A growing interest in organizational knowledge management, along with increasingly widespread adoption of Quality Standards such as ISO 9001, has increasingly led organizations to implement training programs for all employees. Training for the manufacturing workforce, however, remains limited to informal “On-the-Job” training, administered by peer colleagues or supervisors - particularly in Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) where economic, educational, cognitive and cultural constraints to training are often deeply embedded. This paper proposes a methodology for training the manufacturing workforce on the functions of products and their constituent parts, and presents a case study conducted in a UK-based manufacturing SME - aiming to verify our two research hypotheses: Functional Analysis Diagrams (FAD) of the company’s products and parts would assist in knowledge assimilation; and, the knowledge assimilation has a positive effect on work quality and productivity levels. This intervention provided training on the purpose of the processes the participants are involved, aiming to empower them in supporting the optimization of these same processes. By using surveys and applying statistical inference on long-term quantitative data, the study confirmed subjective observations of substantial improvements in work quality (scrap reduction of 63%) and increased productivity (setup time reduced by 67%). To our knowledge, we were the first to examine the effect of functional modelling methods for workforce training in a manufacturing setup. Although this paper presents a single case study, the results suggest that the proposed methodology can be a promising solution for the industry.