Training Program Grows In-House Experts

With one eye on a bright manufacturing future and the other on industry’s skilled-workforce crisis, an American automotive giant turned to a customized, ongoing training program for electricians in its plants around the world. Results have been more than noteworthy.

Long before the bulldozers arrived at its Michigan plant, one of the world’s largest automobile manufacturers mapped out a master plan to begin scrapping the aging control systems and automated machines used to build its vehicles in facilities worldwide. The sequential launch of new manufacturing technologies marked the first major retooling in more than a decade for many of the company’s plants. The overarching goal, however, was far more strategic: create a common automation platform—with the most advanced vehicle technologies available—that would streamline the manufacture of the company’s 21st-century cars and trucks.

A sophisticated, fully integrated, controls-system architecture would lay the foundation for the manufacturer’s leaner factories of the future. However, the automaker’s vision would require far more than replacing its legacy equipment with state-of-the-art automation technologies. It would require equipping plant-floor electricians with the knowledge and new skills necessary to operate and troubleshoot the completely transformed control system.

The training model

Employee training has been a cornerstone of the company’s culture since its founding. Still, workforce development had historically been handled within individual plants. When the company brought in third-party trainers, they typically were from equipment manufacturers and focused solely on teaching personnel how to operate new, stand-alone technologies. Such training was often inefficient in that it didn’t include information about how the new components integrated with other elements in the production system. Because of the magnitude of the control-system overhaul, the company needed a totally new curriculum for its electricians. The training also had to be designed to systematically roll out to various plants over several years.

The company’s workforce team established three additional key tenets for the new electrician-training program:

• It must be customized to the automaker’s new global controls architecture.
• It had to be sustainable, meaning electricians across plants could use the curriculum for the foreseeable future, with only minor modifications when necessary.
• The classes had to be conducted in-house to maximize participation and make the most of employee time.

The group decided the best way to meet those goals was a unique “train-the-trainer” model, in which selected electricians would become subject-matter experts on the new equipment and, in turn, be capable of training the crews with whom they regularly worked. In short, each facility sought to develop highly skilled individuals who would teach their co-workers how to operate, maintain, and troubleshoot the new system. It was a tall order. The automaker’s workforce team realized they needed outside expertise to develop and deliver this type of highly specialized controls training.

Curriculum and process

In mid-2009, the automaker invited Rockwell Automation, Milwaukee, to bid on the electrician-training program. The two companies already had a long history of partnership. Rockwell Automation had previously provided workforce solutions at the automaker’s various plants and was supplying much of the company’s new production technology. The automaker, though, wanted a comprehensive program that would also include training on the company’s next-generation production components from other vendors. It also commissioned a custom simulation workstation that would precisely replicate the entire suite of new controls and other integrated hardware and software that electricians would operate in the retooled plants.

In November 2009, the two companies assembled a multifaceted team composed of their top training experts. The group included the skilled-trades technical-training team at one of the automaker’s Michigan facilities—the launch site for the new production technologies.

For the next six months, the team worked at the plant to develop the control architecture systems-integration course to educate electricians about all of the new company-specific hardware and software components in its integrated system. In its role as project managers, Rockwell Automation employees worked with third-party vendors to incorporate content about its technologies into the curriculum. Rockwell Automation representatives  also hired instructors with specialized competence in specific aspects of vehicle production, such as the plant’s paint process.

“We weren’t experts in all of the technology, but we are experts in how to manage large workforce solutions,” said Glenn Goldney, manager, Global Workforce Solutions at Rockwell Automation. “Our job was to make sure the electricians could seamlessly take the skills they learned in the classroom and apply them on the plant floor.”

As the course content neared completion, the automaker selected a handful of the Michigan plant’s most experienced and skilled electricians to form the inaugural train-the-trainer class. Their first lessons were truly hands-on: The electricians worked with the Rockwell Automation team to build four custom simulators. These 360-deg. workstations—each about the size of a refrigerator and equipped with wheels for easy transport—contained all of the next-generation hardware components on racks, just as electricians would later see them on the plant floor.

New instructors take control

The training team also developed customized lab exercises to correspond directly with the hardware and software configuration of the control simulators.

Once the simulators were set up, the skilled electricians became full-time students. Led by a Rockwell Automation instructor, they studied the curriculum for more than three weeks. Then, each trainer-in-training took turns co-teaching the 120-hr. course alongside a Rockwell Automation instructor for 12 weeks. Their students were small groups of fellow electricians. Eventually, the instructor trainees taught the course solo, and were evaluated and certified by a Rockwell Automation instructor.

In total, the trainers-in-training spent 30 weeks immersed in the educational process. Focusing on how to operate the new controls-system architecture, the core courses included training on industrial-Ethernet networking, which formed the backbone of the new system. Information on “softer” teaching skills was  also provided, including tips on topics ranging from public speaking to composing PowerPoint presentations. The result: The Michigan plant produced four qualified in-house expert instructors and 36 trained electricians.

By that time, the old automation equipment had been bulldozed at the Michigan plant to make way for the new technology—and the 36 newly trained electricians were ready to take control of it. Meanwhile, the original four in-house trainers were teaching the new courses to their peers at the Michigan plant.

According to Glenn Goldney, as Rockwell Automation’s training role in Michigan neared completion, the automaker’s management team issued an assignment for the next site. Others followed. “The same process was replicated at the Kentucky facility and in six additional plants,” he recalled. “In conjunction with each plant’s leadership, we identify the electricians who will participate, build another set of workstations, and then kick off the train-the-trainer program.”

Continuing payback

So far, more than 1,500 electricians have gone through the automaker’s new training regimen at sites across North America, including assembly and stamping plants in three other cities. Electricians from as far away as India have traveled to the United States to become instructors.

While 90% of the original curriculum is still in use, electrician training has evolved to include software and hardware updates in the automaker’s technology suite. The three-week core course also has been expanded and tailored to suit differing workforce needs and production demands.

Today, more than 30 expert trainers are serving as invaluable resources at the auto giant’s plants in the U.S., Mexico, and Canada. “That’s more skilled trainers than probably any other company in the world,” Goldney noted. “And more are on the way.” 

For more information on various manufacturing trends and strategies, including those associated with new technologies and workforce development, visit:

• sme.org
• mapi.net
• sae.org
• isa.org
• iienet2.org
• rockwellautomation.com