Fleet Maintenance readers frequently note current and comprehensive technician training is critical to their operation’s success. And, the methods and processes for servicing commercial vehicle systems aren’t getting any easier. Doug Dole, general manager of product strategies at Meritor, shares his insights on current technician training trends in shops today, including a multi-platform approach involving both web-based and in-person learning.
Transcription of interview:
Erica Schueller, Fleet Maintenance: Welcome to VSP News: Uptime Update. I am your host Erica Schueller, Editor-in-Chief of Fleet Maintenance magazine, covering all maintenance, all vehicle classes, all management, all the time.
Fleet Maintenance readers frequently note current and comprehensive technician training is critical to their operation's success. And, the methods and processes for servicing commercial vehicle systems aren’t getting any easier.
I talked with Doug Dole, general manager of product strategies at Meritor about recent technician training trends. Dole shares his insights on what we’re seeing in shops today when it comes to educating shop personnel on vehicle system maintenance and repair.
Doug Dole, Meritor: Certainly one of the trends that we see in training is an increase in demand. When we look at the complexity of the parts, and the systems that we have coming on the trucks today, there’s an increase in overall demand for training.
On top of that, with the technology advances that we’re seeing we can’t just have one mode of training anymore. We’ve got a multi-faceted approach that includes interactive distance training, online training courses, as well as in-person training courses.
The complexity of parts is a trend that’s increasing the amount of training that is required, which is forcing us to come up with alternative ways to get out to the customer and provide that service to our customers.
Schueller, Fleet Maintenance: Ever-increasing complexity in vehicle systems makes some training segments more popular among fleets. Dole provides some examples.
Dole, Meritor: The areas of importance for the customer have been around the brakes and the braking system. So, cam brakes have been very popular training, as well as air systems, ABS, driveline and suspension. With the increased adoption of air disc brake, the air disc brake is becoming a critical training class for us as well. Along with safety systems.
Again, the complexity with parts that we see coming out is driving the need to increase the amount of training, certainly on those components being launched in the market today.
Schueller, Fleet Maintenance: Finding suitable and applicable training programs can be a challenge for fleets, especially when time is limited. Dole shares insights on how fleets can approach this issue.
Dole, Meritor: We certainly recommend that they use our Meritor Bullpen online training courses. They can use that to complete an assessment of the skill level of their technicians, their counter people or their sales team. Then we can follow up with some dedicated training or live training at their site. We also offer interactive distance training which could be tailored to that particular customer’s needs, based on the skill level of their employees.
When we talk about challenges in the training arena, there are a lot of folks out there in the industry today that English is a second language. As part of that, we’ve done a lot to translate several of our Bullpen courses into both Spanish and French, to meet the needs of those customers as well.
Schueller, Fleet Maintenance: As training curriculum evolves, so will the means to educate shop personnel. Dole talks about some of the training trends we can expect to see over the next few years.
Dole, Meritor: Certainly there’s going to be leveraging of technology for training. We’re doing that ourselves in leading the industry to provide interactive distance training, where you actually interact with a live instructor via video and audio conferencing. You’re able to ask questions and have questions answered, and provide feedback that way. We believe that’s going to have a significant impact. As we see other technological improvements, we see that also becoming a bigger part of our training program.
The other thing we’re spending a lot of time on is educating our whole team on the product side of our business and leveraging all of our sales team to be able to go out and do the live training with customers, working with countermen, sales as well as technicians, in creating the mobile sales force for all of our sales team to have the technical capabilities to provide that training to our customers.
Schueller, Fleet Maintenance: If you’d like more information on the aftermarket training series available through Meritor, visit the link below.
That’s it for this week’s episode! Thank you for tuning in to VSP News Uptime Update, I’m your host Erica Schueller.
Until our next broadcast, keep up with this, and other industry topics, by visiting us online at VehicleServicePros.com.
Find more information on the aftermarket training series available through Meritor.
