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How to improve shop floor performance, move toward a digital factory and go paperless
As a leading, global, consumer products manufacturer of oral care, home care, personal care and pet nutrition products, the Colgate brand is in more homes than any other brand. So how does a company like Colgate support and enable the teams on the shop floor to maintain the quality and consistency of Colgate products?
This is done by focusing on initiatives to improve shop floor performance, prioritizing a digital factory and going paperless. Gary Binstock, Director of Technology and Strategic Innovation, is a thought leader behind Colgate’s focus on innovation for growth and who first connected with SPEACH.
Gary introduced the Speach platform and team to Dhiren Doshi, Learning Partner E2E Global Supply Chain and Andres Bejarano, then Factory Performance & Reliability director. Recognizing the ease of creating engaging and interactive videos through Speach, this team saw how Colgate could use the solution internally. To test the thinking, Dhiren experimented with the platform by recording a quick tutorial on how to change his car’s headlight bulb. Dhiren shared its ease of use internally, became a champion for the adoption of Speach and quickly garnered leadership support starting with Warren Pruitt, VP Global Engineering.
The initial support for Speach was reinforced through the partnership with Thomas Lan, Director Global FP&R & Automation Technology by piloting the application at a number of key sites. As the IT security and other connectivity requirements were being addressed, the team developed structure, processes and templates that will enable a systematic use of the platform. The strong partnership with the Speach team to drive improvements has been a strength of this partnership.
The vision is to first drive adoption of the Speach platform and then transition to leveraging the power of translation of voice and eventually text. With less than a year of implementation, we’re now building content for equipment and then deploying it globally, which saves time and money by avoiding duplicative efforts.t. This process will also ensure best practices are transferred seamlessly.
– Thomas Lan, Director Global FP&R & Automation Technology
Throughout the adoption of Speach, Colgate implemented the creation of content in categories such as 2025 E2E Global Supply Chain strategy communication, shop floor operations support, logistics, quality, project management, changeovers and more. The Speach solution can be leveraged in any department and capacity that requires training or the distribution of pertinent information making its use case application adaptable to the learning needs of Colgate.
The idea behind applying Speach to solve factory floor problems specifically, was inspired by how we use video platforms in our personal learning lives to acquire new knowledge. The use of familiar technology in a professional setting made Speach simple to adopt regardless of skill level with content creation technology. Speach allows Colgate to use the platform as a corporate video channel to create and disseminate a knowledge base to their employees, while maintaining the privacy and data protection of sensitive material.
Speach enables the content creator to develop contextual, task-based learning and information embedded into the operators’ workflows, available in two clicks, and ten seconds. Accessible on various technologies, operators can leverage the solution next to them as needed for immediate instruction or learning for the equipment they are working.
For a successful Workflow Learning program, Speach brings performance to the shop floor and increased productivity by delivering the right content to the right person at the right time with JIT (Just In Time) and OTJ (On The Job) training via kiosks and tablets. Enabling quick onboarding and reducing the need for the reliance on cumbersome training documents delivered on paper.
Speach digitizes work instructions and standard operating procedures (SOPs) making it instrumental in Colgate’s move toward a paperless initiative. Thanks to the display of a QR code, employees have direct access from their mobile phones to video instructions that complement documentation. With Speach, content can be regularly updated in a few clicks and is available any time, even offline. Workers no longer need to read through hundreds of pages to find the right instructions.
Speach has enabled the creation of nearly 750 published Speaches worldwide in 9 months. A team in one location can share their best practices globally by using the translation feature. Making content easy to replicate in a speaker’s native language. Top creators are featured on the Colgate platform carousel for users to watch anytime and from anywhere. Dhiren administered the adoption of the translation capabilities of Speach, globally.
“With Speach you can take content recorded in your native language and automatically generate closed captions in another. This allows us to communicate globally without native knowledge of the translation language. The tool also allows us to edit and time closed captions so that they synchronize properly with the content. The Speach format also breaks this content down into digestible clips for learning.”
Speach content is created in chapters and offers the inclusion of video, documentation, synchronization (in which the user can capture video or audio for their document) and quizzes to ensure the viewer’s retention of the material in the Speach.Statistics are also available for administrators to see who has completed training content and how they performed on quizzes.In this example you will see the use of synchronization with a corresponding Speach chapter.
Each department at Colgate has opportunities to leverage the capabilities of Speach that best suit their needs.
In this example you will see the use of synchronization with a corresponding Speach chapter.
Speach can be integrated with others solutions. In this example, you’ll notice Speach integration with AskDelphi on the Colgate factory floor.
Travel and logistics costs are drastically reduced thanks to online training
Skill improvement guarantees the operational excellence of all employees
All employees are onboarded through Speach video tutorials
Speaches enable continuous learning and can be accessed on desktop, tablet or smartphone
