Earlier this spring, I attended the annual ASE Training Managers Council (ATMC) conference in Atlanta. This is where a group of automotive training leaders from both the OEM and aftermarket meet to share best practices in automotive education as well as listen to enticing presentations that pull us out of our comfort zone. This year, one of the presentations solidified my views on what every technician needs to learn and know. The presenter, a principal at Electude named Koen Berends, shared his vision on how diagnostics and automotive education need to transition from a traditional outcome-based model to a competency-based model. This is a large topic and something worthy of your consideration and attention.
The challenges facing the service bay are changing at an ever-increasing rate, yet our education model has not changed in years. Sure, we’ve attempted to support education, and have used traditional methods to do so, but none have kept pace with technology. I use the example of our current education model of a two-year vocational program as a way to prepare young technicians entering the industry by exposing them to the technologies of the time over said two-year period. The outcome was typically a young technician entering the workplace and becoming a productive employee that provides value to the shop owner. In other words, we invested two years in a young technician so they could work on 1970’s technology. It worked…for a while.
Fast-forward to today and we see the most complex data networks on the planet come into our shops, rolling on four tires that carry over 100 million lines of code in order to operate. Yet, we still only invest the same two years in our young technicians and expect the outcome to be the same. I think that is insane! So, what’s the answer? A four-year program? While that would be a good start, it is not the complete answer. Using our current outcome-based model of education, it could possibly take eight or more years to achieve the levels of post-vocational competency that we once had. I believe the answer is to modernize education by focusing on competency and the mastery of skills rather than basing our education on outcomes.
Traditional or outcome-based learning puts all students through the same program for a fixed period of time, no matter if they learn or can apply the knowledge or skills. A competency-based program is where students work on a concept and are supported until they learn and can apply it in context with their career. Once mastered, they move to the next step. Traditional education focuses on tasks or skills on systems students are studying, while competency programs focus on core skills, not the specifics of the system. For example, in current education programs a student might learn to test and diagnose a particular Ford system that contains certain core technologies, followed by learning to test and diagnose a Toyota system that contains some of the same technologies. The student has now learned the Ford way and the Toyota way, but when faced with an Audi, how do they react? In most cases they’ll say they need Audi training. In a competency-based model, the student learns how to test and diagnose the technology no matter the badge on the fender. As Koen so brilliantly put it, “Specific system knowledge cannot be a learning objective. Being able to follow diagnostic procedures is the learning objective.”
I recall as a young technician working for Datsun being asked to go to work at the Toyota store; I was scared to death. I knew Datsuns like the back of my hand but had never worked on a Toyota. It took me less than a day to realize this one truth that I preach daily: a car is a car is a car; the engineers who designed them all went to the same schools and belong to the same club (SAE). The laws of physics and chemistry are in play no matter the brand, and the suppliers for the OEMs are shared. In other words, become competent in testing and diagnosing the technology, not the nameplate. Koen uses the history of the rear window heater to make the point. In the eighties, the rear window heater circuit was very simple. You had a control circuit with power, ground, and a switch that controlled a high-current circuit that completed the heater resister circuit and warmed the rear glass. Simple foundation electrical diagnosis was needed. In the nineties the circuit was controlled by a control unit that took the input from the switch ‘pull down’ or ‘pull up’ circuit to know when to complete the control relay circuit, which in turn activated the heater resister circuit. Today, we have complex networks that contain simple wiring or data busses with many nodes on the network that require a different set of skills both in the way we test, and in the logic we use to solve problems. To apply the outcome model to these systems creates so many variables that if a technician hasn’t mastered the competencies, the amount of time needed to solve the problem negatively impacts the shop’s bottom line and is not fair to the motorist.
Another variable to consider is the time it takes for the specifics of new technologies to move from the supplier, to the OEM, to your shop or technician. For example, in the eighties a horn circuit was much different than a wiper circuit, but today they are the same. Does that make them simple? It does if you adopt a competency-based education plan. Consider a typical modern data network system on today’s vehicles. Of the dozens of wires found in a typical ECU connector, there are essentially two groups you can use to categorize the type of work they do. Some will be energy conducting wires and the others will carry information. The energy conductors are either carrying supply voltage or switched current, and the information wires are either carrying analog or digital information. You can differentiate the supply voltage wires into four groups: grounds, negative voltage, system voltage and reference voltage. The switched current wires can be divided into pull-down or pull-up circuits, and each of those are either ON/OFF or Duty Cycle. On the information side, the analog data wires are either AM, FM or Pulse Width Modulated, and the digital data wires are broken down by CAN, LIN, MOST, etc. with each of these having a variety of protocols such as CAN-B, CAN-C, etc., and each of them having a High or Low definition. At the end of the day, that is what a diagnostic tech needs to master. Coupled with a full understanding of how to apply the tools and information to these competencies, a service ready tech can approach new technologies with confidence rather than the fear that they need specific information.
As Koen said, today’s students and technicians need to focus on generic skills independent of the OEM specifics. This does not mean you should not learn the OEM strategies and process; it means if you’ve mastered the competencies for each technology, when you approach OEM service information that asks you to pick up a tool or points you to a test, you’ll know exactly why and will have a clear expectation of the expected test results. A big Thank You to Koen Berends, principal at Electude, for clarifying what we need to do!
