Championship Training

Current complex manufacturing processes and high-technology applications require extensive training of plant employees, including maintenance workers. The maintenance training program at the General Mills Inc. plant in Lodi, California, was designed by the employees themselves. The Maintenance Training and Selection Committee appointed core task teams comprised of 2 people - one union and one management - from each department in the plant. The committee established 2 primary goals for the teams. The first was to develop a revised training program to ensure that all maintenance employees master certain core competencies, provide skills for various craft specialty areas, and address specific departmental differences and needs. The 2nd was to determine an implementation system that would use the most effective resources, ensure that employees had learned the skills and could apply them, and prove cost-efficient. The resulting program consisted of 3 levels of training in progressively advanced competencies.