Log On to Learning

Manufacturers are Increasingly Interested in E-Learning to Create Well-Trained Workforces While Reducing Overall Costs Associated With Training.

By April Terreri, Contributing Writer

Many opportunities exist for manufacturers to maximize e-learning capabilities, said Sean Ferry, Director of Learning Solutions for Sewickley-based Motionplan, Inc. While some companies are still on the sidelines because of the large initial investment required, nevertheless they are evaluating the numerous advantages.

The cost of e-learning programs has to be weighed against their benefits, added Sheldon Murphy, President of Solid Sate Learning in Cranberry Township. “What makes e-learning an easier sell is they cost roughly half the amount of instructor-led classes. And typically, e-learning courses take about half the time of an instructor-led equivalent course.”

FLEXIBLE, BETTER-TRAINED WORKFORCES
Providers of e-learning programs readily admit the initial cost is high.

“It’s easy to say e-learning reduces facilitated costs but, quite frankly, the first hour of e-learning any company develops will be the most expensive hour they develop because they will be answering many questions and assessing their technical infrastructure as to what will work best for them,” said Ferry. “But once they get going, they’ll maximize that initial investment – particularly those companies with a large employee base.”

An obstacle facing some companies, added Murphy, is access to computers on the production floor. “One strategy to overcome this is setting up a designated machine in a designated learning area. Employees could use it with headphones to prevent distraction from surrounding noises. They can work at their own pace and don’t have to schedule their production work around a class time.”

Ferry noted e-learning can enhance and support self-paced manuals and instructor-led training. “You can put a lot of training material on-line, setting up certain parts of the course into pre-work. Workers would be assessed on that material before they get the green light that they’re ready for the facilitated session. So the actual classroom experience is more robust because everyone comes in at the same level of understanding,” he said. Knowledge consistency throughout a company is another benefit e-learning creates.

In addition, e-learning reinforces hands-on training and supports crosstraining on the production floor. For instance, a production worker might have been trained on a few machines, but has a primary station as his responsibility.

“If someone is sick or quits, the supervisor might need to place that worker on a machine he was trained on some time ago,” Ferry said. “With e-learning, the company increases learning accessibility, so workers can fill in where and when they are needed.”

Companies, therefore, create valuable flexibility in their workforce. “Workers training on multiple pieces of equipment better understand their jobs and how they relate to others’ jobs within the company,” added Ferry. These kinds of initiatives create a better-trained workforce, leading to better overall performance. “It might also help in retention. I think the more you can demonstrate to your employees you are giving them the level of training to be more successful, the more you make them want to achieve higher levels.”

Another area ripe for e-learning lies in proprietary equipment a company develops. “We can develop e-learning training with a 3D model of the machine to make the learning experience realistic,” Murphy said. “We can really set it up to look and feel like the real thing, with realistic mechanical motion and sound feedback. As employees or customers go through a simulation and push the wrong button, they learn the consequences of this action.”

For global companies, consistency is achieved so much easier. “Content can be translated into any language where a company operates facilities, so e-learning offers a consistent way of training across the board,” Ferry says. “Interactivity across different shifts and facilities about what works well and what doesn’t helps provide more attachment to a company.”

RISK MANAGEMENT TRAINING
Beyond training for the day-to-day responsibilities of particular jobs within a company, e-learning is an excellent tool for company-wide initiatives in risk management – such as sexual harassment, safety, compliance, and diversity issues. “The larger a company, the more they have to risk, so this is an important piece for them,” Murphy said.

Solid State Learning works with companies statewide like PPG Industries, Allegheny Ludlum and II-VI, Inc. “These companies are interested in things like compliance and safety issues, which are some of the biggest concerns as their risks involve human safety and compliance with regulations like OSHA,” explained Murphy. “Companies need to have a record of which employees took what training and e-learning simplifies this task. Instead of having a roster of people and maybe witnesses of who was and wasn’t in class, there is a tangible record of everyone in the company having taken a particular course. We can even get down to reviewing every question an employee answered on every test.”

For example, Solid State Learning developed an e-learning course on hand safety for Allegheny Technologies.

The company identified hand injuries as one of their most common injuries, and they wanted to demonstrate a newly developed policy.

“They have new tools they call ‘notouch tools,’” explained Murphy. “For example, when working with a forklift picking up a heavy object with chains, the natural tendency is for a worker to grab onto the chains to hold the object steady. But they found it’s a lot safer to use one of these tools to steady the chain that can break and cause an injury. The program demonstrates actual employees using the old way and the new way. So the business problems it helps solve are risk management and accident prevention.”

EATON UNIVERSITY
With its extensive global reach, Eaton Corporation’s electrical product training team relies on Eaton University’s e-learning programs to train its sales force.

“For instance, we just developed a course in the U.S. for a new circuit breaker sold globally,” said Rebecca Jacoby, Product Training Manager for Eaton’s electrical business in Moon Township. “This product is a component global OEMs use, so we have many of our employees in Europe training to learn more about the product.”

Jacoby explains that, in addition to standardizing training throughout its global facilities, Eaton needed a repeatable training method available 24/7. “We use e-learning a lot for pre-work situations, for which we set a baseline of requirements prior to the actual training. We also use it for lesson reinforcement after employees attend instructor-led training sessions.”

Training sessions are hosted on the Eaton University Web site, the corporate learning management system. “My team is focused on teaching our employees and channel partners how to sell and support our products,” explained Jacoby, whose team works with Sean Ferry at Motionplan. Employees progress through a series of 101, 201 and 301 courses on-line, as well as instructor-led Tier 1 through Tier 4 courses. Jacoby’s team is currently designing interactive content.

Jacoby admits e-learning required a large initial investment in the company’s training budget, but the investment was worthwhile. “It allows us to do scalable rollouts and reach a lot more people in our global organization. We especially like it for pre-work situations and for post-training follow-up. It allows our employees easy access so they can use it as a resource.”

These initiatives have one common goal: to encourage employee development. “We are pushing for this in developing our sales and support employees, as they are our feet on the street,” Jacoby explained. “It also allows us to fill in the blanks about some of our products since we have 90 product lines with multiple products within each of those lines. This means there could be thousands of products we are training on, and we can’t train for all of that in a two- or three-day training session. We can pick the most profitable products and develop training to target those products.”

Learning measurement is the next phase Jacoby and her team are working on. “Previously we didn’t have a way to track pre- and post-assessments, but our new system will allow us to create these kinds of assessments and capture knowledge gain.”

Ferry believes that as manufacturing equipment incorporates advanced technologies, more manufacturers will deploy elearning. “Many of the machines already use computer interfaces, and on-line tools for CNC operators, as an example, lend themselves to simulated learning.”

Murphy concluded: “Manufacturers are becoming more interested in e-learning as they see their competitors increasing quality while reducing overall costs associated with training.”