The SUSMILE project sets the foundations for the training material to be developed

The SUSMILE European project, coordinated by the Basque Mobility and Logistics Cluster, and financed by the European Commission, through SEPIE, the Spanish National Agency for International Education, in its 9 months of execution, has already laid the foundations of the two digital training tools that will be developed on the subject of sustainable last mile logistics. Both tools will be offered within a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course).

On the one hand, the MOOC will have an e-Learning Module that will have more than 70 training capsules, and each one will deal with a specific theme of sustainable last mile logistics, such as the actors involved, types of products to be distributed, B2B or B2C distribution models, types of media and/or vehicles to be used, the environmental impact it generates, tools that help its economic and environmental efficiency… All these topics will be covered in four types of training capsules:

• There will be six practical capsules, two for each of the three Chapters that make up the e-Learning Module, with different difficulties. Three will be developed with intermediate level students in mind (EQF4), and another three for a higher level (EQF 5 and 6).
• Another 8 capsules will be developed under the typology of “interviews”, which will collect the point of view of experts in the field in an agile and close way.
• About 40 capsules will be of the “document or source” type, where the student will be asked to read several articles, or to browse a specific web page. The idea is that the reader becomes familiar with the primary sources to take into account when carrying out sustainable last-mile logistics and knows where to find the latest news. Many of these capsules will be completed with practical activities to ensure their assimilation.
• And finally, the consortium will develop its own “e-learning” type capsules, around 20, which will increase the student’s dedication to less than 20 minutes on a specific topic. In this case too, the profile to which the material is directed will be taken into account, so some content will be generic and others only for higher level students.

And meanwhile, the bases of the serious video game SUSMILE have also been defined, where through the game, and based on a decision-making methodology; the user must apply the knowledge acquired in the e-Learning Module, as a sustainable last mile logistics operator. To do this, the indicators that will be used to qualitatively assess the player have been established, as well as the different decisions that they will have to make, such as: number of people they will have in the company; means and/or vehicles to insure; technological means or training they have, etc. All this, so that in the most critical phase of the game, in the operational phase, has to assign vehicles to drivers and delivery areas, according to the number of orders to be delivered, distribution window hours, traffic… Just like in reality!