Workforce development and training are gaining importance in the automation and manufacturing space. Recorded live at Automate 2023, Omron’s Liz Lopez and Todd Mason-Darnell join Winn Hardin to discuss the company’s 90th anniversary and dive deep into its expanded portfolio of services, most notably training. Liz and Todd outline Omron’s portfolio of training services, which consists of 90 courses that are available in four languages across several tracks. They explore the importance of upskilling workers and creating career-development paths so that employees can grow with their companies and consider what the future looks like for in-person and virtual training that goes beyond the classroom.

Winn Hardin: [00:00:07] Hello and welcome to Manufacturing Matters, where we cover manufacturing technology that makes sure the manufacturing still matters. And I’m here with Todd Mason, Darnell and Liz Lopez of Omron. Thanks for taking some time out of this busy day two of the conference to come visit with me. We would appreciate it today. Thank you for having me.

Todd Mason: [00:00:23] Thank you for having us. It’s great. Fantastic.

Winn Hardin: [00:00:25] All right. So let’s kick off Todd. Tell us a little bit about yourself and then give us the lowdown on Omron and its very brief 90 year history inside the automation space.

Todd Mason: [00:00:34] Yeah. So I’m the marketing manager for Core Technologies at Omron, which includes our components safety and sensor portfolio, as well as our complete services portfolio, which include portraying the part Ormana submitted is celebrating our 90th year with me this, this, this year. And one of the things that Oman is doing is really looking to expand from just providing products to support automation, but also really increasing our services portfolio. And particularly with that training, we see that as a way to enable our customers to get more out of their automation solutions that they’re being and to help them achieve their goals as as they evolve in an independent challenge.

Winn Hardin: [00:01:14] It’s adopting new technology. Yeah. You know, that seems like the perfect transition to bring Liz in. Well, as we tell us a little bit about what you do at online.

Liz Lopez: [00:01:21] Sure. My name is Liz Lopez. I’m the training services manager for Omron for the Americas. So I oversee the training development department. They focus on creating training curriculums and then have a training delivery team. They focus on the execution of our training portfolio. Okay.

Winn Hardin: [00:01:37] And that’s from Canada all the way down into South America. Yes. Fantastic test. You know, let’s start with just a couple more basics, if we could. So just to give a sense of context. Right? Omron giant company, global player. And we’ll get we talked briefly about the breadth of products and everything, but people don’t think about the training aspect. Todd You mentioned without training, no automation system is ever going to live up to its potential, right? So we’re going to have unhappy customers, but you tell us a little bit about the portfolio of training that you currently offer.

Liz Lopez: [00:02:09] Yeah. Our overall portfolio consists of 90 courses in various languages. We mainly focus on the America and the Americas region and four languages English, Spanish, French and Portuguese. And we cover our various training technologies. We also split training into different audience types, right? Like if you have a manufacturer, you have maintenance personnel, your maintenance personnel wants to train products, That’s a different curriculum that is offered.

Winn Hardin: [00:02:40] Versus an engineering.

Todd Mason: [00:02:41] Trade.

Winn Hardin: [00:02:42] Yeah. Or an operator track. Correct. Now, in our earlier conversations, Todd, I think you mentioned the general concept of skills up and that seems to kind of riff off of what Liz was just talking about there, right? Yeah.

Todd Mason: [00:02:55] Yeah. So what we’re seeing in a lot of our customers and kind of the need in the market is we really need to skill up their labor, Right, Right. You know, as they’re looking for adaptive automation, flexible automation, what they’re realizing is they need to to have an adaptable workforce who can change with the needs and adapt with those systems. Right. And so the thing the types of skill sets that the individual may have had yesterday is not what they need tomorrow. Right. Right. And so they’re really looking to broaden the types of training you’re offering to their employees. Right. To to help them develop into their career path and really support them, support the company in the future.

Winn Hardin: [00:03:33] And I think the the career path mentioned in that is excellent. I’m sorry. Yeah.

