Manufacturing high-quality products requires your workforce to understand your industry’s safety protocols and compliance regulations. In this blog post, discover how a compliance LMS impacts product quality and manufacturing operations.

Whether your organization manufactures whole products like kids’ toys or makes parts for larger items like computer chips for cars, your workforce needs proper training for your efforts to be successful. It’s easy for employees to make mistakes on the assembly line when they don’t have the necessary skills to complete complex production tasks or assemble your newest products. Unfortunately, manufacturing mistakes can reduce the quality of your products, compromise consumer safety, and expose your organization to potential risks.

It’s essential to give your employees the tools they need to keep their skills sharp so they can consistently and safely produce high-quality products for your consumers. It’s also crucial for them to know the latest regulations and industry standards to maintain compliance (and protect your organization). Leveraging a learning management system designed with compliance in mind ensures your employees are prepared to tackle challenges, produce their best work, and maintain manufacturing quality.

READ MORE ABOUT EMPLOYEE TRAINING | ‘The Role of Your LMS in Reskilling and Upskilling Employees’

Compliance Training Programs Help Ensure Product Consistency

From automobiles to electronics and everything in between, your products must be consistently manufactured to serve their intended purposes and maintain your quality standards. Even minor variations can lead to reduced product quality and potentially have significant consequences for your organization and consumers. Devoting time to employee training ensures that every contributor has the knowledge and skills to adhere to the same industry standards and organizational procedures necessary to minimize product variations and errors.

A compliance-focused LMS makes it easy to deliver training materials to your employees without causing major disruptions to their workflows. You can assign learning content to specific groups, departments, or individuals based on their roles within your organization. This way, every employee receives training relevant to their responsibilities, empowering them to produce consistent deliverables and do their jobs to the best of their abilities. As new talent joins your organization, you can use your LMS to quickly onboard new employees and help them enhance their skills to match those of your more experienced workers.

An LMS makes it easy to ensure that everyone completes mandatory compliance training courses to maintain product consistency and keep your organization compliant with your industry standards. With robust reporting and analytics, you can track learning content at every level of your organization to see who still needs to finish their courses so you can intervene when necessary.

This high-level insight into your employee learning programs can also help you identify skills gaps in your workforce that could lead to quality control issues or other potential risks. Once you’ve identified these gaps, you can create a plan to upskill or reskill those employees, assign them appropriate training content, and track their progress. Conversely, you can use your LMS reporting tools to see which employees have specific certifications that qualify them to work on more complex projects. With this information, you can deploy your resources more effectively and create consistent, high-quality products.

As you develop new products, every employee will need more training to ensure they know how to do their part to create the new items correctly. If workers on a portion of your production line don’t learn their part, then the entire assembly could be inconsistent and riddled with errors. With an LMS, you can mitigate such risks by simultaneously sending learning content to your workforce so everyone can complete their training and be prepared to produce your products without incident.

DOWNLOAD THE EBOOK TO LEARN MORE ABOUT WORKFORCE TRAINING | ‘How Enterprise Companies in Highly Regulated Industries Choose the Right LMS’

Manufacturing Errors Lead to Real-World Consequences

When your employees’ skills and industry knowledge aren’t current, it’s easier for them to make mistakes. While mistakes will happen in every line of work, manufacturing errors that go unnoticed or aren’t corrected can have serious consequences. Improper or inadequate training can lead to products being released to the public that fail to adhere to safety standards. Inconsistencies on your production line could cause your organization to create and ship faulty products, forcing you to order a recall.

The resources required to remove faulty products from the market can be staggering—not to mention the reputational cost. Consumers could lose trust in your brand if you frequently pull products from the market due to safety concerns. Depending on your industry, you might spend millions or even billions of dollars in recall-related costs. If you have to recall a product, you’ll need to devote immediate attention to:

• Investigating what caused the defect
• Announcing the recall and the steps you’re taking to remedy the situation
• Reimbursing consumers
• Paying for warranty repairs
• Disposing of any faulty products

In severe cases, manufacturing errors can cause accidents, injuries, or death due to faulty or dangerous products. These incidents can also lead to investigations from regulatory and compliance agencies, as well as litigation from the affected consumers. In December 2023, nearly 4.8 million units of a popular handheld blender were recalled due to fire and laceration hazards, resulting in approximately $150,000 of property damage. In January 2024, an improperly installed door plug blew off while a plane was in midair, forcing the pilot to make an emergency landing. The United States National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the companies that manufactured the aircraft, and many passengers have filed a class action lawsuit related to the incident.

When you manufacture consumer safety goods like car seats, baby products, medications, transportation devices, and other items the general public uses, you need to ensure your products pose no risk to consumers. Training your employees with a compliance-focused LMS will keep their skills current so you can mitigate the risk of recalls and consumer injuries. By giving your employees the tools they need to keep their knowledge and skills up to date, you can minimize how often you’re using your organization’s resources to respond to manufacturing errors. Instead, you can focus more time and energy on developing innovative solutions and enhancing your product offerings.

KEEP READING | ‘3 Success-Driving Functions Every Compliance-Focused LMS Must Have’

A Final Word on Training Employees With an LMS

Whatever you manufacture, you need a highly trained workforce to produce top-tier products and maintain quality control. Training your employees with a compliance-focused LMS ensures that everyone has access to the information they need to enhance their skills, carry out their tasks, and achieve organizational goals.