Troubleshooting is one of the most valuable skills a maintenance technician can have, but also one of the hardest to train. You need maintenance technicians who can diagnose a failure, isolate the root cause, and solve the problem without creating more downtime in the process. Every minute of lost production carries a cost.
That’s why troubleshooting can’t just be an on-the-job experience. The strongest maintenance training programs are intentionally designed to give technicians the foundational knowledge to understand how systems work, the hands-on practice to apply that knowledge, and the chance to work through realistic faults in a setting where mistakes become part of the learning process instead of an expensive disruption.
Michael Foods, part of the Post Holdings family of companies, has 17 U.S. manufacturing facilities and a technical training center in Norwalk, Iowa. They’ve figured out how to successfully train their maintenance teams with a systematic, measurable, and engaging program. And it all takes place off the plant floor.
Troubleshooting sounds simple until you try to teach it.
It isn’t one skill. It’s a combination of technical understanding, logic, observation, pattern recognition, and confidence. A technician might know what a component does in theory and still struggle when a live system isn’t behaving the way it should. They may understand a wiring diagram on paper but freeze when they have to trace a fault through an actual control system under pressure.
That’s part of why troubleshooting often becomes a gap in maintenance training. In many workplaces, it’s expected before it’s really developed. Technicians are asked to think critically and solve problems on the fly, but their training may have been rushed, inconsistent, or limited to whatever they picked up from the people around them. The risk is that when a line goes down, a technician might just “throw parts” at the issue which increases downtime and cost.
There’s a lot of value in learning on the plant floor. Maintenance is, by nature, practical work. But the job itself isn’t always the best place to build troubleshooting fundamentals.
Production environments come with pressure. When equipment goes down, the priority is getting it back up. There usually isn’t much time to slow down, explain the reasoning behind each step, or let someone work through the fault carefully if they’re still learning. Mistakes can have real consequences, from extended downtime, to safety risks, to damage to confidence.
That’s why dedicated training environments make such a difference. They give technicians room to ask questions, test ideas, make mistakes, and build skill without the full weight of production bearing down on every decision.
Michael Foods‘ Maintenance Manager Steve Vaske described the value of a dedicated training room where technicians can “put [their] hands on stuff and make mistakes,” even “blow the fuse and have some water spill on the floor and have an air leak,” without “the pressure of having to get the line back up and run.” In that kind of setting, the pressure changes. Instead of being punished for trial and error, technicians can learn from it.
That matters because troubleshooting is built through repetition. People get better at diagnosing problems when they’ve had the chance to work through them in a structured way, not just react to them in a crisis.
In an ideal scenario, maintenance technicians have access to a systematic training program outside of the production floor where they can learn and get hands-on practice before applying their skills on live equipment.
The best troubleshooting training starts with fundamentals of manufacturing technology. That usually means building fluency in electrical principles, motor controls, drives, wiring, sensors, PLCs, safe testing procedures, and the logic behind how systems operate. Then, they get hands-on practice with operating and adjusting these systems.
For maintenance technicians especially, a the final critical piece to training is systematically teaching troubleshooting techniques and practices.
The formula for effective troubleshooting training = theory + hands-on skills + systematic troubleshooting practice.
This is where a system like Amatrol’s broader maintenance training ecosystem becomes especially useful. The combination of eLearning, hands-on trainers, and structured fault-based exercises creates a more complete learning experience. The eLearning helps break down manufacturing concepts into manageable pieces and explains the “why” behind the system. The physical trainers let technicians apply that knowledge in a way that feels real. And FaultPro’s systematic fault insertion capabilities simulate common troubleshooting scenarios that technicians need to work through. Together, those pieces make the learning process more approachable and more effective.
Michael Foods launched the ARMED (Achieving Results in Maintenance through Education and Development) Program to develop skilled industrial maintenance technicians from within their own workforce. A major component of the program is a word-class technical training facility at their Norwalk, Iowa location. ARMED Program Manager Brian Helm said, “The reception to the training center has exceeded my expectations. When we get technicians through here, they walk in, they see all these professional trainers, and they know that Michael Foods is taking this serious and making a pretty significant investment.”
The training program follows the formula of eLearning + hands-on training + troubleshooting skills using Amatrol’s suite of training solutions.
It’s designed to reduce intimidation and build confidence and skills quickly. Helm described how many technicians arrive unsure of their abilities in certain areas, but gain traction because “the way the curriculum is formulated, they’re able to kind of learn in bits and pieces.” Then comes what he called the “aha moment,” when technicians realize, “I got it. I can do this.”
Industrial Electrician Jose Vera has been instrumental in running hands-on training. “I helped facilitate the training by showing people basic electrical skills, how to troubleshoot, how to wire a panel from scratch, how to test motors, how to make motors, wiring, proper panel etiquette, safety.”
Just as important, the training is tied directly to the kinds of problems technicians actually face in the plant. “We’ve added some sensors to the electrical wiring trainer, and it’s been really useful,” Vera said. “We customized it so that hopefully people in the future can go to their own facilities and be like, Oh, I know what this is. I know how to what to look for. I know how to troubleshoot this and I can fix it.”
Maintenance Manager Michael Harris commented on how this formalized approach to training will tremendously improve the company’s maintenance technicians’ skills. “I can tell by the trainers that the maintenance department across Michael foods as a whole is going to advance tremendously in this environment,” he said.
What really sets Amatrol apart from any other technical training solution is FaultPro.
Amatrol’s FaultPro is a computer-based fault insertion system that allows instructors to introduce electronic faults safely into supported training systems. When a fault is inserted, the system behaves as though a real failure has occurred. Learners then have to interpret the symptoms, follow a troubleshooting process, identify the likely point of failure, and perform maintenance to get the system running again.
That changes the quality of troubleshooting training. It makes troubleshooting repeatable. It’s measurable. It allows instructors to tailor the challenge to a learner’s current skill level. And it helps students practice diagnosing faults without putting equipment or people at unnecessary risk.
It also gives instructors a more structured way to teach and assess troubleshooting. Because faults can be selected intentionally, training can target specific weaknesses. And because performance can be measured through numeric or mastery-based grading, instructors can evaluate not only whether a learner found the answer, but how effectively they worked through the problem.
The Michael Foods case study proves that troubleshooting skill doesn’t just happen because someone has been around equipment for a while.
It grows faster when employers create the right training conditions. That means building a program that combines foundational knowledge, hands-on practice, and realistic troubleshooting scenarios. It means giving technicians the chance to make mistakes in a safe environment, learn from them, and come back stronger. And it means treating troubleshooting as a core capability that affects uptime, cost, safety, and team performance.
For industrial employers trying to strengthen their maintenance workforce, the goal isn’t just to teach people how a machine works. It’s to teach them how to respond when it doesn’t.
That’s the difference between familiarity and competence. And in maintenance, it’s often the difference between prolonged downtime and a problem solved well.
Get started with your maintenance technician training program with LAB Midwest and Amatrol today!