Todd Mason: [00:03:37] So I was going to just mention that, right. You know that what we’re seeing is a lot of engagements from from HR departments who are looking for, you know, previously it was an engineering type or maintenance type of engagement that we got from the maintenance manager, who I’ve got three guys who need to know how to use the new stuff. Right now I’ve got an HR department that’s starting to talk to us and say, Listen, we want to look to develop a career development path for our employees and provide them training so they can grow with the company and acquire the skills that allow them to succeed.

Liz Lopez: [00:04:08] And in some cases, those employees are really entry level considered entry level. And so in some cases, we’re also seeing that customers are now requesting training from a theory or fundamentals perspective that incorporates theory fundamentals and then goes into more of the programming or maintenance based on their various roles in their organizations.

Todd Mason: [00:04:29] I mean, it really is an outgrowth of kind of, you know, we’re all struggling with labor shortages and Covid, just really not.

Winn Hardin: [00:04:35] To ask if Covid was driving this or if we see this as a longer term.

Todd Mason: [00:04:38] I mean, it’s a little bit of a longer term. We saw it before Covid, right? We were struggling with labor, but now really Covid and magnify that not only did it increase the demand for automation and increase the demand for these skill sets and and the the the the companies don’t have access to flavor. So you know, the analogy I often use is companies you know yeah they need a PLC program. They can’t find a PLC programmer but they are having trouble even finding someone who knows what a PLC is. So what they’re looking for is. Need to bring someone in, train them what a PLC is, and then train them on how to program suspec and.

Liz Lopez: [00:05:10] Along those lines of post. Now, with Covid, we learned we have to deliver training also differently to appeal to all the different audiences. Now training can be delivered virtually. Now there’s more on demand capability where there’s pre-recorded videos so tailored to the convenience of the customer or the learner. You know, you.

Winn Hardin: [00:05:30] Anticipated my next question, which was what kind of changes are the are the marketplace requesting you? So so you talked about it. Maybe you want to tie that in a little bit more to Amazon’s global reach, right? I mean, not only so you want to be there and the way they want, whether it’s a traditionally I think most training was done in person. Is that correct? Yes. Yeah. All right. But we’re seeing a lot more demand for virtual classes that are that are that are still instructor led, right?

Liz Lopez: [00:05:53] Yeah. So traditionally, training has been out of a lot of in-person training, you know, customer. We would go to their facilities or they would come to ours, however post-COVID. Now we’re also seeing a kind of a change or a shift where customers are requesting virtual training. Right? And we have the come up with how do we make virtual training interactive, right? How do we still give them the overall experience that they would have received in a classroom or in-person setting virtually. And so we’ve created a way to adapt to remote connections with some of our products. And we also now, because it is a virtual training, we are able to reach a more global or broader audience. And so globally for us in terms of instructors, we’re able to kind of create a skill, a skills assessment of what we can offer globally. And then from there we’re able to create global curriculums. So if your company is in the US and they’re also in Europe or Asia, we’re able to now teach the same curriculum for that company at a global scale.

Todd Mason: [00:06:57] You know, and I may be dating myself here, but I mean, the world really has become flat after Covid, even flatter. And what we’re really seeing, these companies, they want the same training for their employees that they’re getting, you know, that is here in the US. But they have a sister plant in Shanghai, right? They want to make sure that they are getting that same baseline. And so like this says, right, one of the things we can do is we can leverage, especially with the virtual content right in the instructor, the instructor here in the United States is delivering the content, whereas the Omron instructor in Shanghai is delivering the same content, but obviously not in English, but maybe in Mandarin, right? Whatever. Or is needed by that local plant. Absolutely. So they’re getting that consistent, but the company is getting that consistent baseline. Again, for me.

Winn Hardin: [00:07:38] You know, it’s it’s interesting because that was always a driver for the adoption of automation technology in general, right? You wanted to have automated systems possibly developed from one location. The US was well known for that, given exporting these solutions around the world so that distributed manufacturing companies were able to have consistent quality across the whole enterprise, Right.

Liz Lopez: [00:07:57] And so kind of tie the knot to. Now that we can deliver training globally, how do we manage? How do we manage the learning paths of all these learners at a global scale? And so we do have a learning management system or referred to as an LMS, right? Where we’re able to kind of customize to that learner a learner path based on their needs. And then they’re, they’re able to log in and see where they’re at on the learner path, able to obtain their certificates. And from a managers perspective, we’re able to automate reporting for easy use on a global scale, right?

