DaimlerChrysler Standardizes eLearning Development Using Lectora

Profile

DaimlerChrysler, a worldwide automotive company with more than 380,000 employees, produces a range of vehicles, including small cars, sports cars, luxury sedans, vans, heavy duty trucks and coaches.

DaimlerChrysler Academy (DCA), one of the larger training providers at DCX worldwide, produces the retail training for Chrysler Group’s Chrysler, Jeep and Dodge dealers. BBDO Detroit’s Retail Performance Solutions (RPS) group partners with DCA to produce and deploy multiple training solutions including interactive courseware.

Challenge

DaimlerChrysler Academy and RPS needed an authoring tool that would work well with their LMS and LCMS, was easy to use, and had the ability to output SCORM 1.2 conformant manifests. They also faced the challenge of working with more than ten, DCA-approved, outside vendors to create elearning content. This meant that they would need a tool that could create easily shared templates for the vendors to use. In the search for a tool that met its requirements, Chrysler Group investigated Lectora, Producer, SynchroWare, FireFly, and Macromedia Breeze.

Solution

The investigation and comparison of these authoring tools found that Lectora was the best tool to suit DCA’s specific needs. “We chose Lectora for its ease of use and the manifest output options,” said David Hooten, Technology Implementation Manager at DaimlerChrysler Academy. “Lectora is a rapid content development tool that our vendors can learn easily and use readily.”

Benefits

DCA, RPS and many of their vendors quickly realized several benefits from using Lectora. In DCA’s first application with Lectora, they put it to the test. DCA’s School of Technical Training wanted to convert their 12-disc CD library, Fundamentals of Automotive Service Technology, to the Web. Time was tight and budgets lean. It would require three vendors working simultaneously to meet the schedule, but the end product would need to look and feel like a cohesive library. Lectora came shining through. One vendor built the templates for all vendors to use. Not only did this save time and money, it provided the cohesive look DCA wanted.

Overall, DCA found that development time was cut considerably, in some instances by as much as half, by using templates created in Lectora.

In addition, DCA also realized further savings because, with Lectora, DCA could reduce the number of skill sets required to develop selected courses. Before DCA and RPS purchased Lectora, they needed seven experts in different areas to create a course. However, on the quick-to-market courses, “Lectora enabled Chrysler Group to cut out the Production Manager, Flash Expert, Programmer, and System Designer from the course development process,” reported DCA and its partner RPS.

DCA continues to strive for the right blend of web vs. live, knowing that their audience, the retail dealers, prefers web to avoid travel costs and time out of the dealership. DCA estimates that developing and deploying targeted Web-based training creates savings as high as 35% both for dealers and the Corporation over traditional live classroom training.

Developing and deploying Web-based training creates savings as high as 35% for Chrysler Group and its dealers over traditional classroom training.