Corrugated Board Manufacturing Word Game

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Corrugated Board Manufacturing Interactive Training Word Game Image

Are you in the corrugated board industry?

We think the chances are high that you are. First, because you’re reading a blog article about a corrugated board word game. And second, because a lot of people have been coming to the Convergence Training website all excited about the multimedia training courses for corrugated board manufacturing that we have available.

So if we’re right, and you ARE in corrugated board, we’re confident you’re going to like this article.

And that’s because we’ve got a fun-to-play, Wheel-of-Fortune-style word game here for you. And–wait for it–it’s all about corrugated board and terms from the corrugated board industry. What more could you want!

The game is fun to play just to quiz yourself, or you can use it to quiz employees. It might be especially helpful for new hires with no previous experience in the corrugated board industry. They might thank you for the opportunity to review some key terms. Hey, they might even enjoy themselves a touch.

And don’t forget you can project this game on a screen or wall and play together as a team, maybe during one of your regularly scheduled weekly meetings.

Have fun and let us know what you think. And check the Convergence Training blog for helpful articles and other free word games.

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Lean Manufacturing Word Game

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Lean Manufacturing Word Game Image
Curious about lean manufacturing (often called just “lean” for short)? Or maybe just in the mood to test your knowledge of lean manufacturing with a fun interactive word game? Either way, you’ve come to a good spot.

Lean is a philosophy a methodology with roots based in Training Within Industry (TWI), Japanese manufacturing, and the Toyota Production System (TPS).

A lot of our customers have an interest in lean manufacturing (with this more specific meaning). In fact, not that long ago we ran a popular post about how to introduce your workers to lean manufacturing.

This is meant as a quick (and fun) introduction to some terms in lean. Please use the comments section at the bottom if there are other terms you think we should add. You might also want to check our online courses for lean manufacturing training.

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Revised OSHA Combustible Dust National Emphasis Glossary

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OSHA doesn’t have a full standard about combustible dusts. Maybe you knew that.

Instead, and as you may also know, there are a number of OSHA standards that address combustible dust hazards, controls, and safety.

One of those standards that includes information about combustible dusts is the Hazard Communication standard. And as you probably recall, OSHA updated the HazCom standard back in 2012 as part of the big GHS alignment.

But did you know that while OSHA has no specific standard about combustible dusts, they have had a “Combustible Dust National Emphasis Program” since 2008? And did you know that when the HazCom standard was updated in 2012, there was also a need to update the combustible dusts national emphasis program accordingly? And did you know that OSHA made that change on October 1, 2015?  (You can see the revised Combustible Dust National Emphasis Program here). It’s all true.

We’re not going to review the entire Combustible Dust National Emphasis Program in this blog post. However, we had earlier created an interactive glossary of terms defined in the National Emphasis Program, and so we decided to recreate that glossary using the terms that OSHA defines in their new, revised Combustible Dust National Emphasis Program (2015).

And that’s what we’ve got for you here. You can view and read the glossary any time you want from right here on our blog, or you can download you own free copy and import it into your SCORM-compliant learning management system (LMS). If you want to go with that second option and download a free copy, plus read the additional explanation below to learn how that works and what you will get.

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Safety and Health Management Standards and Guidelines: ANSI Z10, OSHA’s New Guideline, ISO 45001, and More

Jeffrey Dalto Leave a comment

 

Have you heard of ANSI Z10?

It’s a standard about Safety and Health Management created by The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and ASSP. This is the first article in a series about ANSI Z10 and different safety management standards in general.

 

We hope you enjoy this introduction to safety management standards. Before you begin, feel free to download our free 10 Steps to Getting Started with Safety Management infographic and know we’ve got additional, even more comprehensive safety management resources waiting for you below.

