CASE STUDIES

Since 8 years, the CS WAVE users tried and test the best way to integrate this tool in the learning programs. The benefits are multiple and some can only been highlighted by a long practice.
Find below some examples of good practices that will help you to understand own to integrate and use CS WAVE in your own organisation.

AFPA Fontenay le comte: Training

Mr. Cassereau is one of the pioneer trainers who discovered CSWAVE at its beginning…
He has observed the product’s evolution and has totally integrated the machine into his educational program at AFPA.
For him, there is no doubt that CSWAVE is a fantastic educational tool, not a video game.“Of course the high-tech side
of the equipment helps attract students who are between 15-30, but the most important aspect isthat in the everyday practice,
they find it easy to use and understand…” CSWAVE is used at the beginning of the 8 weeks training, with individuals who have never welded in their lives.
As Mr. Cassereau explains:” “As a welder  you have to manage everything by yourself, nobody can guide you during the job,
advise you or analyse your problems…This is always very disturbing for beginners to be thrown into this environment with fusion,
sparkles, heat and be expected to learn by yourself;  now with CS WAVE, the trainers can finally support the students and be there with them if necessary…”
The trainer appreciates that the students can also be autonomous when they work on the workbench:
“They are less nervous or afraid to be judged and it gives me some time to manage better my administrative tasks and student reports.”
After 2-3 days in free practice, Mr. Cassereau consults the results on this work station and can spot students with difficulties on a eye sight;
he can then concentrate his efforts and provide personalized explanations and exercises to those people the group.He has not really seen any material savings
as the coupons quantity was already reduced. However he sees a huge cutback in training time necessary in the workshop:  50 %: 
“I quickly realised that the workbench was helping me to save a considerable  learning time…if I had to teach without it now, it would take students twice
the time to understand the basic welding automatisms….”




“…now with CS WAVE,
the trainers can finally
support the student and be there
with them if necessary…”




 

3.44% CS WAVE use

=

50% time saved


 

AFPA Cherbourg: Professional training

 

The AFPA centre in Cherbourg is currently one of the busiest in welding training activity in France, thanks to the proximity from important building shipyards.

The centre offers 28 weeks vocational training to discover the three processes TIG, MMA and MAG.  Upon companies’ requests, they also organize special sessions for workers recertification’s and to training on specific processes and positions for particular projects.
The welders night - Granville

Mr. Pouilly has been working as a trainer AFPA Cherbourg for a year and half and wants to bring innovation and initiatives to this already very active centre.

He is using CS WAVE for open houses and for his all classes . For the 28 weeks introduction to welding, he starts by showing them a video of CSWAVE and a
full day practice to get a feel of what it is to hold a tool and how to remain focused. Then they need to practice 1 hour each week according to a defined planning.

The CS WAVE Mworkbench helps students to realize and understand their own mistakes and most of the time they correct them by themselves thanks to the visual guides. For people with difficulties, the program can be personalized to work on the points to improve.

If a student had more difficulties than the others in the group, then Mr. Pouilly checks the issues by analysing their results and assigning a special curriculum:
“I have this new student who was working previously in a shop... I have tried everything in the workshop but her hand motion is not accurate enough; I will make her go
on the CS WAVE workbench to work on her trajectory, and save raw material by the same occasion.

We ask the trainer on whether or not CSWAVE is only a tool for beginners: “Even the qualified welders who come to the centre are curious about the machine...At first, they just want to try, but after a while they end up practicing and correcting bad habits they have acquired through the years .., especially for bad angles..!”

Mr. Pouilly evaluates to 10 % the material savings for vocational trainings and much more in term of non educational time used in the workshop. But he thinks that for professional trainings on demand, there is a much higher savings potential as the coupons number is virtually unlimited.

 


Caterpillar: Internal Promotion  
 

Like every year since 1991, Caterpillar is running its welding competition in Grenoble, France. This competition exists also in Akashi, Japan.

Open to the MF5 welders, the contest lasts 2 hours and aims to elect the most skilful welder in the section. 

The participants will have to work in the workshop to provide the best possible: “Butt weld – K junction, 20mm thick, 1.2 mm wire / WPS provided”. Then they move to the virtual workbench. Where they need to get the best score on a BWPC, FWPB, and FWPA.

Caterpillar is renowned for its quality work and they privilege all initiatives to improve their workers expertise and experience. Here CS WAVE is used generally for training but management takes profit of it for the competition .

Indeed the use of the tool enables them to have exact and objective scoring system with the performance score given by the workbench.

Even if in this period of crisis, when budgets are limited, it is always important to motivate workers and show them that outstanding quality depend on their input.  This competition is a great event to organize for a limited cost thank to CS WAVE as 75% of material costs are eliminated...

 


Caterpillar: In house Training

CATERPILLAR France is a large building company hiring a lot of welders. Some are directly hired by the company, others are coming from subcontractors. Caterpillar have several plants around the world and most of them have their own training centre to provide a final training to the newcomers and to recertify the existing welders.They decided to install CS WAVE in one of their plant, where 4000 people were working.
For their initial training, they have around 130 new welders to train each year considering each welder spends 3 weeks in the training centre to finalise his initial training.  Every 2 years, the welders must be recertified. This is a one day session and concerns 300 welders per year. During these periods, welders are remunerated but not working.

The training manager decided to update the training session to integrate CS WAVE. Newcomers are obliged to spend some time on the CS WAVE system before proceeding with the internal qualification. If the results on the machine are not good enough, the candidate is rejected. The training was reduced from 3 weeks to 2 weeks and the recertification from 1 day to half a day.  This new organization was then tested during a defined period.

CATERPILLAR wants to reduce its training cost with the same training quality. This leads them to reduce the training duration most of the time and then ensure that the skill of their welders was the same (or the recertification success rate was the same). At the end, they saved 30 000 € of raw material and 25 000 € of salary (for recertification mainly). The initial training time reduction implies that the welder will be quicker in a working situation. The financial benefit associated has not been evaluated yet. 
 

This figure is on a yearly base and so, they saved more than 55 000 € per year thanks to CS WAVE.

They also noticed that the trainers have more time available to work on other things while CS WAVE is taking care of the trainees… In that way, they have free slots to find new investments for the plant (robots), develop new training process, set-up new training sessions….


Case 1 : AFPA Fontenay

Case 2 : AFPA Cherbourg

Case 3 : CAT Competition

Case 4 : CAT Training


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