Preventing a $600,000 Mistake through Skills Assessments

The following is an actual example of how industrial skills testing and skills assessment can benefit an organization.
The plant manager was shocked; the quality assurance engineer was livid. It seems that an employee, who could not read a ruler, drilled 40 holes too deep into 20 very large and very expensive locomotive motors. The damage total was over $600,000. The employee was given the assignment to drill these 40 holes to a specified depth with a magnetic base drill press. This drill press had a built in ruler scale, and the employee was instructed to stop when the appropriate depth was reached. Those holes, which were supposed to be 1.75" deep, ended up 2.25" – 2.50" deep, and ruined twenty 12,000-pound locomotive motors.

After the incident, a process engineer verified that the employee lacked basic ruler reading skills. When asked to identify several measurements on a ruler, the employee could not determine the correct answers. The procedure was changed to prevent future incidents like this, but the assumption throughout the hiring and task assignment process was: everyone can read a ruler, WRONG.

The Benefits of Industrial Skills Testing

The benefits of pre-employment testing include both cost savings and consistency in selection. In a 2007 Business Outcomes Report by a leading provider of pre-employment assessments and partner companies, several findings were reported based on 29 unique research studies conducted with major U.S. and international companies across numerous industries. They included:

• Turnover in a Warehouse/Distribution role was reduced by 50% for high-scoring associates

• High-scoring Customer Service Agents generated $18,000 more revenue than low scorers;

• Pre-screened Bankers were 48% more likely to pass exams and get licensed

• Sales increased by $17,000 for high-scoring retail sales professionals

• Assessments at a major Healthcare Services Provider helped identify those most likely to get promoted.

The benefits of testing are clear. So ask yourself, what would happen to your product or service if your measurements were accurate only 60% of the time? Making a quality product requires dozens, hundreds or even thousands of measurements. Your product quality depends on your employees' skills and inherent understanding to provide those measurements. The stakes get higher as the tolerances get smaller as there is a lot less room for error when you are dealing with three and four place decimal measurements.