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43.5 Signs You’ll Outgrow Your Learning Management System: LMSs and the Story of the Three Bears

Jeffrey Dalto Leave a comment
Signs You'll Outgrow Your LMS Image

Most of you are probably familiar with the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

Many learning & development professionals and corporate training managers have a similar experience when they’re trying to find the learning management system (LMS) that’s “just right” for their company. Some LMSs are too big and overwhelming. Some LMSs are too small and limiting. And some LMSs are just right for their company.

At Convergence Training, we’ve worked closely with our customers for more than 15 years to develop a “Momma Bear” LMS–an LMS that has all the features they need but not so many features that it becomes confusing, overwhelming, or too costly.

In this article, we’re going to look at some signs that an LMS is probably too small for your company. Or, if it’s not too small now, signs that it’s likely to become too small soon once you get into the swing of things.

Of course, every company’s needs are different, and what’s too small for one company may be too big for another and just right for a third. So the big takeaway from this article for you should be to begin considering what you want and need your LMS to do before you get one. To help with that, we’ve provided a free LMS guide at the bottom of this article.

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Tissue Manufacturing Word Game

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Tissue Manufacturing Word Game Image

Are you in the tissue manufacturing industry?

If you are, you’re going to like what we’ve got for you here.

It’s a fun-to-play, Wheel-of-Fortune-style word game that just so happens to be all about terms used in tissue manufacturing. How often do you run into that, right?

Use the game to test your own knowledge, or use it to quiz employees. You might find it especially useful if you’ve got some new hires with little previous tissue manufacturing experience. They may even thank you or tell you it was fun.

And don’t forget that you can project this on a screen and play it together as a group.

Have fun, let us know how you did, and check the Convergence Training blog for helpful articles and other free word games.

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Pulp Manufacturing Word Game

Jeffrey Dalto Leave a comment
Pulp Manufacturing Word Game Image

Are you in the pulp (or pulp and paper) manufacturing industry?

If so, you’re gonna like what we’ve got for you here.

It’s a fun-to-play, Wheel-of-Fortune-style word game. But it’s not about the kind of boring, unimportant stuff that TV game shows tend to fixate on. That’s right–it’s about pulp! A truly fascinating subject worthy of many fine games.

If you wish, you can use this game to quiz yourself. Or, you might want to use it as a quiz while you’re training employees. It might be especially helpful if you’re onboarding new hires with little or no experience in pulp manufacturing. They may even admit to having a little fun this with.

And remember that you can project this on a screen during a weekly team meeting as a fun way for the entire team to work and learn together.

Have fun and let us know what you think. And check the Convergence Training blog for helpful articles and other free word games, too.

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Chunking Safety Training Materials

Jeffrey Dalto Leave a comment

chunking-safetyNot so long ago, we wrote an extended blog post that explained the benefits of “chunking” your training materials and gave tips about how to do it.

In short, the need for chunking begins with the realization that human brains can “take in” only a limited amount of information at one time. As a result, trainers and instructional designers have learned it’s best to present information in a limited number of small, “bite-sized” pieces referred to as chunks.

You can click here to read the extended article on chunking and training.

Otherwise, if you’d like a high-level overview of chunking and then would like to how chunking safety training can make the safety training at your workplace more effective, read on. We’ll give you all the basics and show you how we applied that information when creating our Arc Flash Safety course. You can then use those same tips when creating your own safety training.

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6 Adult Learning Principles You Should Use During Safety Training

Jeffrey Dalto 2 Comments
adult learning principles for safety training image

Before you read any further, let’s do a quick check.

Are you in safety/EHS and do your responsibilities include safety/EHS training?

If so, that’s a good sign that you’ll find this article relevant.

Next, take a moment to think about the people you provide safety/EHS training to. Are they adults?

If so, things are looking very promising for you and this article.

Because in this article, we’re going to take a look at something called adult learning principles and see how keeping them in mind when you design, develop, and deliver safety/EHS training can make your training more effective. Which of course means your training will create a healthier, safer work environment.

