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By Rolly Angeles
Is There Still Value On Training ?
Most industry I worked with had some form of training programs that regularly schedule their people to attend to from time to time. Others perform some sort of measurement per employee as to completing a certain number of hours before the year ends. Other industries send a lists of their people to offsite trainings, conferences and conventions. And at the end of the day, we asked if we “CAN” apply these thoughts to our workplace, or is it just something that will end up nicely in our CV and RESUME? Is training just a place where we can relieve our pressures temporarily and escape from work? Is it a venue for a free cup of coffee or donut? Or is it something that our plant should take on very seriously?
I believe in the value of training if we use it for the right reasons. Most industries have some sort of Training Needs Analysis which is use to assess their industry training needs from time to time. The training needs analysis is used to determine the gap between the knowledge of their people and the skills needed to do their job. This is a good start but we also need to ask if these trainings will be used by their people or not. Remember that each organization are bounded by their own culture or way of doing things in their workplace and if what we have learned from the training differs from the way they do things around then the default is not to use what was learned and just join the crowd for good. This is where I hear such remarks and feedback that their management should be the once attending this training not me and when you revert back to their management they simply say, that’s why I’m sending my people because they are the once doing the hands on and will be using this, not me. Again everything ends up in a Merry-go round. Do you know what I mean?
Let me give an example, a plant just completed their training needs analysis assessment they had performed on their maintenance people and one of them is the need to analyze the root cause on equipment failures. So a lists of courses had been developed by their in-house local trainers such as the following :
• Pareto Analysis • Ishikawa or Fishbone Diagram • Why-why analysis • Fault Tree Analysis and Failure Mode and Effect Analysis
But neither of these tools are really design to understand the root cause of their equipment failures. (Click here for my previous newsletter to know what I mean) Because to understand its Root Cause, we need to perform and understand the following :
• We need to take things slowly, take photographs, preserve the part that failed before we can fix or repair the equipment. • We are interested to know the truth behind this present failure and not the past failure • We want to know the root cause and not the probable cause or failure mode of this failure • We need to understand how deep should our probe be on root cause or when to stop • We need to allow time to for the team to interview people and gather evidences
And when we asked the people if they will be allowed to do these things, the reply, well surely I will be in a lot of hell most specially with operations if I delay fixing the equipment and follow your advise to take time to analyze the equipment before fixing it. I think you need to talk first to my boss.
Another plant find the value in the use of Predictive Maintenance instruments to aid in their maintenance programs and send their Maintenance Managers to trainings and conferences. They set up a budget and finally decided to purchase some NDT instruments such as vibration monitoring and thermography initially. But when asked, are the people that will use these instruments going to be trained and certified because from my knowledge you need training and certification to use these instruments. They say “NO” and will just be relying on the vendors training, perhaps how to click this and that button or perhaps just an overview would be enough, because they thought that these instruments will just be used for monitoring incipient failures in their equipment. My thoughts, how very wrong they are! These instruments are not just for monitoring incipient failures but allowing the users to make firm decisions on whether to continue operating the equipment or finally stopping it. Let me be more specific, a level two thermographer can grasp a full understanding on how to avoid or correct errors on emissivity, reflection, transmittance and spot size.
Let me explain emissivity in a layman’s term. It is the relative power of a surface to emit heat by radiation. Emissivity is the ability for radiant heat to leave the surface of an object. If we go back to our high school days in science class, heat is transferred in three ways through conduction, convection and radiation. Conduction and convection will both transfer heat via direct contact, Radiation is the only transfer of heat that will require no contact. We feel the heat from the sun even if we are not touching it. Therefore, If we have two cars that are parked under the sun, the bumper of the other car is black and the other is chrome plated, we ask which one is hotter, the answer is black since black absorb heat faster. But over a period of time if you touch both the black bumper and the chrome plated, the chrome plated is simply much hotter. Why? Because as black absorbs heat more faster and chrome tends to reflect heat, their emissivity is simply just the opposite. Meaning chrome has an emissivity of 0.4 while black is close to 1. The black bumper will heat up much faster but 95% of the heat that is absorbed is free to be emitted or discharge at a rapid rate. The chrome bumper reflects 96% of the heat and only absorbs 4% but this heat is "trapped" in the bumper as only 4% can emit from the surface. Meaning when a thermographer goes out in the field to measure using an infra-red thermography, he must take into consideration the existing environment, whether he is in a hot place, under the sun, in a humid place etc. Users of this instrument must have an indebt and thorough understanding on the principles of heat transfer and emissivity of different types of materials. These people must understand these errors as a result of emissivity so decisions can be firmly made. Hence, an experience thermographer must understand that through the process of heat transfer an object can emit heat, reflect heat or transmit heat from other sources. Hence, when deciding to purchase these instruments think again if we need to cut cost on these types of training because these trainings are quite expensive.
