O/ 510-843-6227 FAX 510 843 6280 H/ 510-620-0512/Pgr 510-425-2933
Here's a letter typical of what we send out.
Plant Manager
Jacuzzi LA
Re: Computerized Videos for Manufacturing
Dear Mr --------- :
We were just discussing on the phone a new method that we invented for amplifying OJT in the high performance workplace-- computerized (digitized) videos. This approach requires an expenditure for on the job training materials, something most firms don't generally budget for (how much did your firm budget for OJT this year?) Because they don't budget for OJT, the results are far less effective than they could be, and the training ends up being more expensive. Making a set of digitized videos for on the job training will lower your overall cost.
My company makes computer videos (Quicktime® video) for training -- the computer movies that show how your master workers perform the company's tasks, so everybody -- new worker and experienced worker alike -- will get on the same page and achieve higher productivity in the high performance workplace. You'll be the first manufacturing outfit (as far as I can tell) to use digitized video as part of your structured OJT to achieve this. I will fax you a screenshot of what our software looks like when a worker uses it. (You can see some videos on our website www.frogojt.com, but bear in mind that they are considerably smaller and less colorful than what you get on the shop floor; the web isn't really the right medium yet for transmitting video.)
METHOD:
Here's what we do:
¥ shoot video footage of a master worker on the shop floor at your facility, performing a critical task;
¥ digitize the footage (back here at our shop);
¥ edit the Quicktime® clips into appropriate segments;
¥ incorporate the segments into FrogOJTSystems proprietary training format for critical repetitive physical tasks;
¥ load the project on a computer (on a rollaround chassis, with big tires);
¥ bring the ready-to-go computer back to the shop floor for deployment, after you check it all out to see that everything is okay;
Here's how deployment would work:
¥¥ A trainee watches his personal trainer perform the task well;
¥¥ The trainee watches many viewings of the digitized master worker on the computer screen performing the task perfectly. The computer is very patient, and it rewinds 100% better than any VCR (see www.frogojt.com website.)
¥¥ The trainee tries it a few times.
¥¥ After multiple viewings of the master performing the task on the computer screen perfectly, and then trying it for himself a few times, the personal trainer will be able to point to the one or two things that the acolyte doesn't do quite like the master does, and then the trainee will be heard to say, "Oh yeah." And then on the very next try, he will download from his brain the very move that he saw the master perform many times on the screen, and his behavior will be modified to be just perfect. (This is the pattern that I have observed in other training situations.)
¥ Finally we would measure effectiveness on trainees and incumbent workers.
So: The computer is built into a rugged little unit that has a hard drive (or CD-ROM drive) full of short digitized movies. Each short movie is one step, performed by your exemplary technician. Each very short video is only ten to twenty seconds long. The technician looks down at the screen, clicks the mouse where the screen says "First Step" and the short movie plays. Then he clicks it again, and again, as many times (or as many dozen times) as necessary, until he's got a good picture in his head of just how to do it. Then he starts clicking the mouse on the next step.
The above approach increases the number of reps a trainee (and an incumbent worker) gets to see. Any Quicktime move can be viewed frame-by-frame, backwards, forward, slow motion, and repetitively without the time lag associated with searching on a tape format.
You can have lots of different short movies on these machines. It makes cross training a lot more likely.
COST:
This digitized video structured OJT product costs about a thousand dollars a minute for finished product -- no talking heads, no fluff, just how to do the task. If a particular step on a particular machine takes fifty five seconds, that would be a thousand dollars. If you wanted to break it down, and it took only six seconds for each step, and there were ten steps, then that would be the same thousand dollars.
We would be more than happy to get started for $10,000, (five thousand in advance), plus air fare and a car to get to the plant. Just tell me when to be there and where the machines are, and have the master workers on the job.
For ten thousand dollars, you'll have at least one usable prototype training product. This will be a product that nobody else has, and it will increase safety, raise productivity and lower costs as soon as you start using it. If there is cross-training taking place, where different operators are on different machines during the year, then the Quicktime movies we make will get the operators right up to speed and right on the money, with fewer lost-time injuries along the way. You can change the movies, for new techniques or for improvement's sake -- no problem, you just have to shoot a new movie. The software will play that movie instead of the old movie, because we gave it (the new movie file) the old moviefile's name.
SAFETY
This new approach is going to change things in safety management and safety task analysis. A master operator is a safe operator. For example: there is a lot of manual labor around any manufacturing process. You have to pick stuff up and put it down. The master operator has been picking stuff up and putting it down for decades, and his back didn't go out on him, and he didn't crush his foot. He shows in the Quicktime video just how to do that; and the text track (subtitles) point out that he's doing that (he doesn't make a big show out of it; we have to point it out in words to emphasize the technique of not stooping over, ever.) That's what you can add. It won't cost any more, and it will save the company a lot of money when the workman's comp insurance bill comes due and the disability insurance bill never arrives. The quality assurance gains and the productivity gains are the icing on the cake.
INSTITUTIONAL SIGNIFICANCE
The digitized images canonize the Jacuzzi way of doing the job. The movies become assets, and your whole corpus of movies is an archive of the collective physical expertise of your company. With this standardization of physical methods, quality assurance acquires a company wide reference point. Jacuzzi's quality assurance program just ratcheted up a whole notch.
Cordially,
Richard Katz
for FrogOJTSystems
O/ 510-843-6227 FAX 510 843 6280 H/ 510-620-0512/Pgr 510-425-2933
www.frogojt.com, especially www.frogojt.com/frogojt.html katz@frogojt.com
RodriguezJacuzzi3:45 PM4/22/98
NOTES
1. We could have this done in a week, for one set of procedures, and then you could see if it works. By the way, we work with Prof Clair Brown, a top expert on structured OJT at Univ of California, Berkeley's Industrial Relations Department.
2. We're not afraid one bit to roll a Macintosh out on the floor of the plant. If it gets a headache, we'll just ruggedize it some more until it can take it like any other worker.
3. FrogOJTMovies are about didactic value, not production value. They're inexpensive, but not cheap -- even though we're dealing with unadorned reality for the most part, digitized videos have extremely high entertainment value. People love the special effects and never get tired of watching them. An example of a video tool: The latest version of Quicktime ) allows you to make a "text track" in any movie. Jacuzzi's expert on a particular machine, say, can create authoritative text using any word processor or a pencil and paper. Quicktime turns the text track into subtitles. Text track can have information about safety and about problem solving.
FrogOJT Systems for Structured OJT.