Educating and Training the Industrial Workforce: Automation World Survey

Automation World: What has been your experience with product training from vendors?

· Typically it has been poor.  Often, they are trying to sell products rather than train.

· I prefer product training from 3rd parties because you don't receive biased information on that particular product.

· Fair to excellent

· Poor

· Usually not advanced enough beyond the basics of the product.

· After having my engineer degree I took a few courses with some specific suppliers but I have never stopped studding and improving my qualification, from self-studying to formal academic post-graduation

· The DAQ acquisitions from the hardware.

· Covers all the product fundamentals, but the real learning happens in the field, using the product.

· Some good info, but mostly a 'sales pitch'.

· Overall good impressions

· very little, it tends to cost so most employers are not willing to put much into training.

· Vendor training helps quite a bit.  However, it is usually  very topical and really only helps to get those with little experience moving in the right direction.

· Even their advanced courses are basic.  They walk you through scenarios that are geared towards showing you the features they want you to see, and to use them in a way that will not cause a class flow disruption.  There's a need for higher complexity project based education, where you take time over several weeks to use the products and create a working system or simulated system.

· Very good

· Many are very good. It can be very good if it not too much sales orientated

· product training from vendors are short appriciation courses only.They are not enough to Skill building.

· Varies all over the lot.  In many cases it depends on who you get as a trainer.

· Mixed

· Overall positive.

· No good. They usually hava a poor technical knowledge.

· Very valuable, but needs to be more application specific

· It is fine to give more background. It is however more useful if you have the right academic training to appreciate the implications of the training and how to utilize it properly.

· Great, when you can get it.

· very good (LabView,Promodel)

· Not very much, mostly just short presentations of product capability.

· Helpful but inconsistent.  Vendor training is useful for learning applications and some specific products but no base concepts

· useful, but usually very  specific

· good

· can be great for their products

· OK but would like more online classes to reduce the need for travel

· Usless

· Vg

· somewhat helpful,good to see what is out there

· Not enough equipment to provide a good hands on experiance. Need more time with equipment and opportunities to be one on one with the equipment.

· Getting better, but should be less product oriented.

· Okay, typically the technology is understood, and looked for product offerings.

· 50/50 - some were very good - some not so good.

· Not deep enough

· "It is hardware oriented not application oriented. We need more application training for the various industries."

· Good

· It is product training, not solutions training.

· Some training and lots of advertisements

· too expensive, not tailored to actual end-user's needs

· fills only small gaps

· Not more exposure.

· Very specific

· protection reley, servo motor

· not enough local training locations

· I have this experience for more than 30 years too

· It isn't bad but condensed, fast and expensive. If you are not prepared to use it continually it is lost. Better approach would be good manuals with training on how to look up specific issue quickly.

· Helpfull.

· Little

· Nothing

· Consistently weak - training typically starts with an assumption of 0 knowledge and struggles to address advanced topics well

· I had a training in a Kimball Electronics Company, and it was very good to prepare me to this job, was like a introdution into process, maintanance of production machines, etc.

· If they have a good technical knowledge is good

· Limited, although there have been some in depth training on some electronic products & software.

· Not bad, Not good.

· well good

· Good

· Awesome, came to know the industry, the products, the principles we learnt ,the application of principles, the sources available in industry who can help us doing our work easily.in short knowledge and experience increases.

· Excellent experience, however this type of training is very specific to vendor equipment and well selected audience.

· Very limited.  I am a consulting engineer and I don't really get involved in purchasing.  My activity generally consists of specification.

· Different, but mostly positive

· More product oriented rather than technology oriented.

· "start and operation of new instrumentation and hardware."

· I do not to have much experience of them

· Training means Presentation.Better is your presentation better is your confidence in achieving the goal

· A vst amount of product training over 34 years

· Very much standard training, no space for application details

· It's product specific, focused on new features, not generic to all instrumentation. Vendors are still behind users on fieldbus and wireless training

· not effective

· No

· I am a technical writer, and write training courses.

· Product training is offered more as a post-sale perk. it is on as good as the students questions and curiosity.

· OK

· In person, relatively fair to good.  Video instruction rated across the board from very good to ""what the ...?

· Wildly varying.  I've learned to be discerning. :)  Vendors in automation have so much to learn from www.msdn.com.

· Too general and limited

· Very good.

· it is good only to give you a startingpoint. The real learnig is happening on the jobs.

· not adequate.

· Some are good, but it's a people thing, most are very poor.  Issue is the people doing the training are product people, they generally do not have industry experience

· A part of my experience is come from vendors product training. But need more practice on real projects.

· I have found IPC training quite good.  I have found training for other items like CNC and PLC programming also to quite good.  I have found other training in defect prevention and risk analysis to poor

· Good

· I only had a very few times of "academic" training on the products we sell. The rest, I gained through working.  Not good enough and I wished I had more appropriate, structural trainings.

· I learned so many things from product sales and service team

· Ok nothing special gives you a chance to ask questions

· the best training I have recieved has been from Rockwell. it makes a difference when the person training knows the product better that you do.

