How to train new employees rapidly, while preserving and utilizing the abilities of more senior workers, who are approaching pensionable age? We have responded to this important demand with our Canali Academy Manufacturing project, developed to measure for the customer, one of the leading Italian exporters in the fashion sector. The objective was effectively to preserve, transmit and capitalize on corporate technical know-how. Because of its realism, we thought the video was the most suitable channel for preserving and transmitting the skills, rendering graphic the craft of the most expert tailors, in identifying which method to follow in creating the product (coats and jackets), in training new staff members, specializing and supplementing the knowledge and competencies of the company’s personnel. It is the most apt instrument for showing a craft that is composed of gestures, techniques and dexterity, to bring out practices that would not otherwise have found expression. Moreover, from the point of view of delivering training, the video is accessible to several learners at the same time, by means of projection in the classroom and e-learning, thus reducing contact time. 
Over the period between October 2011 and August 2012, we conducted 15 filming sessions, using two camera operators equipped with full HD apparatus to shoot the various stages of manufacture in Canali’s plant at Filottrano, near Ancona. Having been approved for the storyboard by the experts at Canali, the filmed material was dubbed, edited and supplemented with graphic elements. A 53-part video course was the outcome (corresponding to the minimum number of operations consistent with Canali manufacturing) which, following upon approval, was delivered to the client fully ready to use. The material thus created pursues multiple objectives:
- to engineer and to structure the training, facilitating the transfer of Canali’s technical know-how
- to construct a support available to all employees, placing an easily accessible ‘encyclopedia of knowledge’ at their disposal, which they can refer to during their working activities
- to develop an instrument capable of supporting teachers at the stage of delivering training (during the training phase, the video is shown repeatedly to new employees, before they go on practical activities)
- to stimulate the ‘social ‘dimension of the project, ensuring that the video, kept on a dedicated web space, prompts employees to express and to share their knowledge as well as difficulties and solutions they have put to the test.
Claudia Bartolucci