JLG Industries is the world’s leading designer and manufacturer of lift and access equipment. JLG products and personnel can be found in the industrial, commercial, institutional, and construction markets all over the world.
JLG’s training program doesn’t fit into a standard model. They have a variety of training needs that require that different audiences quickly find, consume, and complete training in various languages, locations, and formats – all from a single interface.
They need to capture learner data and track progress towards the completion of complex certifications. And as they continue to grow, they need to be able to count on efficient site performance.
With these kinds of requirements, JLG had to strike a difficult balance: they needed a flexible solution, one that could accommodate a variety of training scenarios for a large and diverse population of learners, but also a system with enterprise-level scalability.
The Solution
JLG first partnered with Remote Learner in 2010 to build a digital learning solution tailored to their unique goals and parameters. Over the years, Remote Learner continued to assess how that solution was addressing JLG’s needs. After several years on a Moodle LMS instance, Remote Learner proposed an upgrade to Totara™ Learn as the best option for a scalable solution that could continue to meet their unique and growing needs.
The process began with the creation of a Totara™ development site, where an upgraded mockup of the original Moodle solution could be implemented and improved upon over several weeks.
This step was key because it allowed JLG to see how the user experience would be altered and improved by Totara™ Learn while learning the new features that would be available to them.
Together, Remote Learner and JLG redesigned the JLG learning experience and tailored content presentation on the Totara™ Learn platform. Custom plugins were developed to enhance and extend the platform functionality.
Finally, Remote Learner fine-tuned the overall design of the site to reflect the iconic branding and feel their existing learners were accustomed to, minimizing the impact of the transition to Totara™ Learn.
With ongoing collaboration with the Remote Learner team, JLG was then able to harness the power of Totara™ Learn’s flexibility to design a single interface for learners to search and display learning content regardless of the type. Whether the course consists of online videos, classroom training, or eLearning, learners can find it from the same intuitive interface.
Additionally, Totara™ Learn’s content and user management features were critical to the development of a system to track and auto enroll learners into a delicate series of inter-related trainings which lead to an overarching certification.
Further, and with Remote Learner’s assistance, an integration was created to allow learners to purchase printed ID cards for the certifications which have been earned on the site. The incorporation of a card purchasing interface as an add-on or plugin to Totara™ Learn highlights the platform’s Freedom to Innovate.
The approach of using custom plugins allows for extended functionality while having minimal impact on JLG’s ability to upgrade their system in the future since it does not rely on the manipulation of the core code of the LMS.
The Results
- Upgrade and transition of existing LMS to a fully supported and scalable solution that will provide the features and capabilities for growth
- Incorporation of multiple search pages into a single interface for all learning content
- Increased capability to report on learner progress within a course, and across multiple courses
- Development of custom features to extend functionality, while maintaining an easy path to future upgrades of the system
- More powerful user management tools to easily search, organize and enroll learners into content based on various attributes
“JLG has enjoyed a successful partnership with Remote-Learner for many years. The unique nature of our business has presented many difficult challenges, but through dedication and innovation, JLG and Remote Learner have been able to solve those challenges together. With the recent transition of our Learning Management Systems to Totara™ Learn, we can now offer new features and functionality to our customers that were not available before, and we look forward to what new possibilities this relationship will bring.” – Darren LaRue, Product Training Specialist, Instructional Technologies
