TWI includes three modules of training that teach basic skills to help supervisors and other employees to make the transition from hierarchical "command & control" organizations to flatter, team oriented organizations.

Each TWI course module is structured as five two-hour sessions with 8 - 10 trainees.

Job Instruction (JI): Teaches supervisors how to quickly train employees to do the job correctly, safely, and conscientiously. The objective of the course is to train employees how to teach someone a job or method. Knowing how to do something does not mean that we know how to teach someone else how to do it. The method emphasizes preparing the operator to learn, giving a proper demonstration while identifying the Important Steps and the Key Points of the job, having the operator perform a trial run, and tapering off coaching while continuing to follow up. Well-trained employees have less scrap, rework, rejects and equipment damage and fewer accidents.

Job Methods (JM): Teaches supervisors how to improve the way jobs are done. JM teaches employees how to improve the way jobs are done. We all want to make our jobs easier, but we often lack the analytical approach that will consistently lead us to increased productivity. The aim of the program is to help produce greater quantities of quality products in less time by making the best use of the manpower, machines, and materials now available. To do that, employees are taught to break down jobs into their constituent operations, to question each of these details (why? what? where? when? who? how?) to develop the new method by eliminating, combining, rearranging and simplifying these details, and to apply the new method selling it to everyone involved.

Job Relations (JR): Teaches supervisors how to build positive employee relations, increase cooperation and motivation, and effectively resolve conflicts. This course teaches employees how to understand people on all levels and deals with the issues of motivation and problem solving. Understanding and dealing with people successfully is a critical skill as more organizations are relying on teams to maintain their competitive edge. The course emphasizes that people must be treated as individuals and gives employees foundations for developing and maintaining good relations in order to prevent problems from arising. However, when problems do arise, it teaches how to get the facts, weigh and decide, take action, and check results with the key issue being whether the action helped production or not.

These three courses are designed and developed with the aim of training first line supervisors. However, as organizations' structures are becoming flatter and individual responsibilities are increasing, this training is seeing a much wider application. If an employee has the responsibility for:

• Teaching another person a job or method
• Improving a job or method
• Dealing with other employees

then this training is not only appropriate -- but necessary.

Course Structure

In the first session of each course, the instructor presents a real-world problem that everyone can easily relate to and shows the ways in which these problems are usually handled. Then, the TWI “4-Step Method” is applied to show how these problems can be handled more effectively to gain better results. After learning methods, the remaining course time is given to actual and current problems brought in by each employee for analysis and solution using the TWI 4-Step Method. This “learning by doing” concept forms the key to the TWI teaching method.

Questions & Assistance

Contact: Mitch Emmons
Sr. Outreach Associate
(334) 844-3881 (office direct)
(334) 524-2102 (cell)
emmonmb@auburn.edu

ATAC Affiliations