Training is coming home
22 Oct 2009
Economic downturn has led to a major shift in the way training is delivered, with most process companies now preferring courses to be run on-site or at facilities much closer to the plant than was the case in the past, according to John Hartfield, service
London - The economic downturn has led to a major shift in the way training is delivered, with most process companies now preferring courses to be run on-site or at facilities much closer to the plant than in the recent past, according to John Hartfield, service delivery manager, CSM at Rockwell Automation Ltd’s Milton Keynes base.
Over the last five years, Hartfield says that there has been a significant move away from scheduled training courses at bespoke training centres. Customers, he said, are now requiring access to their staff even whilst in training and costs have been cut, so that course have to be delivered locally.
These trends have accelerated during the current recession, said Hartfield, who estimates that as much as 80% of all Rockwell Automation training is delivered either at or near to a customer’s location, compared to just 50% about 18 months ago.
In response, Rockwell is creating a centralised training resource centre with a distributed training capability utilising a number of locations across the UK. Equipment will be managed from a central location with new procedures and resources for managing the deployment of training workstations so as to reduce logistics costs associated with on-site courses.
“This change is to provide quality delivery and affordable pricing in locations that suit customer needs,” concluded Hartfield. “We are getting closer to our customers, and no longer expecting them to get closer to us.”
