimedia training system, CSX can now provide consistent training, conveniently located for employees," explains Gay. "Most dramatically, multimedia training prepares people to do their jobs well, in a shorter period of time than traditional classroom methods. In addition, because we can offer just-in-time training, employees can train when they need to, and not have to wait for a scheduled classroom session. To top it off, we are confident that we will recoup the cost of the entire system during the first three years of training." The first round of training involves 2,500 employees at four large locomotive repair shops.

Other benefits of the system, according to Gay, include the ability to automate record-keeping and get training information, such as student scores, back in real time. CSX is regulated by the federal government, so extensive training documentation and record-keeping is required. The new system makes the necessary record-keeping painless.

Students will find the new system very easy to use. A screen saver changes to a screen that prompts the user for his or her name and employee identification number. Then data is passed to the mainframe at headquarters in real time. When authorization is granted from the corporate mainframe, training begins. Students use a trackball to navigate through the training. StarWare enables full digital video network-based training, so students do not have to worry about keeping track of floppy disks, laser discs, CD-ROMs, or hard drives.

CSX's new training programs are winning acclaim in other arenas. In fact, the company's Direct Work Order Reporting (DWOR) training program recently won a bronze medal in this year's NewMedia INVISION Multimedia Awards competition, which was announced at the Spring '94 COMDEX computer trade show.

CSX is impressed with the results of the new training system. So impressed that Gay envisions this StarWare solution as only the beginning for networked, multimedia training at CSX. "Eventually", Gay says, "I feel that all training will reside on one centralized host computer, and employees will use the WAN to access training in real time. For the foreseeable future, we plan to have a total of 22 training pods installed using StarWare by the end of 1994, and add eight more in 1995. And I believe that number may increase."

Environment at a glance

Hardware: Several IBM 3270 mainframes; Intel 486/66 server with 32 MB RAM and 8+ GB of storage; and AT&T 3333 486/50 MHz client workstations with ActionMedia II video cards.

Network environment: Token-Ring.

Software: StarWare-6M from Starlight Networks.

Video compression format: PLV video.

Authoring tool: Authorware Professional.

StarWare is a registered trademark of Starlight Networks, Inc.

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