2008 Excellence in Practice Citation - Performance Improvement Category
Given By: American Society for Training and Development (ASTD)
Partner: Ball Metal Container Operations (Williamsburg, Virginia)
Program: Leader Performance Improvement System

ESCO Covington, a heavy manufacturing plant, significantly improved its production efficiency by 23%, representing a 1st year direct cost reduction of $285,600 using the Lean Manufacturing Improvement Process integrated with a Human Capital Management System named People Powered Lean. In March 2004, the time from the production manager generating a labor requirement to first day was 10.3 weeks costing $2,008/new hire with a 59% 1st year attrition rate. In six months, the project team analyzed, designed, developed, and piloted a modernized teammate acquisition program named People Powered Lean (PPL). PPL features a modernized hiring process; a scenario based interview/skills assessment; a “World Class” first day; a common skills training program; a production cell training program; a first 90 day coaching and feedback process; and a PPL management system focused on reducing the new teammate’s time to competency in their first job and reducing 1st year attrition.

The overarching goal was to create new teammate engagement from first contact leading to improved business performance. In 2006 PPL reduced the time to 9.3 weeks to 1 week; reduced the cost of hire to less than $500 and decreased its 1st year attrition rate from 59% to 6% while reducing overall attrition by 31%. Most importantly overall production efficiency was improved 23% from 29.42 hours/product to 23.98 hours/product.

2004 Excellence in Practice Citation - Workplace Learning and Development Category Given By: American Society for Training and Development (ASTD)
Partner: Northrop Grumman Newport News Shipyard (Newport News, Virginia)
Program: Win! Win! Big Win! Building Pipelines from the Community to the Workforce

Northrop Grumman Newport News and TMG developed a cooperation model with community colleges, state workforce development agencies, and local technical high schools to provide initial entry workers with clear "pipelines" from their high schools and employment services agencies directly to full-time jobs with the skill requirements necessary to be successful. The key to success was Northrop Grumman's willingness to donate their computer-based training courseware to ensure that the workforce development staff and the technical schools' personnel understood exactly what skills and attitudes the industry required.

Win: Northrop Grumman's applicants were better prepared and initial entry training costs were reduced while improving first year retention. That was achieved by training students on industry-provided courseware and assessing them using Work Keys, which were administered by the community college with remediation performed at the workforce development center.

Win: The local technical schools receive state-of-the-art learner-based curriculum and valuable staff development training.

Big Win: Students now have a clear pipeline from their high schools directly to full-time jobs with the skills required to be successful. This program serves as a repeatable model with a compelling business case and positive Return on Investment.

Northrop Grumman Newport News and Training Modernization Group teamed up to implement a Production Trades Training Program that provides the right number of employees, with the right skills, at the right time to improve the business performance of the company. This training modernization process was developed to meet the business forecast demands of significant increases in the number and skill sets of employees. The Training Modernization program is a unique application of a detailed functional analysis, a measured blended learning solution of computer-based training and computer assisted instruction, hands on training, and first-line supervisor-led practical application in the workplace. It ensures a workforce with the right skills at the right time in their development path from pre-hiring to retirement. What started with one hour of computer-based training is now a growing sector-wide transformation strategy that is improving the way the company acquires, trains and develops its employees. A key feature is an embedded and comprehensive measurement and Return-on-Investment feature that continuously tracks and reports learning, performance, and metrics proving the business value of the program.

The Welding School at Northrop Grumman Newport News has aggressively modernized its entire training process, procedures, programs, curriculum, and content. The key elements to this transformation were the introduction of e-learning technologies and changes in instructional strategy and procedures. With the support of Training Modernization Group, the Welding School converted 90 percent of the instructor-led practical training curriculum to computer-assisted instruction and 100 percent of the instructor-led classroom training to computer-based training. This conversion allowed instructors to focus on the core learning event - one-on-one practical instruction. Also, a learning management system was implemented within the shipyard intranet. To capture return-on-investment, the school implemented a validated assessment and test plan, data capture process, and analytical support program.

The modernized Welding School Training Model features basic training to evaluate trainees early in their welding experience and then groups them by learning aptitude and pace to better match instructors to trainees, providing a more efficient training model. The Welding School has more than tripled its throughput while reducing cost per trainee by 16 percent. In addition, the school has reduced the safety incident rate by half, and increased available direct labor hours to production projects by 15,700 hours due to faster matriculation.

Training Modernization Group and the Northrop Grumman Newport News Shipyard partnered to develop a cooperation model with New Horizons Regional Education Center (NHREC) by providing Welding computer-based training courseware, originally developed to train entry-level NGNN employees. Since the students are trained on the same courseware using the same instructional model, NGNN gets better prepared applicants and the school better facilitates students' workplace transition. NHREC was able to procure and integrate the Computer Based Training Products into the Welding Program of Instruction with outstanding instructional results that they never could have afforded to develop on their own. As the result, NHREC is providing their graduates with real career opportunities at the Shipyard and other welding outfits.