The 2018 eLearning AWARD in the category for 'Learning Management System' (LMS) has been awarded to the project partners WBT Systems and Miele & Cie. KG for the successful implementation of TopClass LMS and its integration into an enterprise-wide infrastructure worldwide. The enterprise LMS solution provides standardized training and automation of learning administration, which facilitates the country-specific business models of Miele & Cie. KG and has delivered a number of benefits across the business' global operations.
Miele has been an independent family-owned company since its establishment in 1899 and is equally committed to its owners, employees, customers, suppliers, the environment and society. The company focus is on manufacturing domestic appliances for the kitchen, the laundry room and for floor care, as well as machines for use in commercial operations and medical facilities (“Miele Professional”).
eLearning Challenge
With more than 19,000 employees spread over twelve plants and 48 sales companies operating worldwide, it was important to find an LMS that works equally well in all countries, despite different regional circumstances and different business models. Together with the project partner WBT Systems, Miele had set itself the task of implementing one enterprise LMS to serve the different countries and cater for the diverse infrastructures of the four business units, Sales/Marketing, Services, Human Resources, and IT, which have their own education and training programs in each location.
In some of the countries in which Miele operates, local isolated eLearning solutions already existed. Others, however, had a need, but the cost/benefit calculation was not feasible for a single country. The respective business units were also interested in a learning environment that allows them to build their learning concepts based on the latest training and competency models.
A Global Solution - Integrated Enterprise Learning Management System
The new company-wide LMS needed able to support all types of eLearning, asynchronous and synchronous forms of learning, mobile and offline learning, as well as virtual classroom and seminar management, thus enabling the blended learning format. It also needed to provide a level of automation to eliminate the need for the creation of manual reports and manual data entry into other systems. In order to find the right LMS, representatives of the individual business units and representatives from the countries created a project team and collaborated to create a list of criteria together. After this, WBT Systems was selected as a suitable LMS partner, that could support a global roll-out.
The globally-standardized LMS implemented by WBT Systems, TopClass LMS, contains extensive information, training programs, and training documents in a central portal which provides secure access to Miele employees, and also protected areas to provide information to Miele business partners, and customers. The LMS includes individual training catalogs for each country. Every employee gets access to the LMS from their first day in the company, to facilitate efficient on-boarding. The powerful learning environment offers Miele employees the advantage of being able to access the content independently of time and place, to learn flexibly online, or prepare for face-to-face training. The system has also introduced efficiencies in operational planning for human resources. As the LMS provides complete, up-to-date training histories for each employee, these can be used to streamline resource planning. Depending on the type of device in which a defect has occurred, a service technician can be selected for the job who has already successfully completed the corresponding further training course.
A version of this article was first published by eLearning Journal. Read the full details of the award-winning LMS project here.
About the eLearning AWARD:
Since 2008, the eLearning AWARD has awarded state of the art projects annually in a number of categories. The awards are adjudicated and presented by a jury from the eLearning Journal, which publishes news and features about the latest trends and best practice in the eLearning industry in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
About Miele & Cie. KG:
Miele has been an independent family-owned company since its establishment in 1899 and is equally committed to its owners, employees, customers, suppliers, the environment and society. The company focus is on manufacturing domestic appliances for the kitchen, the laundry room and for floor care, as well as machines for use in commercial operations and medical facilities (“Miele Professional”).
About WBT Systems Limited:
WBT Systems is a leading provider of learning solutions across the globe, helping enterprises, associations, and non-profit organizations to build and improve their education and certification programs since 1995. WBT provides TopClass, the flexible learning platform. TopClass is an intuitive, complete and proven Learning Management System that evolves with our customers’ organizations. TopClass has over 5 million users and is used in 20 languages across 23 countries. Many of WBT Systems’ customers have grown with the company over our 20 years in business, due to our experienced team, excellent implementation track record and flexibility in all we do: approach, product, pricing and services. For more information, please visit www.wbtsystems.com.
