Technology enhanced learning in manufacturing: Overview, effectiveness and directions for future research

The increasing skills gap in manufacturing is requiring firms to enhance training strategies in order to maintain their competitive advantage in the modern market. Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) represents a valuable answer to the problem, giving a unique support both in terms of efficiency and efficacy. Nevertheless, a lot of studies have been focusing on the analysis of the effects of TEL solutions on the Perception and of the Learning of the users, but there are no significant contributions on the comprehension of their impact on the Employee Behavior and on the Organizational Results (according to Kirkpatrick's four-levels model for training evaluation). In particular, the investigation of the impact of TEL solutions on the performances of manufacturing firms is still completely unexplored. To this respect, in this paper the rationale behind the use of TEL solutions in organizations is explained in detail, as well as its crucial importance for manufacturing domain. Furthermore, the problem of their effectiveness in supporting business results is identified and the potential impact of its better comprehension for manufacturing firms is discussed. Finally, specific directions for future research on this topic are presented.