Welcome!

There are many resources available where you can conduct meetings online. In most cases, these provide an open environment where someone can display their computer screen and everyone can communicate using a phone or computer microphone. These systems typically limit the participants to 10-15 people since more participants will have difficulty communicating openly. Ultimately, this is a great way to collaborate on a project, conduct a meeting when everyone cannot get together, or meet with people working off-site. I have talked to many companies who have used this tool very effectively for collaboration.

As a training company, we use similar tools to coordinate and collaborate on projects with our employees and training partners. It is also very common for us to use these tools to demonstrate specific concepts to our customers. In most cases, we will ask our customer to show us their computer using the software so we can see what they are doing… and help them complete a specific task.

-Andy

The important aspect is to consider is momentum. It’s similar to housekeeping… everyone has to help keeps things clean, but there is always some task which seems more important than sweeping the floor. Unfortunately, if no-one does any cleaning, the place turns into a mess. With respect to training, the same occurs. Doing a consistent amount of training each week helps you get the ball rolling forward, resulting in a slowly improving workforce. In our experience, most forms of training we promote do not consume a large amount of time to conduct. In many cases, the training can be done at short 10 or 20 minute increments if necessary.

Since there is no quick fix to training, it is critical to ensure that your company makes slow steady efforts towards improvements as is should with all aspects of production including housekeeping, skills, procedures, maintenance, etc.

-Andy

Plastics processing will continue to advance towards more technical and capable equipment. As with all technical advances in the industry, the need for fundamental training does not diminish… it actually increases.

For example, when molding machines went from open loop control to closed loop control, the machine did not eliminate the need for training, it increased the need. Open loop machines only had a few adjustments which could be made, and were very simple to control… closed loop machines are actually more complex and have dozens of parameters which can be changed. Now that hydraulic molding machines are giving way to all-electric molding machines, the need for training is even more critical since the possible adjustments increase even more… and these machines have a greater potential to become damaged as their power, speed, and response increase with each generation.

Likewise, blow molding and extrusion equipment are becoming more advanced with closed-loop controls with more integrated downstream equipment. As these systems advance… the need for a better understanding of both the equipment and how it processes the plastics increases as well.

Some of our customers get into employee training because the equipment is so advanced, that they become completely dependent on engineers to coordinate the technology, yet they lose the less technical employees who had the fundamental understanding of plastics processing with turnover and retirement. The best approach is to train all your employees about the fundamentals as well as advanced training for technicians. 

-Andy