Characterization of the operators training process in an industrial company

Abstract

Training operators in industrial contexts is a demand that most of the industrial organizations must deal with, and engineers are the trainers in many cases. Thus, engineers may be required to deal with the development of a training environment and a competences assessment system in training settings. This paper aims to characterize strategies for planning and implementation of an operator-training process for a specific production process, namely automatic insertion lines of electronic components, in an automotive company. The developed work included the following three steps: (1) documental analysis, (2) observation of the current training process, and (3) interactions between the researchers involved in the case study and the company's collaborators. During this characterization, it was possible to identify some strategic learning approaches, and three main phases of training: the Initial Training which consists in an general explanation of the content in an integration phase; Theoretical-Practical Training which consists in a specific phase of mandatory content for operations development; and the Validation of Aptitude / Knowledge which consists in complementary content that is focused to ensure the competences development through an assessment of the trainee operator. This case study may give support to practitioners and researchers dedicated to this theme.