Online hands-on exercises make it easy to share tips and build teams regardless of geographical location.
Online vendor training has continued its initial stages forced upon us by the COVID-19 pandemic to become an industry norm, and they are facilitating engineers’ improvement in everything from maneuvering robots to optimizing designs. They also allow engineers to bond through the process. Many engineers have returned to in-person regular work environments, but virtual training has proven to be cost-efficient and timesaving for engineers and software/hardware developers.
A number of online vendor trainings teach engineers skills in real time, in sync with one another. This helps them easily learn from one another as well as vendor trainers. Sharing information and working together encourages innovation and collaborative thinking.
Of course, certain online vendor training should be live as opposed to asynchronous or on-demand, says Dylan Shanahan, global master trainer for Universal Robots (UR).
“Currently our robot training is a two-day simulator-based class in which students get to program a robot. We go through several environments of our simulator. During the class, participants can also jump on a real robot and utilize what they learn right next to them,” says Shanahan.
UR launched simulator-based training because of the pandemic. Yet staying virtual has helped the company reach more customers with less expense than it did before, when training was in person.
“There’s three trainers here in North America and 15 total for the company. The average core training is two days, 14 hours total. Holding the training online helps us reach so many more engineers. We also educate university professors who learn how to use robots to teach skills to their students,” says Shanahan.
How trainers structure exercises
Two of the applications that UR teaches in the virtual class are “pick and place” and “palletizing.” A pick and place exercise might involve a set of trays, with each tray having a different shape etched into it. Participants would take a gluing gun and draw a shape in glue. Then the robot would feed glue along a part like a front windshield to attach it to the main body, such as a vehicle chassis.
A palletizing exercise might involve two virtual conveyors and a palletizing tray. The participant would need to pick up a block from one conveyor and put it on the second conveyor. They can start out with simple tasks like these and add on others, like quality inspections. Additional tasks make the exercise more complicated.
For example, in a forced control scenario with a conveyor and a table, the participant would pick blocks off a conveyor and put them on a table. They can add complexity by setting the blocks to different heights. This requires the participant to make adjustments to compensate for the different heights.
Sven Krüger, also a global master trainer for Universal Robots, says the virtual training exercises are based on the hands-on exercises participants used to perform in person.
“The participants get the theory from a trainer and can then carry out exercises on real robots they program themselves,” says Krüger.
Vendor trainers had to make significant shifts to adapt the training for virtual environments. In person, a trainer would give a presentation with live demos on a real robot, with the control panel mirrored on a screen so all participants could see. Now UR uses a browser-based simulator in which the robot can be programmed using UR’s original PolyScope software. At the same time, the participant sees a simulated robot in a 3D environment that executes the programmed movements. This makes the experience identical to programming a real robot.
Shanahan says the virtual experiences were rougher in 2020. Four years in, UR has refined online training by giving its trainers education in how to teach online, improving the video chat user interface, launching a new generation of the simulator to direct a virtual robot, and acting on suggestions from numerous post-training surveys.
“Some things are still harder to explain virtually than in person. For example, you can only see the trainer’s shoulders up to the head. You can’t see all of their body language and movements online. Also, participants don’t get to spend breaks and lunches together. They could do that when we offered training in person. One positive is participants learn how to work in a virtual environment, which is a skill,” says Shanahan.
What engineers accomplish with webinars
Software developer Autodesk uses live and on-demand webinars to teach engineers how to use a number of programs, including its 3D CAD program Inventor and 3D CAD/CAM program Fusion.
Luke Mihelcic, senior manager of product marketing for Autodesk, says traveling to customer locations for training can be difficult.
“Since the pandemic, people have wanted their training and interaction to be online. Our certification programs walk you through the training process to be a certified Inventor or Fusion user. The offerings are very exercise-based and traditional,” says Mihelcic.
Participants are required to complete chapters in the order provided to build on learned skills.
For example, one webinar teaches participants how to use iLogic, a functionality of Inventor that uses VB.net to design a virtual product. The webinar provides customers with models to follow and shares different options to explore.
Autodesk’s online certification programs predate the pandemic and the programs undergo internal reviews every year.
“It’s really intense. We go through every single question and competency to ensure we ask the questions in an appropriate way. We don’t want to be too vague. We make sure the exercises are accurate and up to date. Also, the certification test at the end must capture the participant’s true knowledge,” says Mihelcic.
Autodesk also improves the webinars on a monthly basis. Since Autodesk delivers these so frequently and is so directly involved in them, its developers continuously update the material and strategize how to increase a participant’s knowledge of technical content. The company tends to offer six to seven standard webinars, rotating them to cover new functionalities in the software.
As a result, certification through Autodesk’s webinars have become a resume builder. Autodesk currently offers a live webinar with a real-time Q&A session almost every month. The company held these quarterly before 2020.
“Live webinars give us more opportunities to get workflows in front of customers and make them aware of what’s possible. We sometimes get engineers who will come to three or four of these in a row. For example, they’ll want to learn about data analysis, factory optimization, and how to use iLogic,” says Mihelcic.
He says sharing information between different organizations is a popular area of interest.
“Centralizing data and collaboration have become really important. Engineers want to know how to collaborate with a person outside their organization. They also want to understand how to export and import designs and data outside of Autodesk’s ecosystem,” says Mihelcic.
Mihelcic sees a great deal of potential for online training going forward. For example, continuing to hold training online has helped Autodesk develop a large network of industry insiders who become part of its Expert Elite program.
Participants in this program are Autodesk customers who have been approved to share best practices. Mihelcic says Expert Elites teach other customers in meaningful ways how to build or make certain products.
“The knowledge these engineers share with each other shows just classroom training isn’t going to cut it anymore. The way we have evolved in the last decade with our online training, the tips we offer on our blogs, and the content we share through social media channels like YouTube show where we’re headed,” says Mihelcic.