Todd Mason: [00:08:33] Go ahead. Well, I was going to say, you know, we’ve been focusing a lot on the kind of the skilled labor, the growth of automation. But the other place we’re seeing companies squeeze is that they no longer have large in-house training organizations anymore. They just they they can’t find the people. They they can’t find the time. Right.

Winn Hardin: [00:08:49] And if they do, it’s probably not growing at the same pace as the overall company.

Todd Mason: [00:08:52] Exactly right. So that’s the other thing. Right, is that they’re looking for partners. Right. To help them. And, you know, not only do that basic skill based advance, but also something like we don’t even know the first place of how to manage this training of 5000 employees that are able to trade globally.

Winn Hardin: [00:09:07] Track Right. And it’s not as if in developing engaging content that people are going to be able to access around the world is not exactly as simple as it sounds. Right? It’s not just about writing it in multiple languages and making sure that it’s engineering approve, not just translate it, but actually relevant in the in the local dialect and cultural.

Todd Mason: [00:09:25] Yeah, right. I mean, we’ve all sat in death by PowerPoint presentations. That’s not what we want the training to be. It needs to be engaging. It needs to be this balance of lecturer and student interaction. Right. And the and the right types of things for the students to learn the skills and then also for us to be able to assess whether the student has acquired skills.

Liz Lopez: [00:09:43] And because of that, our virtual instructor led curriculums include, you know, they do include a live instructor, they include a lesson learning objectives, but they also include the demos or the labs. And although you’re not physically with the product from your remote location, you can easily connect to our robot device. You can see your lab be a webcam as you’re building out your program. And so it gives a user the capability to although they don’t physically have the product, they can still connect and complete their assignments. From an instructor perspective, we’re also able to log in to the remote PCs and ensure, hey, you know, I can offer support 1 to 1 if needed. If I see someone struggling in a particular area right on a lab.

Winn Hardin: [00:10:24] From our earlier conversations, I think you were saying that one of Omron’s true value propositions is not that you can service the globe and train hundreds, thousands of people on a regular basis. Companies can’t. But you guys specifically tailor bulk custom curriculum and small class sizes, right? So that instructors are able to give that one on one love for to each.

Liz Lopez: [00:10:43] Yeah, we try to keep our class to about 10 to 12 students try not to go above that valley so that we are able to give that attention to those learners that we have in course.

Winn Hardin: [00:10:54] You know, it’s funny, we talk about LMS systems and I can see learning how to do PLCs. I can see how to learn how to do sizmek and similar related studios and environments like that. But how do you do that? And you mentioned about webcams earlier, but a little bit more. I know you provide training specifically, right? So tell us about how that structured. Yeah, we.

Liz Lopez: [00:11:11] Do have a mobile robot class that we teach with a maximum ten students. And the way that course is designed, because it is a virtual is we give students access to the simulator so that each student starts off the week just controlling one robot. You know, let me show you how to move one program one. And by the end of the week, each student gets five robots. But because there’s ten learners there, it’s 150 robots that one instructor is managing. And so it gives the instructor ability to work with the students individually. Each of them have their own access to a remote tool that we can collaborate with them on if if they ask for support and if needed.

Todd Mason: [00:11:50] And the great thing about that simulator that was just subject matter that for the emulator that we use in Sizmek in our PLC training, is that that that’s capability that’s resident in the the software or in the product itself. It’s not a separate system. So, you know, that’s one of the great things even customers, once they go out of the class, they still have access to that to run the simulation of the PLC program at their computer before they ever have to go to hardware, right? So they can identify those bugs and those problems right there as opposed to on the floor, right. When they’re trying to get the machine released?

