John Berger is no stranger to the benefits of training within industry (TWI). In 1995, when Berger was working for global manufacturing giant Emerson, he was challenged to move an entire product line of electro-mechanical sensors from Minnesota to Singapore.

At Emerson’s Minnesota plant, processes for manufacturing the sensors were documented, but didn’t include the institutional knowledge needed for a successful technology transfer. There are three modules of TWI: job instruction, job methods, and job relations. The job methods and job instruction training helped employees at the Minnesota plant to better document their processes so they would have clear-cut procedures for the new Singapore employees. Once the product line arrived in Singapore, workers there used TWI to maintain and improve future procedures.

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