A Look Into The Future of Manufacturing Training: an Interview with Fred Foster

Convergence Training 2 Comments

fred-fosterRecently, Fred Foster, owner of Technical Training Professionals, and fellow 3D-animated training proponent, sat down with us to discuss the finer points of using computer-based courses for technical training, and give us his perspective on the future of manufacturing training.

Read below to see what Fred had to say about manufacturing training in general and the use of 3D graphics in particular.

Once you’ve finished, use the comments section below to include your own predictions for the future of manufacturing training, or do share your thoughts about 3D animation and training, or even stuff like virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) for manufacturing training

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4 Good Books about Training We’ve Read Lately

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We thought we’d pull together a list of a few good books about training or instructional design that we’ve read lately.

If you’ve read any of these, it would be great to hear your thoughts on them. If not, you might want to check one or two out.

Of course, you’re invite to use the comments section below to give us some additional book suggestions as well–we’re always looking for good ones.

And if you’re wondering what’s next on our reading list, it’s this book about “lean” training: Training Within Industry: The Foundation of Lean.

(Note: It’s been a while since we originally wrote this post–so you can read our article about TWI and Lean Manufacturing now, too).

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Improving Workplace Safety with Lean Manufacturing Principles

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Lean Manufacturing and Safety ImageA lot of people are familiar with the lean manufacturing method known as 5S. If you’re not familiar with it, it’s a method for straightening and organizing a workplace. Like all lean manufacturing concepts, it’s intended to create efficiency.

But of course, a more organized, clutter-free work area also improves safety. This is well known and I’m saying nothing new. Whether you use 5S or not, I’m sure that housekeeping is a big part of your safety training and your safety program in general. But if you’re not using 5S currently, you may find some of the techniques will be a helpful addition to your current housekeeping efforts.

In addition to 5S, you can use other lean concepts to improve safety at the workplace as well. These include kaizen and kaizen events. And again, even if you’re not using the “lean” name for each, you may be doing something similar at work already. Or, if you’re not, maybe now’s a time for you to add a wrinkle or two to your current approach.

In this post, we’ll take a closer look at 5S and two other ideas to investigate improving workplace safety with lean manufacturing tips, plus include a link to a general “What Is Lean Manufacturing?” article. Be sure to check out the linked resources embedded in the article, because they lead to substantive, helpful resources, and please download the free 5 principles of lean manufacturing infographic at the bottom as well.

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MSHA Part 46 Training Requirements for Contractors

Jeffrey Dalto 12 Comments

msha-part-46-trainining-contractors-imageWhen a contractor is working at a surface mine, it brings up a lot of questions regarding the MSHA Part 46 training requirements for contractors. For example, who’s responsible for what in terms of providing the MSHA Part 46 safety training? And, of course, there are questions about the type of training the contractor needs to receive, who pays, etc.

If you don’t know all the ins and outs of this issue now, you will by the time you finish this article. So let’s get started with this overview of MSHA Part 46 training for contract employees.

To help you answer more MSHA-related questions, we’ve put a free Guide to MSHA Training Requirements at the bottom of this article, too.

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15 Tips for Effective Safety Training

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Effective Safety Training Image

We’re all in favor of safety training. But even better, we’re in favor of EFFECTIVE safety training.

But what IS effective safety training? What does that mean?

Effective safety training is training employees understand and remember. It’s training they later apply on the job. And ultimately, it’s safety training that will decrease the number of unsafe actions, increase the number of safe actions. It changes behavior on the job. It leads to decreased incident rates for near-misses, injuries, and illnesses. And it even makes a positive contribution to the company’s overall-bottom line.

And that’s what all safety managers want out of safety training, right?

For a few tips of how to make this happen, read on. We’ve even included a Free 60-Page Guide to Effective Safety Training at the bottom of this article.

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What Is a Kaizen Event?

Jeffrey Dalto 4 Comments


A kaizen event is one arrow in the lean manufacturing “quiver.” Or one tool in the lean toolbox–pick your favorite metaphor.

But just what is a kaizen event? This article will spell it out for you: we’ve got the goods in the sections immediately below.

If you’re just getting into lean, you may be happy to know that this is part of a series of articles we’ve written on basic lean topics. Here are some others:

And we’ll be adding more from time to time in the future. Hope you enjoy our look at lean topics, and feel free to check out our online courses for lean manufacturing. But now, to business–let’s learn about kaizen events.

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How to Perform a Task Analysis for Job Training

Jeffrey Dalto 2 Comments

Task Analysis ImageIn an earlier post focusing on identifying job roles and job tasks, we mentioned the importance of creating (1) a list of the job roles at your site and (2) a list of the job tasks that people in each of those job roles have to be able to perform in order to hold their job.

