The manufacturing industry can be quite complex with its functionality and the frequent changes in international, state, and industry regulatory requirements. Manufacturing businesses must be prepared to embrace changes without compromising their service quality.
The key to matching up with the competition is employee training. Since the inception of enterprise LMS for the manufacturing industry, it has completely transformed the training initiatives of companies. From providing on-time, on-demand, and on-site training to educating employees about policy updates, an LMS offers several features for effective and efficient employee training.
Before we learn more about the learning management system for manufacturing companies, let’s understand the various challenges the manufacturing industry is wrestling with today.
Challenges in the Rapidly Changing Manufacturing Industry
New technologies and digitization have directly impacted the functioning of skilled workers in the manufacturing field. Manufacturers are already leveraging AI, the cloud, and data analytics to equip their employees with the tools essential to onboard, upskill, and reskill.
The following are some other challenges faced by the manufacturing industry:
- Shortage of skilled labor: The complexity of modern manufacturing demands a tech-savvy and constantly updated workforce. There is a shortage of technicians and engineers with the necessary skills, hindering productivity and increasing overall operational costs. The skill gap is vast and ever-growing, leaving job vacancies unfilled.
- Increased need to innovate: With an extensive product portfolio, many global manufacturers are engaged in new product releases, updates, or diversifications, and research & development all the time. There’s an increased pressure of product innovation in today’s highly-competitive global market.
It also creates the need for regular product training for employees. This makes it important to adopt eLearning strategies and LMS services that cater to the personalized needs of learners. - Training and retaining recruits: Due to skill shortage various positions remain open in different locations for new hires to fill in. As manufacturing is a specialized field, training and retaining new hires becomes a priority. The challenge of training them at a breakneck speed can be daunting.
- Minimizing productivity loss: Work disruption or interruption due to different activities including training can lead to downtime, cause underperformance, upset employee workflow, and lead to loss of productivity, ultimately affecting the output. This makes it essential to have an LMS for manufacturing companies, which eliminates the need to pause work to attend training.
How Enterprise LMS Can Help?
An enterprise manufacturing LMS platform is an excellent ally to solving all the above-mentioned challenges in a reliable, scalable, and cost-effective manner. It helps manufacturing firms in streamlining the training process for large teams of partners or employees with specialized skills in different areas. With multiple LMS features, companies can boost engagement and manage industry regulations and compliance rules.
An enterprise LMS promotes central management of information and ensures the distribution of the same material to all employees regardless of their department or location. The training materials can be repurposed or reused and updated. This not only makes the training more consistent but also cost-effective.
A learning management system for manufacturing companies ensures that all employees are trained and aware of how to work safely. It also enables you to monitor and ensure that scheduled workplace safety training deadlines are met. Let’s take a look at other benefits of LMS manufacturing software.
Automate Onboarding and Bridge Skill Gaps
Your recruits must be aware of your industrial processes and machinery inside out before they begin working on-site. You can automate onboarding with an intuitive and user-friendly LMS platform while cutting the onboarding cost and time to the minimum.
The LMS also allows you to create onboarding pathways for filling out forms, viewing documents, and sharing company values and mission. It enables you to provide timely training support to employees and managers that can help update relevant knowledge and reduce the skills gap.
An enterprise LMS with purpose-built online manufacturing courses on multiple skills and relevant assessments can train employees faster and more effectively.
Learning Flexibility and Accessibility
An LMS for manufacturing companies offers mobile learning capabilities, allowing workers to attend the training while on the go. Learners can access the training material from anywhere and at any time, enabling them to learn at their convenience.
The employees would receive materials in bite-size sessions or in chunks that are easy to digest. This improves retention rates and allows them to learn for just a few minutes during their commute or lunch break.
An enterprise LMS also provides multiple device compatibility and helps companies conduct centralized training for workers overseas. Companies can even run eLearning programs on multiple sites for all their branches.
Interactive Learning with Multimedia Elements
Employees must have a thorough understanding of the manufacturing equipment and its functions for safe operations. For this reason, the training content is extremely detailed, heavy, and complex.
With an enterprise LMS platform, you can utilize the multimodal learning method, including videos, audio files, quizzes, polls, docs, presentations, visuals, and PDF files for better engagement and knowledge retention.
The interactive training content breaks down highly detailed information into digestible chunks to ensure that employees understand the finite details of a system or product.
The interactive learning environment helps employees interact with subject matter experts and other learners to share experiences, exchange tips, and ideas, offer advice, and discuss doubts.
Continuous Training and Skill Enhancement
An enterprise LMS offers much more than just course creation and sharing. It promotes continuous learning through its various features, such as a Digital Library with a repository of different course materials on various subjects.
Gamification is another popular LMS feature to motivate employees and promote skill development. With game elements like scoreboards, badges, rewards, and points, you can increase employee engagement, and enhance performance while making the training process fun.
What’s more? An LMS for manufacturing companies also enables performance tracking through progress reports and data storage. As continuous learning has a longer timetable, progress indicators are an even stronger incentive.
Wrapping Up
An enterprise LMS turns out to be one of the most cost-effective and reliable solutions to the various challenges faced by the manufacturing industry. So, whether you’re concerned with meeting compliance requirements regularly, onboarding new hires, or increasing logistics and training costs, investing in an LMS can be your one-stop solution.
Looking for the right manufacturing LMS software for your company? Schedule a demo with us and see how easily you can train and improve your employees’ performance by conquering all the training challenges in the manufacturing industry.
