Martin Bourton is a senior software engineer in the Business Systems and Development Department at TWI, which he joined in 1987. Much of his work has been concerned with expert systems and multimedia development.
David Howarth is the manager of the Materials and Non-Destructive Testing Department of Lloyd's Register. Trained as a metallurgist, he is responsible for all aspects of materials, NDE and welding worldwide, including the training of Lloyd's Register's field force surveyors in these matters.
Ilse McFarlane joined TWI in 1998 after graduating from Warwick and Aberdeen Universities with degrees in Computer Systems Engineering and Ergonomics. She now specialises in software development and computer interface design.
In most companies the training of employees represents a substantial investment, and traditional classroom-based training can be costly and inefficient. Martin Bourton, David Howarth and Ilse McFarlane describe the development of the multimedia training course entitled Basic metallurgy and welding.
Lloyd's Register (LR) is a marine classification society with more than 270 offices around the world. Serving the marine, offshore and land-based industries, LR employs marine engineers, naval architects, metallurgists and consultants to appraise and approve designs, inspect construction and perform periodic surveys of a wide range of engineering projects.
Lloyd's Register believes in the importance of training to maintain the technical knowledge and expertise of their surveyors. Conventional training methods (such as classroom-based lecturing) can be costly in terms of accommodation, travelling expenses and the inconvenience of being absent from work. Furthermore, it is not always the most effective means of providing tuition to a group of personnel with widely varying levels of knowledge.
Multimedia training
It was recognised that computer-based multimedia training could provide an efficient alternative to conventional training methods. It offers a highly effective learning environment in terms of knowledge retention, without the overhead costs associated with attending a classroom-based training course.
It is generally agreed that the interactivity inherent in multimedia systems sustains the attention of the student and aids memory retention. By including activities such as exploring a diagram, searching for the answers to questions, or simply selecting a path through the course, students are more likely to remember the course material. In addition, the ability to draw on a wide range of media types to present complex issues can greatly simplify the learning process. For example, animations are often the clearest way of describing abstract concepts and can depict detail which cannot be recorded on video.
In contrast to more traditional training methods, multimedia systems enable students to study locally and at a convenient time without having to leave their day-to-day activities for long periods. Students can work at their own pace, select the material relevant to their needs and receive immediate feedback on their progress via automated testing.
One aspect of training for which computer-based multimedia is not suitable is hands-on practical tuition. No amount of sitting at a computer can help a student to acquire the practical skills required by a LR surveyor. It was recognised that combining multimedia systems with hands-on practical training would provide a comprehensive training programme in which students would acquire and retain a thorough knowledge of theoretical issues and also gain the necessary practical skills.
Lloyd's Register and TWI have devised a training programme in which an interactive CD-ROM is used as a prerequisite to practical-based training sessions. Using this approach, students undertaking the practical course have a common grounding in the theoretical issues on which to build their practical skills.
Design
Lloyd's Register required a self teaching multimedia training course to introduce the basic concepts of welding and metallurgy as foundation skills to surveyors joining the organisation. They envisaged that the course would take between one and three working days to complete, depending on the level of prior knowledge of the student. The ability to print a hard copy of the course notes from the CD was also required as an alternative method of referencing the course material.
To assess whether the surveyor has gained a satisfactory understanding of the course content, LR requested a simple multiple-choice test with a printout of the result being generated in a format suitable for later assessment. The answers would be presented in a random sequence to ensure that a student taking the test could not simply memorise the order of the answers.
One further requirement was that the software should run on a standard multimedia PC without the need for additional video cards or drivers so that it would be available to as many students as possible.
Interactivity
When designing interactive training courses, there is always a trade-off between incorporating a high level of interactivity in order to aid memory retention, yet maintaining a structured path through the information to ensure that all the material is covered. As all of the material provided by LR was deemed essential to the course, the decision was taken to maintain a linear structure while allowing some branching to encourage the user to 'explore' the course and hence sustain their interest. Consequently, the main menu (Fig.1) serves as a guide to the logical flow through the course, but the user is given the flexibility to enter the chapters in any order.
The navigation has been designed to be as simple and intuitive as possible. Each section begins with a short introduction to the material covered, and ends with a quiz in which immediate feedback is given so the user can judge their understanding of that section. The student uses the forwards and backwards arrows to move within a section, and links to further information are denoted by red clickable text or a 'more' button (Fig.2).
Successful navigation through the course is, however, only one aspect of user interactivity. The completion of on-screen tasks by the user is another essential ingredient of multimedia training software. Figure 3 shows a'drag and drop' interaction, where the user is asked to match the welding system components with the correct terminology. 'Cursor in area' interactions encourage the user to explore a screen. An example of this is the photograph of the ship in Fig.4, where positioning the cursor over a component displays the alloy from which the component is manufactured.
Media
The training programme calls upon a variety of media types, each chosen for its relative merits in a given situation. Video footage has been used in situations where it is useful to see the industrial application of a welding process. For example, Fig.5 shows the submerged arc welding of bridge decking.
Where detailed microstructures are to be displayed, scanned photographs provide the required clarity ( Fig.6), whereas schematic diagrams can filter out some of the unnecessary details inherent in photographic material(Fig.7).
Complex or abstract concepts which vary over time are best presented as animations. Here they have frequently been used to describe changes in molecular structure, such as the growth of a metallic dendrite shown in Fig.8.
Each of the sections is introduced by an audio commentary to complement the more formal on-screen text.
Testing
As with any software, acceptance testing is a vital part of the development process. Thirty LR personnel participated in the trials and any suggestions and observations were fed back to TWI so that the software could be amended as appropriate. The feedback was extremely positive. Students reported that the course is intuitive to use and provides an interesting and comprehensive introduction to metallurgy and welding.
Course content
The Basic Metallurgy and Welding training programme consists of three modules:
- Introduction to Metallurgy
- Welding Processes
- Welding Carbon Manganese Steels
Introduction to metallurgy
The Introduction to Metallurgy module covers general metallurgical principles such as hardness, strength and the effects of alloying. It also examines the characteristics of hot and cold working and the effects of heat treatment.
Welding processes
Welding Processes provides an introduction to the main technologies currently adopted in industry and associated consumables. It includes sections on manual metal arc (MMA); submerged arc welding (SAW); metal inert/active gas(MIG/MAG); tungsten inert gas (TIG); electroslag and electrogas welding.
Welding carbon manganese steels
The fusion welding of carbon manganese steels is the subject of the third module. The welding sequence is examined in terms of the weld metal, heat affected zone, distortion effects and post weld heat treatment. A discussion of weld properties such as strength, ductility and hardness is followed by a description of common weld imperfections, their causes and methods of prevention.
Summary
The Basic Metallurgy and Welding CD-ROM aims to provide an efficient and cost-effective alternative to classroom-based training. It has already been successfully integrated into the LR training programme, and is expected to become a valuable training resource for a wide range of welding personnel in the future.
The Basic Metallurgy and Welding course is available on CD-ROM at a cost of £499 + VAT. Contact (support@twisoftware.com) at TWI for further information.
