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Case Study
Curbell Plastics Transforms Learning Operations at Scale

Doing More with Less Across 600+ Employees

LearnOps Pillars:
Align | Plan | Execute | Measure | Optimize

Transform

Background

Curbell Plastics is a national supplier of plastic sheet, rod, tube, and related materials, serving a wide range of industries. With 600+ employees and a four-person L&D team, Curbell faced growing demand for consistent, high-quality training—without a scalable operating model to support it.

Ashley Riley, Training Manager, set out to solve a familiar challenge: increasing L&D’s output without increasing headcount.

The Challenge

“We didn’t have a clean way to manage requests, assign work, or track what was getting done.”

— Ashley Riley, Training Manager

As business demand rose, Curbell’s lean L&D team struggled to keep up. Without a centralized system:

  • Training requests were scattered across emails and spreadsheets
  • Workflows were manual and inconsistent
  • Updates to training materials caused major revision backlogs
  • Resource planning lacked visibility and structure

The LearnOps Transformation:

Ashley adopted Cognota to build an efficient, scalable learning operations engine—designed to support the entire L&D lifecycle from intake to delivery.

Here’s what changed:

Centralized Request Management

All training requests now come through a single portal. This streamlined intake enables faster prioritization and clarity across departments.

Workflow Visibility & Task Distribution

The team uses Cognota to split tasks and manage workloads effectively—keeping projects moving and preventing bottlenecks.

Built-in Accountability

Each team member can track their work in one system, while leadership gets real-time updates on progress and capacity.

Fewer Backlogs, Faster Execution

By consolidating tools and eliminating duplicate efforts, the team dramatically reduced their revision backlog.

“Adopting Cognota has allowed all of our requests to come into a more central location—and to split tasks up amongst our team.”

Results & Business Impact

Increased Efficiency

Since implementing Cognota, Curbell Plastics has made major strides in learning efficiency and effectiveness:

  • Centralized 100% of training intake
  • Reduced turnaround time for key learning projects
  • Improved stakeholder satisfaction through faster delivery and better visibility
  • Enabled the L&D team to operate like a high-performance internal agency—without growing headcount

Why It Matters for the Business

  • L&D aligned with business demand and timelines
  • Fewer delays in critical learning initiatives
  • Increased output and responsiveness from the same team
  • Structured operations that reduce risk and improve audit readiness
What’s Next
Ashley is expanding Cognota usage across departments to strengthen cross-functional collaboration and support future growth.

“Cognota gave us the structure we needed to scale. Now we’re focused on delivering even more value to the business—with the team we already have.”

LearnOps ®️

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Case Study: Curbell Plastics

Case Study: Curbell Plastics