E-learning in the Process Industries | E-learning Oil & Gas | E-learning Chemical

Executive Summary

The term "Process industries" encompass a variety of industries such as Oil & Gas, Chemical, Petrochemical, Specialty Chemicals, Power Generation, Pulp & Paper, Agrochemicals Dyes and Dyestuffs and so on. These industries are distinct from the "discrete parts manufacturing industries" such as automobiles, computer hardware or home appliances. Today's process industries depend heavily on employees who are trained in the right skills that they need to run the process plants and facilities. It is not for nothing that an ideal organization is also called The Learning Organization. With shortage of staff due to competitive pressures like downsizing and outsourcing, it is highly critical for any industry, to ensure that all of its employees are trained regularly. This is especially so, for businesses like the process industry who are heavily involved in engineering and technology, because of the rapid changes and advancements (and equally rapid obsolescence) in technology today. Training employees and other stakeholders in your industry, regularly, is a daunting task- if attempted to do with the traditional instructor led training.

In this White Paper, we examine the issues involved and see how e-learning can offer a better solution.

The challenge of learning in the traditional way

In current times, in the process industries, there are several problems and issues related to learning in the traditional way. By traditional way, we mean attending a live class, or training workshop, or information seminar, where the expert teacher or instructor teaches a group of learners on the subject matter.

The problems and issues include the following:

Not all employees can be spared for such training at the same time. (e.g. Imagine an oil refinery where everybody has to be trained, can it afford to send people, even in batches for a traditional classroom course?)
Costs of travel and stay, if learners are coming from different locations to study.
Different employees may have different levels of grasping, hence even after undergoing the same course, each learner's level of understanding will be different.
Pressure on the Instructor to complete the course in shortest possible time (Imagine yourself as being the Production Director of an Oil & Gas processing company-how many hours will you spare your employees for training?)
No scope for learners to revise the course concepts or re-take the course again and again, unless the company has a policy of regular refresher training. However, typically this is done only for essential training like mandatory safety training, fire-fighting, etc.
Learning is a continuous process, but instructor led training makes it a one shot event.

Let us see now how this situation can be improved.

The case for e-learning

All over the world businesses, big or small, local or global are turning to e-learning as a means of imparting effective learning. The advantages of e-learning are:

No need to spare all employees at the same time. The employee can choose time and place of learning.
It can be self paced and if need be can be run again and again till employee is confidently well versed in the subject.
No time constraints. Learning can be in bite sized chunks or all at once-totally as per the learner's need-rather than the instructor's comfort.
A large number of courses can be managed through suitable LMS (Learning Management Systems) by a very small number of training administrators. The LMS can also document and log number of courses taken, test scores, time taken, etc for each learner which can provide intelligent data for developing your employee's skills.
It results in measurable learning. Due to score tracking, progress tracking and time tracking, the performance of each employee undergoing the training becomes measurable. In earlier days with traditional training, this was typically not done.
Flexible course deployment---either through stand alone CD ROMs, Internet or a companywide Intranet. Hence no travel and stay expenses, which can be a substantial cost today.

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