How Lenzing put every safety certification in one place, and never missed one again
A chemical manufacturer, audit-ready documentation across all departments, and automatic alerts before anything expires.
A patchwork that couldn’t hold
Lenzing is a chemical manufacturer operating in one of the most heavily regulated industries in the world. In some departments, if certifications lapse, an employee’s access card to the building gets blocked.
“[To track all this], some of our departments had good quality Excel sheets, some bad, and in some departments, there was nothing at all,” said Doris Schobesberger, Learning & Development Specialist at Lenzing.
The problem wasn’t just inconsistency. How many safety trainings were actually happening? How many should be? Were people trained? Before AG5, those questions required manual data gathering across multiple departments and sites. Even then, the answers weren’t reliable.
Two systems for two very different workforces
Lenzing already had SAP SuccessFactors in place for office staff, which was solid for tracking development in roles where competencies evolve slowly and carry no legal or safety requirements. The production floor, however, is a different environment entirely.
“Safety training for a workstation will expire after a year and we need to make sure we stay within the time frame,” Schobesberger said.
Blue-collar workers also have little patience for tools that aren’t properly thought through, and Schobesberger was clear-eyed about that going in. Usability was non-negotiable. AG5 cleared that bar, integrating directly with SAP SuccessFactors and bringing both workforces into a single connected picture.
Some of the blue-collar colleagues are super critical. If you give them a tool that is hard to work with, they will never use it.
Doris Schobesberger
Learning & Development Specialist, Lenzing
Ten minutes to competent
The test of usability on a production floor is simple: can a shift manager add training results without a lengthy onboarding process? At Lenzing, the answer is yes.
“Ten minutes into a training they already know all the basics, like adding the results of a safety training,” Schobesberger said. “AG5 has made sure the essential parts for the daily work are user-friendly. Our people are able to do this without thinking or putting a lot of effort into it.”
Integration with eFront means e-learning results feed directly into AG5, closing the loop between online safety training and the skills matrix without any manual entry. For ISO certification and audits, the documentation is always current and always where it needs to be.
Investing in people the way Lenzing invests in machines
For years, Lenzing invested heavily in maintaining and improving its equipment. The same rigor wasn’t always applied to the people operating it.
“A lot of money is going to fixing parts of machines or building new machines. We didn’t do that so much with our blue-collar workers,” Schobesberger said. “But with AG5, we are able to help our workers to improve and develop their skills.”
Our top managers look at the skills dashboard: Where is my department standing? Are there any big issues? Is there anything we should focus on, to ensure that we are developing people?
Doris Schobesberger
Learning & Development Specialist, Lenzing
