Quality from the Start: A Training Manual for the Engineering Division of Peridian Group, Inc.

Abstract

Peridian Group, Inc. is a small sized consulting firm, with offices in Lawrence, KS and Gardner, KS, providing engineering, planning, surveying, construction, information technology, and graphical animation services. Rapid growth, lack of a formal training program, employee turnover, new clients, review by new municipalities and continually changing design criteria have lead to decreasing production and quality within the engineering division. Management has become frustrated by overruns in budget, costs of redesigning projects and delays associated with resubmittals. In order to correct these problems, a training manual was developed for use by both new and existing employees.

The training manual creates a consistent training program and allows for new information to quickly be given to all employees of the engineering division. The training manual had to be available to employees in two offices, easily accessible, easy to use and easy to update. The training manual is in electronic format on the company intranet. This allows for use by employees in both offices and the manual to be easily updated. A news feature tells users of new or updated material whenever the manual is accessed. Several recommendations for additions to the training manual have been made during early stages of implementation. These recommendations include expanding the manual for use by all departments, creating additional procedures for design software and development of a search engine.