Training to increase customer satisfaction

Opti­mum cus­tomer sat­is­fac­tion can only be achieved with opti­mal­ly trained employ­ees: This is the basic idea behind the Nord­Pro ini­tia­tive, which has oper­at­ed a lab­o­ra­to­ry with the same name since 2011. Here, employ­ees receive train­ing in the fun­da­men­tals of lean man­age­ment and are giv­en ideas for imple­ment­ing these ideas in their dai­ly work. The pro­gramme is organ­ised and man­aged by Nord trainees who use this oppor­tu­ni­ty to extend their organ­i­sa­tion­al and rep­re­sen­ta­tion­al skills. This “hands-on” expe­ri­ence is also an impor­tant part of the com­pre­hen­sive Nord train­ing programme.

Nord­Pro was found­ed in 2008 to sus­tain­ably ensure cus­tomer sat­is­fac­tion in an age of increased expec­ta­tions. The idea: To active­ly com­mu­ni­cate lean man­age­ment meth­ods to employ­ees in order to give them tools with which com­pa­ny process­es can be opti­mised for the ben­e­fit of cus­tomers. The pro­gramme first start­ed with the five tools Kaizen, Fluss; Smed; TPM and Q‑Groups, but since then has been con­tin­u­ous­ly devel­oped to include new methods.

In 2011, the ini­tia­tors went a step fur­ther with the Nord­Pro Lab. Spe­cial­ly equipped areas were cre­at­ed at the Bargte­hei­de site, where var­i­ous mod­u­lar­ly struc­tured train­ing cours­es with a heavy prac­ti­cal empha­sis are now held. Here, the the­o­ret­i­cal knowl­edge of lean man­age­ment which has been acquired is utilised and deep­ened using sim­u­la­tion games. By deal­ing with hypo­thet­i­cal prob­lems, par­tic­i­pants learn the effects of process improve­ments, in addi­tion to which cross-depart­men­tal under­stand­ing of work process­es is pro­mot­ed. The Nord­Pro tools can be used for assem­bly, logis­tic and pro­duc­tion process­es, as well as at an admin­is­tra­tive lev­el, so that the train­ing is used equal­ly by all Nord employ­ees across the var­i­ous sites.

A fur­ther spe­cial fea­ture of the Nord­Pro Lab is that it is now organ­ised and led by Nord trainees and dual-train­ing stu­dents who take on the organ­i­sa­tion and imple­men­ta­tion of the cours­es. How­ev­er, their remit is also to con­tin­u­ous­ly devel­op the lab­o­ra­to­ry and the con­tent of the cours­es. This requires organ­i­sa­tion­al exper­tise as well as a con­fi­dent man­ner and spe­cial­ist the­o­ret­i­cal knowl­edge, which will be a great advan­tage in their fur­ther careers.

Inde­pen­dent man­age­ment of the Nord­Pro Lab is a part of Nord’s sophis­ti­cat­ed train­ing strat­e­gy. With­in the Nord Group, young tal­ent can receive busi­ness, indus­tri­al or tech­ni­cal train­ing or even car­ry out a dual course of study at sev­er­al loca­tions. Nord pro­vides train­ing in the pro­fes­sions of indus­tri­al man­age­ment, tech­ni­cal prod­uct design, mecha­tron­ics, IT sys­tem inte­gra­tion, indus­tri­al mechan­ics and cut­ting machine oper­a­tion. Dual bach­e­lor study cours­es are offered in indus­tri­al engi­neer­ing, IT for busi­ness, applied IT, mechan­i­cal engi­neer­ing, elec­tri­cal engi­neer­ing and mechatronics.