If we ask why are industries reluctant to send their people to training or why is training the subject of many cost reduction measures? The answer is quite obvious, they fail to provide an ROI (Return on Investment), most industries think about training as something of non-value. While it is true that it is hard to measure the rate of return on soft skills training and that measurements of this sort are intangible, technical trainings are much easier to quantify. A safety training program can be felt through a reduction in plant accidents. A training on maintenance can yield results in lowering the cost of doing maintenance and improve its reliability. Perhaps a team building course can probably be measured on the number of turn over employees. So here are a few points I would like to share to find value in your training :
1) Consider training not as a cost but as an investment
Industries invest heavily on equipments, modifications. They invest on TV adds in promoting their products, top of the line softwares, equipment spare parts, overtime pay for repair work, making sure that if something fails, part is always available, yet, if we asked if they are willing to invest in their people’s training, well the answer is maybe later since we have no time right now or worst they will frankly say no and the closest excuse they can give is we have no budget for it. To me, it doesn’t make sense, or does it? Yet when your on the lobby of their plant you can see how idealistic their vision and mission stating something like to be the best and deliver world class so and so. Sometimes I wonder, how can they ever achieve this without investing in their people. They believe that people can be easily replaced. No wonder some industries have a high rate of turn-over these days. And when we think that training is a non-value added cost, I hope we also think about the cost of mistakes and ignorance. Many say that people are their greatest asset. Right?, Wrong! People can only become an asset if they are equipped with the right tools and knowledge to perform their jobs well otherwise they become liabilities.
2) Start your training from the Top Management
Let me share with you my personal experience when I went to India to facilitate some trainings and seminars on World Class Maintenance and Reliability-Centred Maintenance. I’ve observed that most of the people that attended these trainings are from the Top Management level such as General Managers, Deputy General Managers, Executive Directors, I even have a participant from a big industry which was a Vice President. This is the opposite of what I totally experience in other places when I am conducting offsite trainings, they send their engineers, technicians and people from the ranks. I guess the difference is quite obvious, as these people will have the authority and decision whether their people need this training or not and if they do, they can arrange for an in-house training with their people. On the latter, when we send engineers or non-decision makers to offsite and public seminar trainings, you’ll always hear them say that my boss should be attending this stuff too. If Top people from this country can find the time to attend, others will always have an insurmountable amount of excuses that they can’t leave their plant or they are just too busy with their work, I am so much sick with this excuse, maybe it’s the other way around, just maybe the plant will run better if Top people are not around since no one is there to intimidate the workforce.
I would strongly suggest that Top Management should be trained by outside consultants and not from people on the training department itself to avoid the trainer being intimidated most specially if they are on different levels and be dictated by the participants which of course is your Top Management as well as minimize the chances of being biased or one-sided. If one of the Top Management says, we heard this stuff before, can we finish at 12:00pm and not 5:00pm as most of us have things to attend to, most likely, the trainer would get intimidated and cut this training short.
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Training is where we acquire knowledge and these knowledge is used to allow us to do our job better, and when we do our jobs better we become skilled and this skills will be used to further improve our assets and equipment’s. Remember it is our people that will improve our equipment’s and not the other way around . |
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It is a tradition in India to give you flowers as a sign of welcoming the resource speaker
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The first and last hour of this in-house training was spend by the Top Management on their people to set up expectations and how to go about it |
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One of their Key Top People setting up what is expected from their people |
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Class posed for a picture after the training, 90% of which belongs to upper management level |
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3) Management must set expectation w/ their people that they send to training
Before sending your people to training, talk with them and explain to them why you are sending them to this training in the first place. Talk to them again when they return to their work after the training on how can they start applying these learning in their workplace and if there are some hindrances or obstacles in adopting this training. This way people attending the training are pretty much aware that something is expected from them. And when they know that something is expected from them, not only will the participants be attentive but for sure they would ask a lot of questions during the session. There is a greater chance that whatever knowledge that was learned from the training will be implemented and that management is serious about how they can address once and for all the problems they have in their operations and maintenance department. Participants from the training are guaranteed that their management will support them in their initiative.
