Development of training material for a process analysis tool in the paper industry

Sammanfattning: Paperboard is accessible for everyone, such as packaging for provisions or beauty products. Paperboard consists of several layers of pulp and has different types of qualities depending on the material’s area of use. Within the paperboard production, the process behavior is analyzed to find solutions to decrease the product variations in order to reach the desired product results. Process analyses are continuously made to improve paperboard production and avoid defects in the paperboard product. The company Holmen has recently implemented a new process analysis tool on trial, named Wedge, at the paperboard mill in Workington, UK, which is a software tool that can be used for analyzing the paperboard process. Holmen’s vision was to develop training material for the software tool that could be used by the employees for educational purposes.The purpose of this project degree was to develop training material of the process analysis tool, i.e. the software Wedge, for novice learners. Initially, the purpose was to examine and identify the employees’ learning within the software tool at the mill in Workington. Based on that, training material was developed that could be used for self-directed learning material.The study was conducted through qualitative methods, which included a group interview with development engineers and a one-to-one interview with the training manager at the Workington mill. Additionally, observations of training opportunities and an evaluation questionnaire of the training material were used in this study. Based on these results, a thematic analysis was conducted where identified themes have been interpreted from aspects of cognitive learning and adult learning.The result is based on the qualitative survey and the analysis of the interviews and questionnaire responses indicates that the training material is suitable and pedagogical for novice learners. The development engineers mean, among other things, that computer-based training should contain ‘step-by-step’ examples of work-related situations and the training must be organized such that new information will not be overwhelming and unintelligible. It is also important that new knowledge or information can be acquired both visually and by text-based instructions, to be able to provide the learners with various kinds of teaching aids since there are different approaches to learn new knowledge. Therefore, the training material based on e-learning has been designed as a first lesson of how to use and navigate in the process analysis tool. The developed training material entails four interactive videos with incremental learning of how the process analysis tool can be used in the paper industry.