Case Study: Charles River Laboratories saves almost $300,000 and 1,000 learning administration hours in one year with Totara Learn

Charles River saves almost $300,000 and 1,000 learning administration hours in one year

Charles River is a global provider of preclinical and clinical laboratory services that needed to replace a rudimentary LMS as it scaled to more than 11,000 employees and thousands of external customers. Facing heavy regulation in the life sciences and an EU directive requiring immediate employee accreditation, the company required a robust, modern platform to deliver onboarding, compliance, technical and accredited training consistently across regions.

Working with Spanish partner Actua Solutions, Charles River implemented Totara Learn in about six months, adding competencies, reporting, hierarchies, external user access, Storyline content and an AALAS API integration for auto-login and grade imports. The rollout replaced costly face‑to‑face courses, enabling certificate issuance and centralized learning assets; in Spain it saved ~€20,000 in year one (ongoing >€10,000 annually) with ~200 accredited completions, and in the US the 2016 launch served ~4,000 users, saved about $250,000 and cut over 1,000 learning administration hours.

Charles River Laboratories

Elton Machholz

Manager of Learning & Development