Building expert-led training capability
FORVIA HELLA is a listed, international automotive supplier and a company of the FORVIA Group. Headquartered in Lippstadt, Germany, it employs approximately 34,000 people at more than 125 locations worldwide, and has been a Colossyan customer since November 2023.
As responsibility for training content shifted from a central function into different business areas, FORVIA HELLA needed to build content-creation capability closer to the experts who hold the knowledge. The goal was never to replace professional e-learning design. It was to combine the expertise of e-learning designers with the technical knowledge of subject experts.
Their main challenges included:
The hand-off bottleneck
Requests had to be prioritized by available production capacity, aligned between the expert and the e-learning specialist, and then wait in line to be implemented.
Slow updates to fast-changing content
Technical guidance, software processes and compliance information change often. Even a small update could take up to two weeks.
Complex knowledge, accessible format
The team needed to turn complex technical knowledge into accessible training without making every video depend on specialist production capacity.
“The bottleneck was often the handover between the expert requesting the content and the e-learning specialist responsible for its development. We had to prioritize requests based on the available production capacity, align on the required changes, and then wait for the update to be implemented. Colossyan gives experts a practical way to create or prepare suitable content themselves.”
— Dr. Malte Ortgiese, Head of Global Engineering Academy Electronics, FORVIA HELLA
The solution: one platform for designers and experts
FORVIA HELLA uses Colossyan to support two complementary ways of working, matching the production approach to the complexity of each use case.
Experts create directly
Experts produce short explanatory videos, technical guideline summaries and software demonstrations without advanced video production skills, inside a framework of governance and quality assurance set by the technical academy.
Designers focus where they add the most value
For complex projects, e-learning designers bring instructional design, interactivity and production expertise. Experts can also prepare an initial version for a designer to refine.
Training at the point of need
Short videos sit next to technical documentation on internal wiki pages. The same videos also work as introductory modules in LMS learning paths, so they support just-in-time help and formal training alike.
“This format is well appreciated in the organization. Instead of relying only on long documents, our engineers can access a concise explanation at the point of need.”
— Dr. Malte Ortgiese, Head of Global Engineering Academy Electronics, FORVIA HELLA
The results: faster updates, broader coverage
Updates in days, not weeks
For suitable use cases, experts now update or prepare content directly. Turnaround drops from up to two weeks to around two days, and the person closest to the topic stays involved.
50% broader topic coverage
Easier expert-led creation has broadened topic coverage by 50%, including training needs that were previously not represented in the portfolio.
One global network
A core group of licensed producers handles final design and generation, while a wider group of contributors provides drafts, recordings and expert input. The solution is used across six countries, and teams in the wider FORVIA Group now benefit from it too.
“Now the expert can move the content forward directly. For the right use case, an update can be completed in one focused workflow.”
— Dr. Malte Ortgiese, Head of Global Engineering Academy Electronics, FORVIA HELLA
Next level: AI-assisted creation with Cora
FORVIA HELLA has been testing Cora, Colossyan’s AI agent, which drafts a video from a brief instead of asking the author to build it scene by scene. For experts who know their subject but have less video editing experience, it removes the part of the process they are least equipped for.
“I was really positively surprised by how smoothly it worked and by the quality of the output. Cora makes it much easier for experts to turn their knowledge into a strong initial draft”
— Dr. Malte Ortgiese, Head of Global Engineering Academy Electronics, FORVIA HELLA
Conclusion
FORVIA HELLA has built a flexible model where experts contribute directly and e-learning designers focus on complex projects. Following its positive experience with the platform, FORVIA HELLA renewed its collaboration with Colossyan in August 2026, a long-term commitment to scalable, video-based training.
“Colossyan has helped us establish a flexible model where experts can contribute directly, while e-learning designers focus on more complex learning projects. That combination has been a key factor in scaling our learning portfolio.”
— Dr. Malte Ortgiese, Head of Global Engineering Academy Electronics, FORVIA HELLA
