I was reading the January 11, 2007 copy of Machine Design Magazine last night. I know that was printed a while ago, sometimes I get behind on my trade publication reading. Machine Design is especially one that isn’t directly related to my day-to-day role, but I usually always at some point make sure to read it.
In that issue there was an article by Phillip Trotter of Right Hemisphere Inc. entitled “A Better way to Accelerate Learning” that caught my eye (Here is the Link). The article talks about “Just in Time Training” for mostly mechanical devices. The concept is that a person who is called in to install/fix/service a piece of equipment can, through digitization , pull up 3-D accurate diagrams of the equipment, instructions for procedures, troubleshooting information, and the like. So instead of training someone for every possible contingency this JIT training allows a technician to become productive more quickly and continue operating efficiently. The article goes on to talk about how this is brought about by a convergence of computer advancement (portability and power), increasing re-use in 3D CAD (supplier to user), and advancement in web and database technology delivery of training. Naturally, Right Hemisphere produces products to help implement this type of JIT training. Another interesting note was through open-source like sharing of CAD data from the manufacturer to the user, the cost maintaining and updating instruction/training material is severely reduced.
What really caught my eye was this image that accompanied the article.
A similar diagram is also availible in this write paper on Interactive Training at Right Hemisphere.
I have heard mention of the relative effectiveness of various training types, but this diagram and the relative amount of course design that goes into each one is particularly interesting. As I read through this chart, I looked back on my time as a student and tried to internally validate this with my own historical knowledge. I had some difficulty in validating the we only remembering 10% of what we read for example. The 90% retension of a something that you have learned through simulation and games was easy for me to grasp. I look back and vividly remember to this day my undergraduate and graduate controls courses where we learned about various types of process control through simulation. It was a computer based learning excercise where small teams and individuals would be posed with real chemical processes with their control systems. It was your job to choose between several different control implementations (P vs. PI vs. PID, or standard feedback, feed-forward, or cascade controls) and then tune these controllers and look at the realtive performance. To this day I still re-call correctly the information I learned in these simulations. At the time it was very frustrating because you could not fudge your way through it. You had to learn by trying various stategies, looking at the results, identify your failure points, correct them, and then not finish until you had proven to yourself that you had a robust solution. (Dr. Smith, you were ahead of your time)
This also reminded me of a podcast I listened to a while back on Dan Keldsen’s Blog that discussed “Learnertainment” and learning through simulation.
So taking this a step further, what are those areas in your business that could benefit from education or training by simulation?
- Are there core competencies that usually can only be learned by “time in job”?
- Are there tasks that can only be learned by doing?
- Are there mission critical or safety related items that are candidates?
- Are there large-scale systems with long time cycles that would benefit from simulation where you can see the results of your actions in a time less than years?
- Are there situations where competitive strategy elucidation by game-play could be useful?
I can think of quite a few candidates. Now is that caveat about the increasing time in training curriculum development we see as the horinzontal arrow in that image above.
Do you have a real world example of when you learned through simulation?
Do you know of an example of how your company or you are using simulation in employee training?
Write and tell me. I’ll post the good ones here.
