Summary of Client’s Challenge
GE Energy’s Global Quality group sought a vendor partner who could build high-end skills-focused training related to quality for different workforce audiences. The quality areas to receive major attention through the design and development of training included continuous improvement, basic auditing, writing documentation and quality for plant managers.
GE Energy had an army of people worldwide who required training in quality systems. They were first interested in training all employees - over 100,000 - on basic auditing for professional band and documentation skills for all hourly employees. They wanted to be able to deliver this training anywhere in the world, but only had a handful of instructors to do so. In addition, they wanted to change the attitudes of senior leadership regarding expenditures that would support of all aspects of the continuous improvement process, which would be a game changer across GE Energy. Lastly, they wanted to develop capacity in their plant managers to focus on ensuring high quality in all plant activities. Change by Design made this typically mundane content come alive with rich storytelling, desktop simulations, and virtual instructor-led training.
lEADING FOR CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT
Continuous improvement is a set of activities designed to consistently identify shortfalls in quality in all areas of the business, determine root causes, identify and implement solutions, and seek out and find similar issues across the business where they could apply the same or very similar solution. In this way, the continuous improvement process was both prescriptive and proactive. The challenge was that implementing the full continuous improvement process was often a costly endeavor. While leadership (executive band) knew that product issues had to be addressed, they were not convinced in the value of the entire process. Often implementing the last step - preventing other possible issues - was ignored, as this effort could be extensive and costly. Change by Design developed three products to address this issue:
An eLearning that taught basic continuous improvement concepts and started to build the case for supporting all aspects of the continuous improvement process.
Two hours of PreWork providing training plus activities with feedback in conducting the continuous improvement process to ensure an understanding terms and tasks. They started working on a second case study, but they received no feedback on the activities. Instead, they were asked to take their work to the next part of the training.
A four-hour tabletop simulation requiring rich leadership engagement designed ostensibly to train the continuous improvement process, but more importantly, to shift the negative attitude towards supporting all aspects of the continuous improvement process to a positive.
The pilot received high marks by the facilitator and attendees. At a later time, after the facilitator delivered this training to a large unit in Canada, he was offered a new job on the spot because of the quality of the training and his delivery.
BASIC AUDITING AND PREPARING ISO-LEVEL DOCUMENTATION
GE Energy had an intermediate auditing course for professional band employees, but did not have a beginning auditing course. In addition, hourly employees were not at all clear on how to consistently prepare ISO-quality work instructions and procedures. Change by Design agreed to design and develop a curriculum that consisted both PreWork and virtual instructor led training (vILT).
Authentic problem-based case studies were introduced in the PreWork, where participants learned the basic skills and worked on application activities. Then, tightly scripted vILT classes held them accountable. It was during these sessions that participants had to provide their PreWork answers and where discussion happened.
Not only did GE Energy get best-in-class training, but they now could save money delivering the class worldwide… without ever stepping on a plane!
QUALITY FOR PLANT MANAGERS
For this project, Change by Design conducted approximately 20 hours of interviews with various stakeholders and qualitatively evaluated the results. Next we developed and disseminated a survey that was sent out to over 900 relevant individuals to explore the extent of the skill set in question as well as confirm learning objectives for the course. Further, we visited a plant in South Carolina to conduct detailed observations to understand the extensiveness of this skill set, as well as to discuss with the plant manager their perceived needs. The plan was to design and develop a two-day training to ensure quality in plant management. However, we were unable to move further on this part of the project, as at that point GE Energy announced it was breaking up the company into three separate units, with the Global Quality unit being dispersed as a unit. Certainly a disappointment for us, as we we prepared to deliver another home run training for GE Energy.