This article is sponsored by STW Technic, LP.
After two years of extensive development, the STW Technic Online Training Academy has officially launched and is ready for learners to enroll. Spearheaded by Andres Rojas, Director of Engineering & Product Development with STW Technic, the online training provides OEMs with an opportunity to build their company knowledge through on-demand, comprehensive, and product-specific lessons, offering a multitude of STW Technic customer service solutions at their convenience.
“We’re big in making sure we provide our clients the best customer service experience possible,” states Rojas. “We like to think of ourselves as advisors to our customers.”
With customer needs at the forefront, the Online Training Academy’s 109 lessons were developed to support continuing education, troubleshoot technical issues, and provide proactive staff training. Understanding the complexities and variations of customers’ needs and capacities, the academy was designed to provide ease of use and access.
On-Demand, Self-Paced Content
Created with flexibility in mind, the Online Training Academy utilizes on-demand video lessons, slide presentations, and self-guided quizzes that customers can access anytime and at their own pace. The content is also available for the life of the course, offering the ability to revisit a lesson or chapter as often as needed.
“Sometimes people get trained [and] then don’t work on that project for six months, and they forget the information from the training. [With our platform] they can always go back to that [lesson], so it’s providing training in a way that reduces the complexity of adopting the product,” notes Rojas.
Each lesson, chapter, and course can be paused and resumed anytime, granting flexibility to busy and ever-changing work schedules. Life-of-the-course access also guarantees support for future OEM team member training.
Product-Specific Lessons
While some lessons cover general topics or provide overview training to OEM teams, most focus on product-specific lessons to address particular issues or bottlenecks customers note experiencing.
“There might be some things we uncover in the [relationship building] process that the customer notes as a pain point but doesn’t know how to solve,” adds Rojas. “That’s where we come in and work to guide the customer and advise them.”
The detailed lessons blend high-level concepts with hands-on exercises, offering OEMs the ability to gain proficiency in application design, programming, troubleshooting, and more within the STW Technic hardware and software product environment.
Certificate of Expertise
Upon completing a full course and successfully passing chapter quizzes, learners will have the opportunity to earn a certificate that signifies their newfound proficiency.
“Whenever [employees] complete the training, they bypass a lot of the obstacles and a lot of the challenges that otherwise they most likely would encounter if given just the product and manual,” Rojas notes.
Extensive Lesson Offerings
The three courses, led by STW Technic team members Joe Stephenson, Product & Training Development Engineer, Jason Groeninger, Engineering Team Lead, and Zac Dawson, Training & Support Engineer, offer extensive information across multiple levels of STW Technic products.
Mastering openSYDE: A Comprehensive Guide to System Layout and Device Configuration focuses its 29 lessons on learning how to manage controllers and peripheral devices efficiently, define communication protocols and messaging, update controller applications, and enjoy real-time data control through live dashboards. Course completion is estimated at 8-10 hours and specifically covers:
- System design
- Datapool configurations
- Code Generation
- Device update
- Real-time control.
Fundamentals of logi.CAD: C Development for STW Technic Controllers addresses developing a foundational understanding of the structure of an STW logi/CAD C application and integration with openSYDE via the STW C API. The 30 lessons, averaging 12-14 hours to complete, offer instruction on:
- Core communication
- Working with datapools
- Live examples
- Safety Core Overview.
Developing inSIGHT Displays Using GSe-VISU and openSYDE utilizes 50 lessons for an opportunity to master inSIGHT display application development, with seamless integration of openSYDE - an all-in-one tool that enables efficient management of devices and communication, with real-time data control through a live dashboard. Requiring approximately 14 hours to complete, lessons will specifically cover:
- Design applications
- openSYDE integration
- Testing and loading
- CAN communication
- Supplemental topics.
With a fourth course in development, the STW Technic team is eager to continue adding to the breadth and depth of the high-quality training content, and plans to make adjustments and course additions as necessary based on customer needs and requests.
“We’re hopeful [the Online Training Academy] is the right answer to training needs for our customers,” states Rojas. “And we would love to hear feedback on how we can do better.”