4) Define not only the needs but also the time to use it
I think one of the questions that needs to be ask in the Training Needs Analysis is not only do we need this training but are they going to use it anyway? Since the training needs is mostly based on a survey generated with their people, once it is summarize, set up a meeting with Key people and discuss the outcome of the lists of trainings generated. Ask them if they are going to provide their people the resources and time to adopt this training? If yes then we need to proceed and go for it, if no might as well “NOT” go through with the training itself since, you’ll just end up spending money on nothing. Classroom training can only be effective if the attendees will be given the right amount of time to practice what they have learned. I often tell my students that this is like teaching you all the basic functions of a car, what does an engine do, how does the brake function, what are the road signs, air-fuel mixture, combustion process etc. But after explaining this, I just can’t be confident enough to give you the car key and drive me where I want to go, I must be with you or someone who knows how to drive should be with you initially.
5) Determine where you are and where you want to go
As the year close to an end, it is best to take time off and reflect on how did we perform this year and where do we want to go next year and in the years to come. What trainings will our people be needing ? This is best done with a strategic planning. It is a good start to plan for the upcoming years to come and discuss what have we as a team missed and what we have accomplished and how to cope up with next year.
6) Consider training as a long term and not a short term investment
I just do not want to over emphasize this anymore, but better people will yield better results. Invest on your people’s training. A highly motivated workforce will result to a low turn over of their employees since they have a chance to grow with their company. I know of one industry that have an exit interview for people that wish to resign and even provide an exit training on what to do after they resign and how to handle whatever fee they are going to get. This company care for their people up to the very last end they walk out of their plant permanently.
7) Communicate the results with your training department
Usually for large organizations with a vast amount of departments, the training department can have a way of measuring the number of hours every single employee that had attended their training by updating their attendance sheets on their logs and computers. Yet, I doubt if they have a way of recording or monitoring every single training that had been used by any people or team in their department that yield success, I am pretty much sure there is. The problem is that the loop and feedback ends after the participant finished the training program. Hence, if your organization really value their training, each department in their organization must “ALWAYS” provide a loop and feedback to their training department regarding the benefits they derived when they applied their learning to their workplace. These remarks, messages, feedback, testimonies should be highlighted and credited to their training department.
Well I hope you find this newsletter of value, and “YES” there is always value in training if we use it for the right reasons. Training may always not be the answer for every problem we have but what I believe is that having the right people will be one of the keys to an industry’s survival and these people must always be equipped not only with the right tools but with the right knowledge as well to develop their skills in doing their job better.
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You are receiving this newsletter and email because at some point in time you opted to be included in our Monthly Reliability Newsletter mailing list from our site.
Our newsletter will be sent out once or twice a month and provide you with quality issues and resources on our most common link which is all about reliability and maintenance, as well as regular updates on our articles. I would like to personally invite you to regularly visit our website and check out updates on our articles and training courses. |
RELIABILITY NEWSLETTER |
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Issue No. 19 - November 2008 |
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Since establishing this website last May of 2007, I have made many efforts to improve this site and provide some useful insights about our common link which is all about improving our equipment reliability and the way we do maintenance.
Finally should you be interested to contribute to our articles section or share any feedback, I encourage you to email me at rollyangeles@rsareliability.com. If for any reason you wish to unsubscribe from our newsletter, kindly send my a blank email with unsubscribe as the heading and we shall remove you from our mailing lists. Once again welcome to our November 2008 edition of our Monthly Reliability Newsletter for this year 2008 and I hope that you enjoy reading.
My Warm Regards,
Website : www.rsareliaiblity.com Email : rollyangeles@rsareliability.com |
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