· Generally good

· Good, having information for "first hand" facilitate learning

· Fair - depends completely on the vendor and the reason.

· It's fine.  Nothing substitutes knowing one's business and learning to use a tool to meet specific business needs

· Usually it is too rushed an incomplete

· Multiday classes are good, short classes are pretty much a waste ot time

· Mediocre, at best

· few and far between, the industry needs more indepth training for large classes of new engineers in the field.

· Hard to generalize.  Tipically excellent from reputable vendors.

· Some vendors like apprentice like training. This concept works well.

· Spotty, some are very good others non-existent

· vendors  product are usually inspected in quality based on iso standard and classification.sometimes there often exist some shortfalls on machined/assembly  profiles which are usually modified at the site by the end users

· Best when focused on specific products, giving technical information on them.

· Some has been good.

· OK

· "50/50 at best. Too much propaganda."

· Generally good

· Good, but not always available when needed.

· I have not had any contact with vendors other than occasional lectures.

· The trainers tend to be salesmen, filling the requirment for training on products.

· Hit or miss.  Depends on the vendor.

· fair to poor

· Vendor training is all over the map. So much of the training focuses only on the “how to” for their product but fail to address the “why”. Most of the “how to” is a verbal version of the manual. What is needed is more practical knowledge transfer by offering best practices and use cases. It is just as important to know what not to do and why as it is to know what to do. Vendor training should include a learning lab so that real work scenarios could be tested during the class.

· good if you have a specific need

· I have taken may vendor traing courses. Mostly very good

· Not to much help provided

· some good some poor. Always push them

· very good if you are using or plan to implement their hardware and/or software platforms into a project. They'll actually provide sample components and training to allow a real life test run.

· Fair to poor.  Product vendors design products and do not do all that great of a job of showing customers how to use them.

· weak at best, send out the hands on people who get the job done, do not need sales person.

· Classes are very specific and therefore very expensive and not always effective.....

· Vendors are very helpful and knowledgable.

· Very good in overall, filling a gap that is present right now in industry.

· varied - some very good and some not worth the time spent

· Fairly well but limited to the theory behind the actual operaiton of the product and does not focus on potential applications.

· "I haven't received much of this outside of the software field.

· I am aware of a publishing house that developed their own training methods for employees with no previous experience in the printing industry and were very successful with it."

· Good. But it needs to be complemented with non-vendor oriented training as vendors usually focus on their strenghts and some wide view is lost

· I have had extensive training from National Instruments and have found it very good. It is expensive though, and even with that there are still problems that pop up that require problem solving skills that can not be effectively taught in a training session.

· A good knowledge base. More hands on time results in better understanding and a desire to expand ones knowledge.

· Fair

· EXCELLENT

· Very little, I usually go to them after deciding what I want and why.

· My own experience is not too deep in this realm.  I'm more focused on "soft" processes as opposed to equipment.

· Certified training in Remedy

· Few/far between - light on content.

· The vendors want to make the sale and aren't very interested in giving much training.

· they just tesach the basics to know how to work their equipment. It is up to you to take that to higher levels through experimentation.

· Some great, others OK, a few were a waste of time.

· good but limited in scope or breadth ( just their stuff)

· You get just enough to be able to feel your way through the project and utilize the help manuals better.

· product training in my experience has been lacking but that could be partly to do with my remote location and amount of $ available to pay for product training.

· Little more then fleshed out sales demos.

· I haven't had any.

· Reasonable.

· They tend to be a little heavy on the ,'special sauce'.  No need to compromise the business model by adding too many bright folks at once.

· Most is limited.

· Poor

· Highly variable.  Can be very good.

· Vendors training is like trying to drink from a fire hose. They give too much info all in a few days. The training needs to be over a longer time with no more that 4 hours in a day. This gives time to absorb the info and build one class section on top of another.

· Some good, some bad.

· Low.

· Mixed. Some vendors have excellent training, but sometimes limited in scope to their particular solution set. Have not worked with too many programs, maybe 5 or 6.

· Good

· pretty poor

· Most of that training is really expensive. Vendors tend to either focus only on customers or try to make a business out of that training. How many companies can afford a $5,000.00 dollars training for 2-3 days really? Vendors should be looking for ways to lower their training cost so more people can learn to work on their products.

· Generally enough to get a user started.

· Some has been very good while others seem to lack. I found the best training is the hands on. One problem I see with training is that most factories have older technology still running. Training for these versions are not available from the vendor.

· Most has been very helpful, some have just been plugs for sale of new product.

· Generally very good

· Good

· Most of the time it is too general.  It needs to be more product specific & provide technical knowlege in a format that is easy to understand.

· Helpful

· Very good.

· Both ends of the spectrum.  Either the training has been exceptional, or it turns out to be nothing more than a glorified sales meeting.  There doesn't seem to be anything in between.

 · 50/50 - only half have been applicable to real world applications combined with technology

· Good product overview, but lack of details/hand-on experience.

