Proper training is the foundation of a successful company, but many manufacturers, in particular, struggle to implement a training plan that is efficient, effective, and scalable. Labor inefficiency during training is as high as $8,470 per worker, and traditional learning in a classroom setting has retention rates as low as 30%. It takes a long time to train someone and they may not remember everything they’ve been taught.
When it comes to quality, this can have a significant impact on an organization. That’s why technology is being utilized in so many instances to empower employees and help them become better versions of themselves. The right combination of training tools and a philosophy of continuous improvement that teaches people the way they learn best is helping to greatly improve performance, retention, and quality in frontline workers.
How Technology Improves Performance in Quality Inspections
Nowhere is the importance of training more pronounced than quality, and inspections, in particular, can be deeply impacted. Poor training can lead to a number of issues. The increased need for supervisors. An over reliance on contractors. Ineffective inspections methods that don’t capture a high enough percentage of defective parts.
The technology addresses all of this in a number of ways. We use the Smart Work Station connected worker platform, for example, which allows us to:
- Keep workers connected with one another at all times to more easily tap into community knowledge, summon help, and provide feedback when a question arises.
- Automatically update work instructions across all work stations from a central location, ensuring all workers are always working with the same instructions.
- Build progressive checklists that adapt to both the user’s experience and expertise and the specific tasks being performed.
- Pull reports and analyze performance and software use of individual employees whenever is necessary.
Ensuring Quick Deployment When Needed
Another benefit of a technology-backed training program is the speed at which employees can be brought up to speed on new processes and deployed to a new inspection project. Employees can have the information they need at their fingertips before they set foot on the floor of a new client, greatly improving ramp-up speed and reducing the risk of quality issues recurring during the early stages of inspection.
The Impact of Effective Training on Safety
Safety issues cost US companies more than $170 billion in productivity every year, with a combined loss of 40 million working days between illness and injury. Quality inspection requires employees to enter spaces that are not necessarily meant for human operators. The result can be a potentially hazardous work environment for which no one is properly trained.
Technology can help with this, providing sensors to monitor employee stress levels and intervene if they increase beyond normal ranges, connected worker tools to ensure employees have all the information they need at all times, and advanced training and checklists to prepare them for working in such spaces.
How the Right Training Lowers Turnover and Rotation
Proper training better prepares employees for work, helps them fully understand the context of what they are doing and who they are working with, and supplements their knowledge with instant access to resources and internal support when needed. That can help reduce high turnover rates, prepare people for multiple positions within the organization, keeping them fresh and ready to step in when there is a hole, and generally maintain a higher level of quality.
Reducing the Reliance on Contractors
Contractors offer many challenges. They don’t have the same level of training as full-time employees. They aren’t held as accountable as those employees either, expecting to move on to a new role after a set period of time. And yet, many quality containment companies heavily rely on them due to an inability to hire and retain full-time staff at a level consistent enough to meet the demand for services.
With the right training program and technology to support it, this isn’t an issue. PTI QCS has successfully trained more than 1,000 skilled employees in inspection and containment methodologies doing just this.
Technology Empowers a New Generation of Successful Frontline Workers
Training can have an outsized impact on quality in your organization. For inspection teams, it can mean higher quality inspections, performed faster and more scalable than otherwise possible. For internal quality assurance operations, it means up to a 75% better on-time delivery and quality level than without.
Embracing technology is helping organizations of all sizes get the most out of their employees without an increased risk of quality issues. Learn how training is having an outsized impact for many organizations in our eBook, The Importance of Proper Training inQuality Containment:
