Built by Industry, for Industry: The Expertise Behind Our Manufacturing Training Content

The manufacturing industry is facing a critical challenge: a widening skilled labor gap. As innovation increases and the labor pool retracts, the need for effective, up-to-date training has never been greater. While SME strives to accelerate adoption of new technologies and build North America’s talent through multiple strategies and solutions, Tooling U-SME provides a strong foundation to our mission through access to essential manufacturing knowledge.

With over 600 online courses across dozens of subject areas, we are committed to producing content that empowers manufacturing professionals and accelerates their time to competency. We understand that continuous learning is vital to our rapidly changing industry. That's why we are committed to delivering new and updated courses every month.

Recent Updates

Last year, we released nearly 20 new courses, including nine in our Electrification series. These courses cover topics connected to electric vehicle (EV) technology, including the role of the battery management system (BMS) in an EV, how lithium-ion battery cells are made and tested for quality, battery recycling methods, hydrogen fuel cells, and batteries other than lithium-ion. We developed new courses in Additive Manufacturing and added classes on key power skills to our Workforce Essentials department. We also added a new Plastics Processing department with two new courses on extrusion and blow molding.

In addition to new courses, we revised dozens of existing titles to capture advancements in manufacturing, enhance their instructional design, and make the concepts easier to understand. For example, we updated courses in Electrical Systems, Safety, and Inspection, along with several Welding courses in partnership with Lincoln Electric.

Current Roadmap

We are committed to creating new courses and continuously improving our content. In 2025, you will see:

• New and updated courses in Metal Cutting, including new classes on gear cutting, tapping, and end milling.
• New advanced content in Additive Manufacturing on equipment set up and maintenance.
• Revisions to select Manual Machining courses to enhance their instructional design with new animations, videos, and explanations.
• Continued additions to Plastics Processing, including updated courses on key methods such as injection molding and thermoforming.
• New troubleshooting content, including new Problem-Solving Strategies and a revised course on root cause analysis.
• Revised Lean classes on continuous process improvement and approaches for eliminating waste.

Our Content Development Process

Our content development process is unparalleled in the industry. We have rigorous methods that ensure our courses are accurate, up-to-date, and instructionally sound. When exploring areas for development, we start by identifying market demand and industry trends. We also gather feedback from our customers and align our development with SME initiatives.

Our course development process starts with research and collaboration with industry subject matter experts. Our subject matter experts are leaders in their field and offer input to confirm our content is accurate and reflective of real-world applications. Once our Content Development team identifies the key objectives and scope of the course, they create a storyboard, exam, and illustrations and animations following our internal style guide and instructional design best practices.

Our content undergoes multiple quality review phases before launching to our customers, including editing by senior team members, review and validation by subject matter experts, proofreading, and pre-release testing for functionality. This process ensures that our classes are engaging, instructionally sound, stylistically consistent, and technically accurate. We follow a similar process when creating custom content for individual manufacturers, with the addition of proprietary information and media that reflects their specific processes and environment.

The Importance of Updating Existing Content

Along with creating new courses, we also place strong emphasis on improving and updating existing content. Manufacturing is constantly evolving, so it's important to keep our courses current with the latest technologies and trends.

Our Content Development team regularly reviews and updates our courses. We consult with manufacturing subject matter experts to understand current processes and work to enhance the visual and instructional design – all with the goal of making our content as engaging, effective, and learner-focused as possible.

Our Content Development Team

We are able to adhere to such rigorous standards due to the talents of our Content Development Team, which includes Content Developers and Multimedia artists with extensive education and experience in instructional design. They have a passion for manufacturing and are dedicated to creating high-quality training. Most of our Content Developers have advanced degrees and experience teaching adults, while our Multimedia artists have backgrounds in fine arts, technical illustration, and animation. Our team’s collective expertise and commitment to excellence is what makes our courses so engaging and effective.

Achieving Quality Through Collaboration

Collaboration is key to our process. We draw local talent to our team, allowing us to meet in person, share knowledge, and innovate. We are fortunate to be located in the Cleveland, Ohio area, which has a rich manufacturing history and a strong university system. Our location enables us to connect directly with local experts, area facilities, and regional industry events. Our team also benefits from SME’s strong ties with manufacturers, educators, and other non-profits that specialize in key industry sectors such as additive, machining, robotics, welding, and smart manufacturing. We also attend SME’s many North American events, which expose our team to the latest technologies and allow them to view new processes in person. Our relationships with industry are key to understanding the needs of the workforce and obtaining the knowledge necessary to produce relevant training.

Your Training Partner

At Tooling U-SME, we are committed to providing the best possible manufacturing training resources. Our online learning provides the foundation for our other workforce development efforts, which include instructor-led training, assessments, certifications, apprenticeships, consulting, as well as custom learning plans tailored to your needs.

We are confident that we can provide your workforce with the learning they need to succeed in today's competitive manufacturing environment.

If you have any questions about our training, please contact us at info@toolingu.com. To view our online classes, visit our catalog.