“Our project was the first of its kind in the world and, due largely in part to the Matrix organization, we are now accomplishing something no one else in the world is able to do.” Florida Power and Light

Client: With over 10,000 employees serving nearly 8 million people, Florida Power and Light (FPL) is among the largest and fastest growing electric utilities in the United States. Electrical power is delivered safely and reliably from 33 generating units, through more than 500 substations, and over more than 69,000 miles of transmission and distribution lines.

Challenge: FPL must reliably and cost-effectively meet the electric demands of a rapidly growing customer base, while meeting the stringent training and reporting requirements of the utility industry. To help meet these challenges, a system was needed that could support the delivery of courses and tests in a manner requiring little or no training to use.

Solution: The Knowledge Delivery System (KDS) was developed by Matrix and FPL to support secure, efficient, and cost-effective delivery of automated training and testing via the corporate intranet and standard web browsers. The system features a user-friendly web site and an intuitive user interface to satisfy individual training and certification testing requirements. KDS delivers a validated and customizable internet-based training, assessment, assignment, delivery, and e-mail reporting system to craft workers wherever and whenever they need training.

Users manage and satisfy their own training requirements through query, selection, and completion of a wide range of training courses (that may include audio and video content) and related testing. KDS includes automated capture and storage of test results, as well as extended data management subsystems. Apart from administratively maintaining organizational course and test data, KDS also synchronizes data with HR applications. The new “KDS@Home” version delivers online learning provisioning to the home.

Key Features:

• Operations and maintenance cost reductions paid for KDS in the first year
• Cost avoidance of millions of dollars per year over previous training methods
• Training costs were reduced by 94% per topic
• KDS eliminated most instructor and employee travel expenses
• General population has shown an 18% improvement from initial testing to remediation
• Lowest test scorers have shown a 40% improvement
• Increased compliance of safety and regulatory training requirements to 100%
• Reduced replacement worker costs
• Integrates with existing training media and HR databases
• Training department staff is now free to develop more materials, perform new hire assessments, and administer On the Job Training Program
• Randomly selects questions from specified objectives
• Exams are timed and automatically graded
• Scores of <80% on any topic result in CBT and On The Job Training assignments for that topic
• Supervisor is notified of the student’s training requirements via e-mail
• A full statistical analysis is performed automatically on each question and test
• Increased process capability allows additional topic delivery to more employees
• Provides a unified core qualification process for all utilities
• Content can be modified with user-friendly tools
• Delivers existing CBT materials