In this post, we’re going to start with the assumption that you’ve created that list of tasks, and we’ll show you how to perform a task analysis for each task on the list. The idea is that you’ll “break down” each task into the smaller steps or sub-tasks that a person would have to perform to finish the task.

The point in doing this is that once you’ve identified the steps or sub-tasks that make up a job task, you’ll know exactly what you need to teach employees who will have to perform the task properly on the job. You would then create learning objectives, assessments, and the actual training materials.

This is an “instructional design” basic. To see how the task analysis fits into the general flow of training development, you may want to check out 8 Steps to Great Training article and/or download the guide to writing learning objectives at the bottom of this article.

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Business Goals, KPIs, and Job Training

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Business Goals, KPIs, and Training ImageJob training shouldn’t be designed or delivered in a vacuum. And you probably know that.

We’ve written a LOT about how training should be delivered with the learners in mind (the employees, that is). And that’s definitely true and important.

But in this article, we’re going to look at training from a different angle: the connection between training and the business itself–in particular, the goals of a business. And we’ll do that by looking at business goals, key performance indicators (KPIs), and job training.

Sometimes, trainers forgot to consider this and forget to build it into their training, development, delivery, and evaluation process.

So hopefully this will be a good review and reminder.

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Identifying Job Roles & Job Tasks for Training

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Job Roles and Job Tasks ImageBecause we got our start in training workers at paper manufacturing facilities, and because that’s still a core part of our customer base (even if we’ve expanded quite a bit beyond that), we’ve been writing some blog posts recently specifically geared toward training at paper manufacturing facilities.

If you’re not a paper manufacturer, it’s OK–what you’ll read below is true for any job training. So don’t let that introduction scare you away.

What we’re going to cover below are a few things to make sure your training is doing what it’s supposed to do–preparing workers to do what they have to do on the job.

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How to Make Safety Training More Fun and Engaging: Tips from Safety Managers

Jeffrey Dalto 2 Comments
fun and engaging safety training image

What do YOU do to make your safety training at work fun and engaging for employees?

Recently, we posted that simple question into a number of LinkedIn groups that deal with safety and/or EHS: “What do you do to make your safety training more fun and engaging for your employees?”

A large number of safety professionals chimed in to share their safety training tips, and we’ve collected their replies in this article. It’s interesting to read the replies and to see how many of them work along similar themes. If you’re looking for ways to create fun, enjoyable, memorable, and impactful safety training at your work, we think you’ll find some good ideas below.

We’re particularly interested in creating fun safety training because we’re always looking for ways to help our customers create a fun and engaging safety training experience for their workers that includes our safety training eLearning courses (quick sample video below) as well as other types of training in a blended learning safety training solution.

So, let’s get to it. Here’s how to make safety training more fun and engaging, with stories and tips from real-life safety managers and trainers.

Also, since you’re interested in fun safety training, check out these 11 free online safety training word games (like Wheel of Fortune) and these 10 free online safety training word games. You’ll see there are even options to download free copies of some of those safety training games.

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Online Courses for the MSHA Part 46 New Miner Training Program

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Online Courses for MSHA Part 46 New Miner Training Program ImageMany customers come to us wondering if and how they can use online courses for the MSHA Part 46 training programs. In this article, we’re going to address those questions and then take a closer look at how to do it with one of the Part 46 training programs–New Miner.

The same ideas, though, apply to the other training programs, such as Newly Hired Experienced Miner, New Tasks(s), Annual Refresher, and Site-Specific Hazard.

Before we begin, here are a few related articles that may help set the scene in case you’re new to MSHA or Part 46:

If you want to skip the reading and get right to online training, click to buy, view, and complete Online MSHA Part 46 New Miner Training.

Now let’s take a look at a few key questions that are covered in more detail in those articles above.

And to help with even more MSHA-related questions, we’ve included a free Guide to MSHA Training Requirements at the bottom of this article.

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5 Steps of Creating Training–Tips from Cognitive Psychology

Jeffrey Dalto 4 Comments

5 Steps of Creating Training ImageProbably the most famous “steps of training” guidance is the one created by the instructional theorist Robert Gagne. Gagne’s ideas are justly well-regarded and we’ve already written an article about Gagne’s Nine Events of Instruction. So feel free to click that link you just passed up if you’re curious.

But in their 2003 book Writing Training Materials that Work: How to Train Anyone to Do Anything, Wellesley R. Foshay, Kenneth H. Silber, and Michael B. Stelnicki present their own, more updated steps. What makes these steps especially interesting (and I believe useful) is that they’re grounded in the field of cognitive psychology, the study of how people learn, including things like attention, thinking, memory, and problem-solving.

In this article, we’ll give you an overview of the steps, as you’d guess. And we’ll also present some additional ideas from the book. Of course, we encourage you to buy and read the book on your own, too.

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