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Albany International Inc. and HumEng International Inc. contributed their best practices to developing 11 eLearning modules on Pressing. These modules were validated by many senior technical resources and piloted with over 200 of Albany's technical reps. The four following modules were part of a Case Study conducted at Longview Fibre:
Pulp and paper organizations are leaner. Many experienced papermakers have retired and many will be retiring shortly. TAPPI has estimated over 750 retirements of senior papermakers in the next five years. There is tremendous pressure in the industry to operate at highest efficiency and lowest total cost. The requirement for highly competent workers has never been greater, and Albany International’s customers are increasingly asking for assistance with the training and education of their operating crews. Albany has responded to customers’ requests and has committed a significant investment in developing eLearning modules on Forming, Pressing and Drying for machine crews and first line supervisors. Albany has chosen HumEng International as its training partner. As part of the eLearning development process, Albany has required all their North American sales and service representatives to complete all the eLearning modules. They have documented an average 20% improvement in test scores. The first eLearning modules developed as proof of concept were on Pressing. The content of each of the modules is based on the practical aspects of the Pressing section of pulp and paper machines. These practical aspects were documented by the most experienced technical field personnel of Albany International. A consensus on specific technical aspects was achieved through an extensive validation process. Albany’s best practices on felts in the pressing area have been identified and provided to the industry, in a format conducive to shop-floor learning. The best practices were identified through a composite skill profile of hourly papermakers as to what they must do right and what they need to know to be able to troubleshoot operational problems. The best practices cover the following topics:
The content of each of these modules was developed on a SCORM-compatible eLearning authoring platform using pulp and paper industry -specific language targeted at shop floor communication. Albany International’s best practices were documented on a media-rich eLearning platform by HumEng International’s experienced adult education specialists. The tacit knowledge of Albany’s senior technical personnel is now crystallized and easily accessible by customers and alliance partners. Each of the six skills identified were developed as bite-size learning contents, as stand-alone, short courses. The six eLearning modules each contain a pre-test, table of contents, learning objectives, content per se, various progressive learning exercises and a post test. Actual pictures of paper machines, animations, narrated text, non-narrated text, quizzes, safety tips, etc. are used to help mill personnel master some of the more complex concepts involved with the press section of the paper machine. A Training Needs Analysis (TNA) was also produced to qualify the training needs of potential learners. A battery of questions was developed to determine if participants need training or not. The questions were developed with a media-rich technology, grouped by skill, and generated in a completely randomized fashion. Normally, the client sets the passing mark for each skill, and those that obtain the passing mark are not given the training module on that skill. In the case of the pilot on Pressing however, Albany’s objective was to document learning. The passing mark was therefore set at 100% to ensure that all participants would take all eLearning modules. The Training Fulfillment Analysis (post-learning) was randomly generated from the same pool of skills and questions as the TNA. A total of 60 questions were generated for each of the TNA and TFA. A pilot was conducted at the Longview Fibre mill with three groups. All participants completed the full process: TNA, an eLearning activity on “Navigating in an eLearning activity”, an eLearning “Introduction to the Albany eLearning program on Pressing”, the six eLearning modules, and the TFA. Participants in the three groups were papermakers from four shifts and supervisory personnel. A total of 19 participants were involved. Training was done via the Internet using high-speed connections to HumEng’s servers with site-specific generated passwords. The following table lists the results of the TNA and TFA for the three groups, along with the difference between the TNA and TFA: 
The greatest gains in learning were identified for the Theory of Pressing, an average differential of 37%. As John Brandt, Paper Mill Superintendent, said about the eLearning: “The theory added to the practical knowledge of experienced operators will be powerful”. As for the advantage of the eLearning program for younger, less experienced operators, Mr. Brandt believes that “it will accelerate their learning curve. They will get the papermaking theory as they learn the practical side”. The number of papermakers from the four shifts was not large enough to extrapolate trends, but results seem to indicate a small difference shift-to-shift in the more practical skills such as “Conditioning Equipment” and “Tension Application”. Also, the scores of a participant on the TNA and TFA were not homogeneous for all six modules. In other words, a participant may have scored less than others on the TFA on one subject, but better in others. Also, those who scored less on the TNA seemed to exhibit the most learning, as shown by the percent differential between the TNA and TFA. In some cases, for instance on “Conditioning Equipment”, the supervisory personnel learned more (28% differential) than papermakers (16% differential), but on “Tension Application”, operators learned more (30% differential) than supervisory personnel (18% differential). The following chart illustrates the adjusted percentage value, to account for the different group sizes, of what personnel at the Longview Fibre mill knew and what they learned. The red bar indicates the average corrected percentage score of the three groups on the TNA. The green bar indicates the average corrected percent score of the three groups on the TFA. Red indicates what employees knew before taking the eLearning activities and green indicates what they knew after they had taken the training.
Papermakers operate their equipment based on what they know about the process and practices. We can conclude that the knowledge they gained will increase the production of the mill by decreasing errors made by operators. They will also most certainly work more safely. John Brandt said he was “excited about the training”. He believes that “the knowledge gained will help operators make better decisions”. The most expensive part of training is the attendance time of participants. ELearning has been shown to be very effective in shortening the time required to learn. In some cases, the literature indicates a reduction of 50% in learning time. On the average, papermakers took 176 minutes to complete the six eLearning modules, while supervisors took 86 minutes. Albany International and its training partner, HumEng International Inc., have documented real gains in knowledge with personnel from the Longview Fibre operator and supervisory crews, with minimum inconvenience to the production process. Similar gains were documented with Albany’s over 200 North American sales and service personnel. Gains in practical application knowledge coupled with “basic need to know theory” are essential for papermakers to operate safely and at high levels of efficiency. The best practices developed by Albany’s experts, coupled with HumEng’s shop-floor adult learning know-how, will ensure that operators are trained at a very high degree of performance, with minimum disruption to the manufacturing process. These same best practices have been shown to produce similar results among seasoned operators as well as more junior ones. |
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