ED Tech 503 Spring 2013 Abby Carlin Case Analysis Bruce Younger

Abby Carlin Case Study

Fritz David Manufacturing is a manufacturing company with big changes coming up. Its current workforce is aging and due to incentives offered by the company all of FDMs employees with over 30 years of experience are retiring over the next 90 days.

The prevailing issue is that this manufacturing facility operates three shifts in an around the clock production model, another issue is that production cannot be slowed down to retrain this new group of inexperienced laborers. To further compound issues they have always used a mentor system to train new employees as a result they have no other training documentation or procedure. The plant manager Andrew Thomas has never had a training program and is very skeptical of new training processes, let alone one that will be created by outsiders. Andrew has even discussed with Abby the representative from Learning Together Through Training (LT3), that he doesnt know how to operate the blanker machine all the way through the process rendering his knowledge less than adequate to assist in the training development process. FDM has always trained on an as needed basis using a mentoring system. Andrew told Abby that, weve always had a new guy follow an old guy. This option is not available during this transition period. The working environment is fast paced, not well lit and loud. Workers are also required to wear safety gear that makes it difficult to hear and to see. To compound the environment, the soon to retire knowledge base really doesnt want to spend the time to slowdown and teach Abby what she needs to know to complete the training development and delivery process. Some things that we dont actually know is how many individuals will need to be trained. We know that there are three shifts of operators but we dont know how many per shift or how many operators are required to operate a blanker machine. We do know that overtime is always available. And that there is a bulletin board to post messages on.

The Needs and Constraints

1. Dr. Abbott requested that Abby create two lists that include needs and constraints: Our Needs Replace a large number of lifelong skilled employees in 90 days. Continue producing at current levels Choose lead personnel Train entirely new workforce Train for three shifts Our Constraints Create and deliver a training program in 90 days Cannot interrupt production Current operators are not interested in training new personnel No current apprenticeship type program Low light/High noise Low communication ability on the production floor

The Analysis
Abby observed a few things about the manufacturing process, first the pace was much faster than she expected and as a result it made it difficult to write the steps down. What Abby could do is take the time to video record the process in operation being careful to get different angles and steps of the entire process. After documenting the process visually, she could ask to get approval from management to authorize overtime to have one of the operators talk her through the video and record what is being said during the walkthrough. She could also take pictures of the control buttons being pressed and other required steps to document the process for printing a quick reference guide for on the floor documentation, a cheat sheet if you will that can hang next to the machine for quick answers. Abby realized that the operators were the key to making the training a success. I think another opportunity she observed was that Andrew used hand signals to communicate with her. This can translate into hand signal communication in the production environment as well as animations (drawings) to depict the steps of starting the machine, steps of the process and other communication needed to be sure the process functioned and workers could communicate. In this situation the company is faced with the issue of process change management. There is no new technology being introduced according to Smith & Ragan pg. 46 using the discrepancy model. This model is best suited to situations where the learning goals are already defined (Smith & Ragan, 2005).

First we list the goal of this system which are to train the new young employees in the operation of large blanker machines in a period of 90 days. Second we can determine if any part of this goal is already being achieved. We know that they do have new employees already working in the manufacturing process, but how many if any have begun training on the blanker machines. Third we begin the analysis by looking at two areas, what is and what ought to be, in my mind this is the largest step which determines what the gap is and how we can proceed toward closing it. What is and what ought to be are two distinctly different situations especially at FDM. What is, is that the entire workforce of the most experienced employees are going to retire in the next 90 days. What ought to be is that there should be a training process in place to manage the transition from a highly skilled workforce to an inexperienced workforce that will maintain the current flow of production without interruption. The gap that exists requires a training process to be designed, developed and implemented The model that could be used to bridge the gap would be to use the ADDIE model. This model begins with Analysis which will size up the scenario and lead the designer to a design that will best fit the situation. Designers along with current senior employees and production management will develop a training program that will meet the needs of the organization. Once the plan is ready for implementation the training can begin and once training begins we can look toward evaluation and how well the new training process is working and where adjustments need to be made.

Evaluation
Evaluation instruments will include initially an Entry Skills Assessment. Through the process we hope to not only train individuals but identify leaders who will be capable of training new employee for the future as a result of need we need to implement an entry skills assessment. After potential leaders have been identified the next level of selection will require a Pre-assessment instrument which will be used to determine what the new employees actually know about the process. Finally after the training process a Post Assessment instrument will be used to assess where we are in the training cycle. Two areas will be determined by this assessment. First we will look to see if the enabling objective, those that assess if the learner is capable of continuing on in the learning process, a terminal objective of the lesson and whether or not the learning objective is teaching the student what they need to learn.