Metric: What is the value for training?

I often get managers who don't often believe in training or possibly they don't have a budget for training. It dawns on me that there is no metric so to offer to convince training is necessary.  So I put together this Blogger entry to help managers understand value in training. It seems to me that the SolidWorks companies are the hardest to convince that training is necessary.  Who does a metric anyway? Is it of value to make a 2% improvement?  Just 2% on a race track is a huge number.  What if we could get your engineering staff a 15% improvement over the last project?

WHY:
Engineers are natural problem solvers. They figure out how things work and design products out of innate skill through intelligence, discovery, innovation and grit.  A typical engineer can learn a great deal in a week as they go through their week and develop or enhance new products. They often ‘figure it out on the job’. as it is often stated.   After all, that’s why one would hire an engineer in the first place, to figure things out. That is where Design-Engine can step in (or be utilized). Design-Engine can offer modeling techniques and specific training to aid in an engineer’s ability to solve problems using SolidWorks.  Often times, times savings are just 5 to 15 percent added efficiency.  Other times  it’s a $40,000 savings in tooling, but every time it’s added confidence.   There is no metric for this money and time savings, and thus this can go un-noticed.

People also tend to be set in their ways when it comes to design and engineering.  Engineers often do the same things each time to obtain their designs.  People also tend to have preconceived notions when it comes to design & amp; design habits.  Through Design-Engine instructor lead example training, one can open up the designer/engineer mind to alternate and often more mature modeling technique.  Many techniques for managing design changes are often dismissed such as with the top down modeling methodology.

People come from many backgrounds and pool experiences from their various work history.  They have used SolidWorks for years but often misinterpreted or misunderstood SolidWorks basics.  http://proetools.com/solidworks-training-level-1-introduction-to-constraint-based-modeling/ Before taking a training class the very definition of ‘the basics’ is often different from participants after an instructor lead Design-Engine training course.  For example, I thought I was a surfacing expert in the mid 90's and a decade later I realized how little I knew back then.

WHAT:
1  Design-Engine instructors will offer specific workflow and/or change techniques for managing design changes to models and designs.

2  Share top down modeling methodologies for managing significant changes to form, projects and products.

3  Utilize drawing tools for managing design changes as opposed to documentation.

Demystify specific features (to name a few)
1  Sweeps, Rails, Surface Loft and Surface Boundary functions. That's our Solidworks Surfacing class http://proetools.com/solidworks-surfacing-intensive/

2  Utilizes more robust curves + Surfaces to accomplish normal tasks more efficiently.

3  Work more efficiently with 2D and 3D IGES geometry.

4  Learn animation and motion analysis creating effective animations for your manager to communicate more effectively to sales and marketing.

Offer a fresh look at common tools
1  Use sketch curve geometry to manage tubular frame structures. Everyone knows how to use sketch and curve geometry.  Applying it for specific tasks may be new.  We call incorporating every day tools to preform different tasks, "incorporating into your workflow".

2  Discuss robust modeling techniques by leveraging parent/child relationships.  People moving from Rhino or Alias have not yet discovered how to leverage parent/child relationships nor have they embraced the parametric workflow.  A fresh look at a these functions can be most exciting.

3  Utilize equations for minimizing mistakes. Our training is example based, so simply making a statement like this has no meaning until examples are presented. Then participants often realize where they themselves could have benefited from this added to ones workflow.

4  Use Sheetmetal functions more effectively. Or consider our Solidworks Sheetmetal class http://proetools.com/solidworks-sheetmetal-solidworks-training/

There is a lot of valuable information there on our various Solid Works classes, on the following website links:

http://proetools.com/category/courses/solidworks/


Companies seldom offer their engineers SolidWorks update training.  Design-Engine can offer update training to cover years of updates in several hours or several days. Depending upon the budget and if the presentation is lecture oriented or participants get to try the examples. New functions get added to the software with each release and your staff may not leverage those enhancements into their everyday workflow.  Our heavy user training can touch on these enhancements.

Conclusion
Companies believe in empowering their staff through new ideas but update training or SolidWorks training may be categorized differently.  It is an option to let engineers fend for themselves.  Through our instructor led example oriented training efforts, Design-Engine in it’s training effort aims to aid engineers in thinking differently, smarter and more efficiently. Expect the participants to be more adept, efficient, confident, to making accurate time estimates.  In essence we free up design staff to work smarter not harder.

Thank you for taking the time to read