We’ll even give you some tips and examples of how to apply adult learning principles, and try to clear up some confusion about the multiple different lists of adult learning principles you’ll find if you do a Google search for the term.

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Onboarding New Manufacturing Workers with a Learning Management System (LMS)

Jeffrey Dalto Leave a comment
Onboarding New Manufacturing Employees and LMS Image

If you’re a manager at a manufacturing company, you know it’s important to deliver training to new hires as part of their new employee onboarding. And that’s also true if an experienced worker is moving to a new site, work area, or into a new role as well.

But you also probably know that onboarding new hires comes with a number of challenges. It’s hard to have time available every time a new worker is hired, and that doesn’t even account for having time every time someone moves from Site A to Site B, or from Production to Warehouse, or from Forklift Operator to Machine Tender.

Plus you’ve got to create, buy, or otherwise collect all the training materials. Not everyone has time to do that, especially create training and lead classroom training for new hires.

And of course you’ve got to actually KNOW that a new employee has been hired, or that someone has been transferred from the Tulsa site to your site in Wichita, or from Line One to Line Two. And let’s faced it–we may all like to say that communications where we work are perfect, and that we’re all informed of events like these, but I’m pretty sure you’d quickly agree that’s not always the case.

So, in a nutshell, there are lots of reasons why it’s difficult to provide onboarding training in a manufacturing environment.

That’s where an online system that includes a learning management system (LMS) can pay dividends. You can think of an LMS as an automated assistant that can coordinate all this stuff for you. Kind of a manufacturing onboarding auto-pilot system.

So if you’re in the market for an LMS, and want to be able to use it for onboarding new employees (plus your other training needs), we’ll give you an idea of some of the features you should be looking for.

NOTE: This article will focus on providing training as part of an onboarding process at a manufacturing company. For a fuller discussion of onboarding as a whole, please see our companion article Onboarding New Employees: Why and How to Do It, and for more on learning management systems for manufacturing, please see What to Look for in an LMS for Manufacturing.
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Convergence Training Spins Off From Capstone Technology

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Today is a very exciting day for Convergence Training.

Capstone Technology, the parent company of Convergence Training, was recently acquired by Spectris plc, a UK-based developer of industrial instrumentation and controls.

While the dataPARC and MACS divisions of Capstone Technology will be moving on as a part of Spectris, we’re pleased to announce that Convergence Training will be spinning off into its own privately-held entity.

What does this mean for our customers?

Really, not that much. We’re still the Convergence Training you know and love. Our day-to-day operations will remain unchanged, and our team will continue to pursue our goal of providing companies with the best tools available to manage compliance requirements and increase the skills and knowledge of their employees.

Convergence Training has experienced tremendous growth over the past several years. We’ve added hundreds of new titles to our training course catalog, and we’ve continued to develop the Convergence LMS into a premier workforce training and development platform.

We’ve also built a wonderful team of dedicated, hard-working individuals, and each of us is tremendously excited about our future, as we’re now able direct our entire focus toward developing the best training products and services possible.

We truly value our customers and recognize that without them we wouldn’t be where we are today. We look forward to continuing to build on these important relationships as we move forward in this exciting time.

- Randy Kohltfarber, President and Owner



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Free Surface Mining Equipment Glossary

Jeffrey Dalto Leave a comment

We’ve been revamping our mining safety training elearning library, in case you didn’t know.

What does that mean? Well, we’ve added a BUNCH of new courses, for one thing. We’ve spruced up older titles, adding new information when relevant and improving our graphics in all cases (our 3D animation capabilities become more and more impressive every year).

And we’ve broken some of the courses up into shorter, more “bite-sized” learning activities to make them easier to watch and more effective learning experiences.

So all told, it’s a general improvement all the way around.

In this article, you can see some of the fruits of that labor. Plus you can check out an interactive glossary of terms related to equipment used in surface mining. And you can even download a free copy for yourself (read more details below about what you’d download and how to use it).

Win-win-win!
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