Chemical Transportation Giant, Odfjell, Implements SumTotal Systems to Ensure Readiness of Globally Distributed Workforce

May 21, 2004

The Odfjell Common Competence program will support the company’s pursuit of certified Safety & Quality Management Systems (SQMS), ensuring that all employees – no matter where they are located in the company’s worldwide organisation — are actively contributing to improving performance and SQMS procedures. Common Competence will establish a common learning culture for Odfjell worldwide, deliver consistent information and best practices to all employees, and provide the right information at the greatest time of need so that employees are able to do their jobs safely, accurately and effectively.

“Our corporate mission is to continue developing our position as a leading logistic service provider to the chemical industry by offering safe, reliable and efficient services in keeping with the highest quality, safety and environmental standards,” said Brit A. Bennett, vice president of human resources for Odfjell. “To achieve this, we expect our employees to be responsible for the quality of their own work, to know their responsibilities and the applicable procedures to make sure that no activities are overlooked or omitted by mistake, and to contribute proactively towards continuous quality improvements.”

To drive this level of readiness, Odfjell will use the SumTotal Enterprise Suite, including the TotalLMS, Total LCMS and TotalPerformance modules, to create, deliver, manage and measure targeted learning activities covering corporate policy, procedures and culture, as well as business, language and technical training. The company also will use the suite’s in-depth functionality to align the skills and competencies of different job roles with specific business objectives, delivering targeted, specialized training to employees based on function.

“SumTotal was able to provide a solution that both supported our corporate imperatives and made it easy to move to a Web-based learning initiative,” said Bennett. “The suite smoothly integrates into our current technology infrastructure and the modular platform will allow us to change and adapt the solution as our needs grow. We anticipate that the technology will have a long-term, significant impact on the productivity of our employees.”

“Changing economic conditions, fluctuating prices and the ongoing pressure to meet environmental, health and safety standards, make it a challenge to increase competitive advantage in the global chemical services marketplace,” said Andy Eckert, SumTotal CEO. “We know that a highly skilled, knowledgeable workforce is essential to both improving business performance and mitigating risk in companies like Odfjell, so we have designed our solutions to significantly reduce time-to-readiness in critical job functions throughout the enterprise in order to give them that important edge.”

About Odfjell
Odfjell is a leading company in the global market of transporting and storing of chemicals and related logistical services. The fleet totals 89 ships, trading both globally and regionally, of which 47 are owned by the group. Odfjell additionally owns and operates tank terminals and tank containers.

About SumTotal Systems, Inc.
SumTotal Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: SUMT) is the business performance and learning technology industry’s largest single provider of technologies, processes and services. Formed by the merger of industry pioneers Docent and Click2learn, the company is uniquely focused on helping organizations harness and manage mission-critical intellectual power to solve real-world business problems and produce significant bottom-line results. SumTotal has helped accelerate performance and profit for more than 600 of the world’s best-known companies, including Microsoft, Cingular Wireless, Vodafone, Lucent, Accenture, Cendant, Harley-Davidson, Wyeth, Wachovia and D & B. SumTotal Systems is headquartered in Mountain View, CA, with offices throughout the US, as well as London, Paris, Heidelberg, Sydney, Tokyo and Hyderabad, India.


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