Winn Hardin: [00:12:21] Yeah. With also a great data tracking so that your, your your instructors and the managers are able to obviously see where people might be struggling. Yeah. Give them that attention and and and reward those who are putting in maximum effort and doing, you know, overachieving. Well opening up more career paths for everybody that your customer companies. Right. Right. So that’s just that’s just super cool across the board and we just don’t it’s funny, we just don’t think about training in the service support and the pre-engineering and these things. But training is just such a critical component for. So I’m glad we’re talking about it. Yeah, yeah. But so trainings, training, we talked about LMS, we talked about making it more interactive. I’m going to bet you that there’s probably a good amount of video and other things in the data reporting metrics. Okay, We can all see that. We can all understand that. So now if you look in your crystal ball, tell us what’s where’s the future?

Todd Mason: [00:13:07] Oh, let me let me get it out here so.

Winn Hardin: [00:13:10] You can rub.

Todd Mason: [00:13:11] This. Yeah, I can try. Well, you know, I don’t have to go far either on that one. Um, so honestly, what we see a lot more of is customers are looking for access to micro right little three five minute task based learning so that they can do that. That’s accessible mobile. Right. Right. They’re on the floor. I need help. They need to know how to do this real quick. Right. And they want to be able to access it. I’ve got enough to get me by. Right or so. That’s how we’re all starting to consume a lot of information now. Isn’t that kind of that YouTube format, 3 to 5 minutes?

Winn Hardin: [00:13:46] We do. And even super critical in emerging markets, right? Right.

Liz Lopez: [00:13:50] Manufacturing perspective. It’s very difficult to pull an employee out for days at a time. Yeah. And so a lot of customers are now requesting this, you know, I need the information when I need it. I need to know how to calibrate the robot right now because I’m having that issue and I need to do that portion. So a lot of this bite sized pieces of training or how to videos is where the market is, also makes.

Winn Hardin: [00:14:12] A beautiful reference library. Know if I’m struggling with something, I’ve made it through the program already. But let’s face it, if we’re not doing it on a daily basis, you know that exact calibration.

Todd Mason: [00:14:20] Routine that’s there? Exactly right. You know, it’s the use it or lose it. So I can go back and get that refresher just on that that part.

Winn Hardin: [00:14:27] So when will I be able to access this training on my PS4 headset?

Todd Mason: [00:14:30] Well, so not quite there yet. Not quite there yet.

Winn Hardin: [00:14:33] Coming down the pipe. Coming down the pipe. Yeah. Fantastic. Well, is there anything that we haven’t touched on regarding the importance of training, future training or. We we nailed it.

Todd Mason: [00:14:43] I think that was the one area we’re really seeing growth in training now from customers is, you know, we we train a lot on our products, right? But everyone also has a relationship with ranglin on functional safety training. Right? And we’re seeing a huge explosion in interest from our customers in general safety training and for functional safety. Right. So they want to get not only a general awareness of the training, but also get their technicians certified as functional safety technicians and also more engineers certified as functional safety engineers because of that emerging focus or refocus on safety in the plants. And they want to drive that awareness and that capability into their.

Winn Hardin: [00:15:26] So, Liz, if you’re delivering these safety training sessions all around the world and we got different standards all around the world, how do you adapt? We do.

Liz Lopez: [00:15:33] We have different standards and we also have certified experts on our team that are equipped to to handle the various standards for particular regions that they’re delivering the training in. And this training is also being able, because it is exam based, we are able to still deliver it virtually with a proctoring tool.

Winn Hardin: [00:15:52] Fantastic. Fantastic. Liz Todd, I can’t thank you enough for taking some time out of your busy day to come visit with us today. Thank you so much for sharing. Well, maybe stop. Maybe this will help folks to stop thinking of training as the last thing we want to think about and make it an important consideration when we’re adopting new tech managed solutions. Yeah.

Todd Mason: [00:16:10] And so.

Winn Hardin: [00:16:10] Thanks for everything you.

Todd Mason: [00:16:11] Do and appreciate it today. Thanks for having us.

Winn Hardin: [00:16:13] A pleasure. So thank you for visiting us on this latest episode of Manufacturing Matters. If you like it, please share below and you can access all of our older episodes on manufacturing Hyphen Matters.com or your favorite podcast platform wherever you get your news. So until our next episode, remember that manufacturing still matters here in around the world and until next episode back to.