As part of Canon's newly released Systems and Technical Support eLearning Center, the Pathlore LMS will analyse and report on training delivered through classroom instruction, self-paced courses, computer-based classes and e-learning programmes.

Canon U. S. A., Inc., based at Lake Success, N.Y, and a subsidiary of Canon Inc, trains over 10,000 dealer-technicians and systems engineers in its U.S. dealer network. By launching an e-learning centre with the LMS, Canon is offering its dealer network a blend of online and classroom training.

This blended solution will deliver training programmes more efficiently than ever before, say Canon's executives. Moreover, quality training provided to high-level support professionals should help Canon to achieve brand loyalty from dealers and end-user customers.

By relying on the LMS, engineers and technicians, for instance, can tap what Canon calls online 'pre-study' materials. These materials help workers to learn about products before taking classroom-delivered training with their peers.

This, in turn, lets instructors make hands-on diagnostics and troubleshooting the focus of the classroom training.

Canon's e-learning centre offers dealer-technicians a way to take online certification tests, too. If the technicians pass the online exams, then they can opt-out of certain courses.

For technicians, this increases their productivity and lowers costs by eliminating the need to travel to Canon's regional offices for training. The approach also allows them to spend more time with customers.

"With the LMS, we'll be able to increase hands-on diagnostics work in certain classes from 60 per cent to 70 or 80 per cent," said Don Walker, manager of educational services at Canon U.S.A., Inc. "It's all about making a dealer-technician feel more comfortable with our products, which improves service quality and sales."

The LMS also lets dealer-managers and technicians go online to check class schedules, course descriptions and students' transcripts.

"We're making it easy for our dealer network to get instruction that helps them to support both customers and products and, together, achieve a high level of end-user customer satisfaction," added Walker. "If we make learning about Canon's products easier, while maintaining a high level of quality, then dealers and end-users - when offered a choice - will select our products over our competitors' brands."

Before installing the enterprise LMS, Walker's team kept tabs on training with pen and paper. For example, to find out how many people took one of Canon's copier classes, Walker would have to call five regional training centres to build a report. With the LMS in place, said Walker, Canon can, in many cases, save up to 50 per cent of the time the company spent juggling class schedules, registering people for training and weighing the results.

"The Pathlore LMS will centralise the business of training at Canon, which will save us time and reduces our expenses," noted Walker. "It also will strengthen the link between Canon and its dealers."

"Canon has gone beyond simply tracking training to relying on its LMS to improve the performance of its dealer-technicians and systems engineers," commented Steve Thomas, Pathlore's chief executive.