Through the use of a manufacturing app, it's now possible to significantly reduce both training time and costs by eliminating the need for a "Training Buddy" and instead opting for self-guided training. This approach is especially beneficial for quickly training seasonal workforces in groups. Moreover, the app allows businesses to customize, standardize, and automate their training workflows. Alongside these advancements, it's essential to understand the concept of Industry 4.0 and its pivotal role in modern manufacturing.
How We Train with Manufacturing Apps Today
The Association for Talent Development conducted a national survey of manufacturers about their training programs. They concluded that companies with formalized training see an average of 218% more income per employee. Despite these findings, they also noticed training hasn’t changed much over the years. Across most manufacturing sectors, you’ll see an experienced operator team up with new employees to teach them the ropes of the job. In theory, this makes a lot of sense; we want new employees to emulate the best characteristics of our top-performing employees
Unfortunately, there are downsides to the “training buddy” system that can affect the bottom line. First and most important, we don’t want to stop our top performers from doing what they do best. When we pull a top performer from the line, we are reducing capacity. This can often contradict the fact that new employees are there to increase capacity!
Second, the buddy system can be overrun by group seasonal hiring. A single employee can manage training one or two people with little issue. Larger seasonal hiring sprees can become too challenging and eat up too many resources. No matter the number of employees brought in, each needs the same quality training experience.
Standardize and Quantitate
The “buddy system” can be automated into a self-guided digital solution through the use of manufacturing apps. Manufacturing apps are as easy to create as a PowerPoint and offer a few key advantages over paper-based systems.
Manufacturing apps live on modern technology. Integrating videos, pictures, and live documents make work instructions more engaging. The biggest takeaway is that apps give you the ability to:
Collect live analytics behind the scenes
Better understand what steps in the process cause the most challenges for employees
Understand what operators skills are and learn their tips and tricks in production
Apps are self-guided, allowing new employees to train unsupervised at their own pace. Seasonal employees can now guide themselves with minimal supervision. This means everyone on the team gets the same training experience, regardless of how many people you’re talking about.
Tulip Manufacturing Apps
Tulip is an app building platform that is designed for manufacturing engineers and those closest to the manufacturing operations. This allows engineers to drive digital transform on the shop floor from the bottom up. Tulip integrates the use of manufacturing apps, shop floor IoT devices, and manufacturing analytics, all in a no-code platform. Applications range from;
Work instructions
Quality checks
Training modules
Machine monitoring
Maintenance applications
They all provide real-time insights for data-driven decision-making.
Learn more about manufacturing apps and how Industry 4.0 is changing our manufacturing process in the video below. If you’d like to learn more about Tulip contact us!
What is Industry 4.0? How is it going to impact your manufacturing operations?
