Logistics Portal
A year after the Digital Academy's BCF module went live, Head of Digital Academy Mahesh Patel is convinced that Oerlikon Manmade Fibers is on the right track with its offering.
“The majority of our US customers already use the Academy. Here, we see almost 100 percent fluctuation at the operator level, so the portal is a huge help in training new specialists,” says Mahesh Patel. In the past, training was provided during commissioning and documentation was handed over. Today, users can learn independently of time and location and refresh their knowledge at any time. The digital approach is always efficient:
“I learned more in twenty minutes in the Academy than in the seven years I've been with the company,”
sums up the operator of a well-known American BCF yarn manufacturer. And this proves that the tool is not only beneficial for newcomers to the industry.
The content is provided by the technical specialists at Oerlikon Manmade Fibers Solutions in the Digital Academy – in other words, it is based on practical experience for practical application. The customers themselves define who should learn what, so that the training packages are targeted and customized. The BCF module is available worldwide in English, Spanish and Turkish.
The plan is to make the portal available for all processes of the Oerlikon Business Unit Manmade Fibers Solutions. BCF will be followed by the Digital Academy for the POY process.
Digital learning is the future
The positive feedback from BCF customers shows the demand for such customer service solutions. The digital online training center, which is located on the e-commerce platform myOerlikon.com, contains a collection of e-learning modules on the topics of operation, maintenance and repair, currently for the Oerlikon Neumag BCF machines S+ and S8. Operator personnel as well as process engineers and technicians and quality managers are trained.
A high rate of personnel turnover among yarn manufacturers, which has increased again since the Covid-19 pandemic, underscores customers' demand for new training concepts that do not require a physical trainer. According to customer surveys, 95% of production employees – from operators to supervisors – are trained “on the job”. Only 18% of personnel receive additional training. In-person training requires a significant logistical effort, incurs travel costs, and disrupts operations more severely than individually scheduled online training. “In-person customer training requires at least one person to move – the trainer or the learners,” says Tilmann Seidel, Vice President Customer Services. “Homogeneous groups have to be formed that can be trained together. Conversely, this means that several employees with the same task are simultaneously unavailable.” It is hardly surprising, then, that 86% of respondents would like to see an online platform to support the training of their employees.
The Digital Academy offers all of this: compact, role-based learning units that can be accessed via mobile and stationary end devices make the content quickly applicable for the user. A success check helps to internalize the content and consolidate what has been learned. Feedback functions can quickly clarify any questions of comprehension at any time. Access to the Digital Academy is location- or company-specific. Result:
“We can train a much larger number of our customers' employees – 24/7, at OEM level and extremely efficiently and with minimal use of resources. This benefits the performance of the systems and helps us to make our customers more successful with our machines,”
says Tilmann Seidel.