· Not very good.  They are more general in nature.  The vendor training classes that are customer specific are better

· Overall, not too bad.  But again, it deals with theory and doesn't get to you individual plant issues.

· Yes

· There are opportunites - I have not taken advantage of all the opprotunittes.

· Have not had any experience with outside traing venders

· Most vendoirs do a nice job of requesting and defining deliverables before setting up a training plan.  I think you get our of it what you put in.

· In product design, when I need help on using a vendor part, by then I am more familiar with the part than the FAE is.

· My experience has been excellent

· Good

· Good, but could be better. update and some theory, applied for the specifics...but it would never make anyone a good solid eng. manager or solid eng. specialist in anything.

· very helpful, informative

· Some good.  Some not.

· It's is usually exactly what is needed to get folks up to speed on the vendors equipment. I have been to some that even offer indepth maintenance and repair that proved to be invaluable to our organization

· Too specialized and narrow in scope

· Not very useful, vendors are too busy trying to sell me something I don't need.

· I haven't had a lot of experience with that.

· Some good some bad.  Mostly bad.  They are more engineering documents and training instead of teacher with practical examples.

· Helpful, but often too slow.  Need to target classes for the audience better.

· Well trained vendors are much harder to find

· Some good some bad. Mostly good - but that because I insisted on the better teachers and hammered them with questions.

· Vendor specific product training is ideal.  There's nothing better than factory training.

· Vendors teach you to operate their machine on the lowest level. They cannot imagine what all their customers are using the technology for much less replicate in a 5 days class. Vendor lasses used to be weeks not days.

· "Unfortunately vendor ""lunch and learn"" training lacks serious technical basics on new products and rely more on dazzling sales pitches.* *In my experience."

· OK

· Usually OK, but it is often too abbreviated.

· Vendor training is good - if it is a product that you currently use or plan to use regularly.  But vendor training can be too narrow.  You cannot make a reasoned judgment about how to analyze a particular process variable based only one vendor's approach.

· They have been simply a glorified sales pitch to sell additional product and hype their product line.

· Vendor training needs to be good in order to justify the cost ($600+/day is typical).

· Sales pitch hidden as learning.

· Usually useful.

· Average at best.  Vendors focus on selling product and exposing people to their lines.

· Good!....Vendors can save you a lot of "book time" and make you more efficient in a faster ramp-up time.

· Mixed. Some times it is very good, at others, very poor.

· Adequate, at best.  Most Vendors have field serives reps with minimal experience

· Poor

· Not much product training received, only some information on product overviews from vendors.

· Some good , some very basic.

· It it adequate for specfic tasks.  Experience is still the best training.

· the vendor always show us their product instead of make emphasis in technology

· most is very thorough

· Mixed - the best one are hands on, but employers should learn that it benefits them in the long run to give younger employees time to train as well as experiment with newer products

· Training is usually geared towards design and not to integrating to existing systems.  The best classes for me have been tailored to specific applications or industry situations.  AB / Rockwell equipment and software training stands out as very good, but expensive.  Training is usually hard to justify the cost to management and hard to make time away from the office.

· Mixed, 20% sub-par, 40% general spec. training that could have easily been gotten by reading the manual and the remaining 40% above and beyond required training with in-depth analysis and hands on experience.

· depends on the vendor but in general the ones that offer training have good knowlege and skills with the product

· It has been OK, but most organizations are not equiped to implement new products.

· Decent but it depends on what the equipment is worth.

· "Too broad Too expensive"

· It is quite varied.  Some is quite good, while others is pitiful.  Working with the vendor to develop the course material provides the best results.  Canned training more often than not does not provide what is desired.

· It depends on the vendor, but many are very good.  The level of experience translates on the level of value from vendor-supplied education.

· Very basic and many times leaves the technician  with trouble relating to their application

· Ususally run by sales. If not then it's expensive.

· Typically limited in scope.

· Have used it extensively in a plant environment, usually provided by service technicians.  In general, vendor training is too informal or unorganized to be fully effective.  The quality of the trainers varies greatly, and there is typically no training program used by the suppliers to "train the trainers"

· great they alwasy offer classes

· I have only received  advice on using products and not anything I would call training.

· It is good, but does not go far enough.

· It is high level and not always specific enough

· Is based solely on the machine or process you are buying.  OK but not enough to benefit the most.

· Very little

· somewhat helpful

· It is very specific and only beneficial if the receiver has a good basis.

· Not very good

· Some good, some bad.  Depends on the experience of the vendor and whether it is a sales pitch or true training.

· Good

· Time constraints cause this to have a minimal effect.

· fairly good however they usually don't provide detailed scientific explanations.  they assume the attendee won't understand

· not so good

· Not enough hands on experiance in most cases.

· Good

· Mostly mediocre

· "Some Excellent, Some Poor, Much Non-Existant."

· Mixed at best

· Good but too surface and not enough detail.

· Not very good. It's always a rush, and most people just want to go hang out in the clubs.

· can be good