The TWI Facilitator's Guide

How to Use the TWI Programs Successfully

Donald A. Dinero

• Editorial: Productivity Press
• Año: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781315351001
• Edición: 1
• Categoría: Business
• Categoría: Human Resource Management

There are many books available covering the Training Within Industry (TWI) programs, but few include any unique material on adaptation or modification – This dearth of new has caused practitioners to alter the programs without understanding the underlying principles. These changes have made the programs less effective. One must, however, maintain the principles used in the programs when changing the delivery of the programs to suit the culture.

The purpose of The TWI Facilitator's Guide: How to Use the TWI Programs Successfully is to prevent the TWI programs from falling into misuse and disuse. This book will explain the main principles of the TWI programs and what they can accomplish, but it will also stress what they are not.

This book reviews what the programs are and then explains how to use them. It tells why we do certain aspects of each program. When we know why we do something, we won't stop doing it for the wrong reason.

Chapter 1

A Brief History of Training Within Industry (TWI)

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

George Santayana

Training Within Industry Service 1940–1945

In 1939, much of the world was at war. Adolf Hitler’s forces were about to occupy all of Europe, and Japan had occupied part of China and was at war with the Soviet Union. Although Germany was sinking U.S. freighters along the eastern coast of the United States, there was a preponderance of isolationists preventing the U.S. Congress from declaring war on any country. The feeling was that World War I was “the war to end all wars,” and this war had nothing to do with the USA. Franklin Roosevelt, the president, did not agree, but since he did not have authority to declare war, he used other methods to oppose the isolationists and help the Allies. In 1939, the Allies were Great Britain, France, and Poland. By the time Roosevelt had taken action, France and Poland were occupied by Germany, and the Allies consisted of the British Commonwealth. It was at the end of 1940 that Roosevelt had come up with a plan to arm and support the Allies. In a radio broadcast, he referred to this as “The Arsenal of Democracy.” America would supply armaments to the Allies, but would stay out of the actual fighting.

One main problem was that the U.S. industrial sector was not in a position to supply Britain with what it needed. Unemployment was about 25% and capacities were far from where they should be for such a commitment. The government knew changes had to be made quickly and productivity had to increase dramatically. One of the many efforts made was the creation of the Training Within Industry Service.

Training Within Industry was an emergency service to the nation’s war contractors and essential services. Its staff was drawn from industry to give assistance to industry, and its history covers the time from the Fall of France to the end of World War II—from the summer of 1940 to the fall of 1945. TWI’s objectives were to help contractors to get out better war production, faster, so that the war might be shortened, and to help industry to lower the cost of war materials.¹

It is not possible to try to understand this World War II agency called the “Training Within Industry Service” without looking at the backgrounds of the four men who developed and directed it: C.R. Dooley, director; Walter Dietz, associate director; M.J. Kane and William Conover, assistant directors. They had known each other for years and shared the same philosophy of training for production, although each brought with him to TWI his own special experience and talent. Each joined TWI in 1940 on loan from his employer without government compensation.

Mr. Dooley had three industrial connections—with Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company which he joined in 1902, with the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, and with the Socony-Vacuum Oil Company whose industrial relations manager he was when he came to Washington in 1940. In all of these companies the planning and direction of training was part of his responsibilities.

Mr. Dietz joined the Western Electric Company in 1902 and has been continuously associated with that company except when he has been on loan to the government for wartime assignments. He held the position of personnel relations manager of the Manufacturing Department when he came to Washington in 1940. Both Mr. Dooley and Mr. Dietz remained with TWI throughout its five years of operation.

Mr. Kane had been with the General Electric Company as a personnel manager before the first World War, and after that war went to the American Telephone and Telegraph Company where he was staff engineer on training of supervisors, instructors, and conference leaders when he came to TWI in 1940. After spending almost four and a half years with TWI, Mr. Kane left on January 1, 1945, to become director of industrial relations for the National Association of Manufacturers.

Mr. Conover came to TWI in 1940 from the United States Steel Corporation where he was assistant director of industrial relations. His previous industrial connections were with the Philadelphia Gas Company, the Western Electric Company, and Lycoming Manufacturing Company. He left TWI in December 1944 to join General Cable Corporation where he is director of manufacturing.²

Much more has been written about the TWI Service,³ but suffice it to say here that the efforts of this service were extremely successful and they have been referred to as “the most underrated achievement of 20th century industry.”⁴ It is the only government agency to be given an award by industry for its service to industry. The men driving the Service, named above, were experienced managers who knew how to increase production, but their secret was in knowing something that many contemporary managers miss.

