There are officially more Google searches done on mobile devices than on desktop computers, according to new research released by Google. Interesting, don’t you think?
Although, it’s not all that surprising. Look around when you’re out at dinner, before a movie—anywhere, really—and you’ll notice that all of the eyeballs are glued to a smartphone.
In the business world, leaders are taking note. In order to give their employees more freedom and flexibility to learn on the go, they’re turning to mLearning for their training needs—even in the world of manufacturing. As this industry constantly demands higher efficiency, proper training is essential.
Let’s look at the potential for perfecting manufacturing processes with mLearning.
Addressing Issues
Anyone in the manufacturing industry will tell you that logistics is probably the single most complicated (and important) aspect of manufacturing. From supply chain management to forward and reverse flows of goods—those in leadership roles on logistics teams are responsible for training teams on the floor who are bringing those processes to life.
But there are a few problems with on-site, traditional training in a manufacturing environment. It’s typically a noisy environment. Engagement opportunities are limited. Timing the scheduling of training can be tricky, because there are multiple shifts to consider.
In a study by the School of Management at the University Sains Malaysia, they found that using mLearning in a manufacturing context allowed learners to:
-Learn via short video clips presented on a mobile device
-Manage self-guided learning, at each person’s own pace
-Have greater flexibility in terms of when/where they can learn
-Improve comprehension
By employing mLearning in a manufacturing context, they found that as long as the learner felt comfortable with the mobile device, processes were learned more quickly. It’s interesting to note, though, that when the trainee wasn’t comfortable with the device, comprehension of processes took longer.
Lesson learned: Make sure you have a pre-training session to show learners how to use the mobile devices they’ll be using for training.
On-Demand Information
One of the other major benefits to mLearning in manufacturing is that when made available on-demand, it provides instant access to information about processes, procedures, and other pieces of information that has a tendency to change and evolve as efficiency improvements are made.
For example: Say that you have a process within manufacturing that is constantly evolving to increase speed of production. Because of this, you continually have to re-train people. With mLearning, you could maintain a standard format of training (via video clips) across all employees—and have the training in a format that any person on the team can access at any time. If someone forgets what to do, rather than having to track down a supervisor in a giant warehouse, they could just refer back to the mLearning.
Manufacturing and mLearning for the Future
Now, do we think that every manufacturing operation is going to adopt mLearning over the next five years? No. But those who do may be able to get ahead of the curve and gain some efficiency over competitors.
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