Quick Start

For a reprint of the original article in
Adobe Acrobat PDF format, click here.

Bullet Table of Contents

Photo Montage of High Tech Training for State-of-the-Art Manufacturing Creating custom e-learning tools for training needs

ome fields readily come to mind when technology is mentioned, such as medicine and communication systems, while others, like manufacturing, are still thought of as smokestack industries.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Today’s manufacturers are more high-tech than many other industries, in part because they operate in the global arena, where competition is fierce. Manufacturers use technology to stay lean and profitable. But to remain competitive, their workers must have special skills to operate complex systems. That’s where Georgia Quick Start can help. Using high-tech multimedia training, Quick Start prepares workers for 21st century challenges, giving companies the edge to achieve business success.

Quick Start was instrumental in helping us get more than 60 new employees onboard and trained.For example, Quick Start recently partnered with Masterfoods USA™, a company whose products include the Snickers® Bar, M&M’s® Brand Chocolate Candies, Pedigree® Pet Products and Uncle Ben’s® Rice. Headquartered in Hackettstown, N.J., and Vernon, Calif., Masterfoods USA™ has manufacturing facilities all over the country, including Albany, Ga.

“We produced for Masterfoods USA™ multimedia training for their Albany facility,” says Sun Clinton, M.Ed., CEDT, Quick Start’s senior multimedia-based training developer. “We worked with Masterfoods to develop paperless training via the company’s intranet.”

The Quick Start and Masterfoods USA™ partnership led to an effective e-learning program designed to train the company’s associates how to make the new Snickers® Marathon energy bar. Quick Start’s multimedia training is computer-based technology that mixes text, audio, video, animation and high-resolution graphics. This type of training engages on many levels. When a person sees, hears and interacts with what he or she is learning, the experience is memorable. And actual training time can be reduced, in part because employees set their own pace. Quick Start’s training also included instruction in Microsoft Project, which benefited Masterfoods in numerous ways.

“Our partnership with Quick Start has been a positive experience,” says Oscar Harrell, Masterfoods USA™ personnel manager. “It’s encouraged our associates who had previously used computers on a limited basis to use them more. It also has made the way we store [information] more efficient and easier, cutting down on time spent entering data. It’s an effective way of communicating and helps us trace line performance problems.”

Once the company’s multimedia-based training needs are assessed, Quick Start training experts create storyboards depicting how individual steps will be taught for specific skills. After the storyboards are approved, Quick Start’s Creative Services team swings into action, creating state-of-the-art animations and graphics. These are then married to text that teaches employees step by step how to accomplish specific tasks, from mixing the ingredients for food products, such as the Snickers® Marathon bar produced by Masterfoods USA™, to creating custom soft skills training, as Quick Start did for APAC.

APAC is a diversified group of companies that provide quality construction services and products. The corporation operates in 14 Midwestern and Southeastern states, providing paving and bridge construction services and construction materials. For APAC’s new Alpharetta service facility, the Quick Start team designed and executed multimedia, instructor and Web-based soft skills training, in areas such as customer service, business writing and stress management.

“Quick Start was instrumental in helping us get more than 60 new employees onboard and trained when we opened our shared service center in Alpharetta,” says Mark Lambeth, an APAC training manager. “They’ve helped us tremendously. All the evaluations have been very good and Quick Start has been easy to work with in terms of customizing materials and being responsive to our needs.”

For Rockwell Automation, manufacturers of printed circuit board assemblies, Quick Start provided an on-line training system for their facility in Dublin. The system ties all of the company’s information systems together and puts it on the manufacturing floor via computer terminals.

 

Screen shots from Rockwell Automation multimedia training
Rockwell Automation needed training for its employees that was accessible anytime and anyplace. Quick Start designed an on-line system that puts critical information on the manufacturing floor.

 


Because employees have access to training information continuously, the production line is more efficient. “This way, learning can continue and is not limited to the classroom,” says Joe Thomas, one of the company’s manufacturing unit leaders. “It’s out on the floor in an integrated environment and accessible at all times.” QS

 

For a reprint of this article in Adobe
Acrobat PDF format, click here.

 
For a reprint of the entire newsletter in
Adobe Acrobat PDF format, click here.
Bullet Table of Contents       

Quick Start is Georgia's Premier Source for Economic Development Training

Quick Start | Economic Development | Technical Colleges | DTAE Home