If there is any single thing that could be stated as “what TWI has learned” it would be that the establishment of principles, and even getting acceptance by managers, alone have practically no value in increasing production. What to do is not enough. It is only when people are drilled in how to do it that action results.⁵

Based on their experience, these men believed that at least 80% of errors occur because people have received no training or poor training. Their underlying belief was that people want to be productive and thus, if they know what to do, they will do it. (Refer to Appendix VI—The Philosophy behind TWI.) The main reason people do not do what is expected is because they have not been trained properly. Most training occurs through trial and error. When we learn through trial and error, most learning takes place once we have made an error. Consequently, time, scrap, rework, and injuries all have a tendency to increase. Aside from the monetary costs involved, the country was considered to be in “an emergency situation” and could not afford the lengthy time that trial and error training takes.

The service faced two main problems as they began. What information should be given to the contractors to increase their productivity and how should that information be disseminated? In order to answer the first question, they asked the defense contractors what they needed. They did this initially and throughout the five years of their existence. They would attempt to meet the needs of every contractor they encountered. Before they even got a chance to set up their offices, they became aware of a need “for 350 qualified lens grinders for work in government arsenals and navy yards [since] the Employment Service and Civil Service failed to locate skilled men.”⁶ Training was obviously a need and at least one function that should be delivered. At this time, a lens grinder apprenticeship was about five years, so it was obvious that this need had to be satisfied some other way.

Since they did not have an appreciable budget (their salaries were paid by their companies), they could not hire many people. Although many served as they did without government compensation, it was necessary to pay some employees. With insufficient personnel to cover the entire country, the question was how to spread knowledge in a timely manner.⁷ Over the course of the next year, they tried sending consultants to companies to help. There were two main difficulties with this. The first problem was that there were many more defense contractors needing help than there were available consultants. The second problem was that once a consultant left the facility, operations would return to the original plan used before the consultant arrived. Any gains made were lost.

The next attempt was to record what was to be done and send this information to contractors in the form of bulletins. Again, this met with two difficulties. The larger problem was that the only people who would read the bulletins were those in libraries or schools. If someone in a manufacturing facility did read the bulletin, he or she was not given enough detail to be properly trained for their specific situation.

The need for fast, reliable instruction was satisfied as they developed the Job Instruction Training (JIT) program. Using the first iteration of this program, which was mainly gained from experience in World War I, skilled lens grinders were developed in 5 months as opposed to five years. By 1945, the time was reduced to 6 weeks.⁸ The need for a dissemination of the training was addressed by what they called “the multiplier effect.” A TWI representative would enter a facility (on request only) and would train employees to use the JIT method. One or more of these employees would be chosen to become JIT trainers and they would receive additional training in how to deliver the 10-hour program. Once that had been accomplished, the representative would no longer be necessary and he could attend another facility. The thinking was that training should occur “within industry by industry.”⁹

As the TWI Service reached out to more and more companies, they continuously asked for the needs of individual contractors. Interestingly, as they gathered data, they began to realize that all defense contractors (all companies) had the same basic needs. That should not be too surprising since they were all trying to make a product and they were all trying to do it with people. As they collected the data, they found that they could categorize it into five basic needs. They referred to this as the Five Needs of a Supervisor. They used the term supervisor because, lacking both time and money, they knew that they could not reach every member of an organization. They thus wanted to concentrate on the first-line supervisors who acted as a central point for production. They were at the intersection of the production worker and management, so by training first-line supervisors, they could effect the largest change with minimal effort. They did note that if time permitted, other personnel should be involved. As a result, today we refer to the Five Needs of an Employee since everyone has these needs and everyone can benefit from satisfying them. The underlying premise is that everyone has these needs and if people can master them, they will be successful in whatever they do. The five needs consist of two categories: knowledge and skills. This is an important dichotomy to understand because we can instruct people to learn a skill but they must absorb knowledge by themselves. Technical terms, for example, are representative of knowledge. We can only tell someone what they are and s/he must understand and remember them. Making a product is a skill, which can be instructed, and the use of technical terms will help in that instruction. Differentiating ...