Posts Tagged ‘Education’

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Worker retraining: Easier said than done

April 17th, 2009
By: Dan Davis

I've got to leave work a little earlier than usual today. Actually, this is nothing new. It's been going on for about 12 weeks.

I started taking a Spanish class—Occupational Spanish 101 to be exact—at a local community college in the hopes that I could beef up some conversational skills when I visit Mexico in support of the Spanish-language version of The FABRICATOR.

Well, I wish I can say I'm much better at speaking Spanish than I am. But that's really my own fault. The instructor stresses to engage Spanish speakers in conversation to strengthen my own conversational skills, but when I greet the cashier at the grocery store with "Buenos dias!" in a Southern drawl, she just stares at me.

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'Tell me something good'

April 8th, 2009
By: Vicki Bell

As many do before heading off to work each day, my husband and I turn on a local television station to check the weather forecast. This morning, the two items we heard before the weather segment were about a gunman who shot several people in California (can we go a day without something like this happening somewhere?) and a 31-year-old male sex offender who posed as a 12-year-old and attended several Arizona schools for two years. This deviant was sentenced to more than 70 years in prison yesterday.

My husband said, "I'm sick of this. We're always hearing bad news. Why can't we hear about the hundreds of cyclists who braved the elements in the Wheels O' Fire ride to raise money for a good cause? Tell me something good."

After getting past the initial free-association thought "tell me something good" brought to mind—think Rufus and Chaka Khan, or Pink— it hit me. I would write about something good in today's post. If you are suffering from good-news deprivation, read on.

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A solution to the skilled-labor shortage?

March 19th, 2008
By: Vicki Bell

Among my job responsibilities is compiling and sending out monthly e-newsletters—Fabricating Update, Stamping News Brief, Tube Talk, and Welding Wire. These newsletters deliver industry-specific information to subscribers. They also are what I like best about my job. Why? Because subscribers often share their thoughts about the topics in each newsletter's lead item and their thoughts are always interesting.

Yesterday's Tube Talk discussed an idea that's gaining momentum: tuition-free, post-secondary training.

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Welding's missing link

February 12th, 2008
By: Tim Heston

Several years ago Ken Smith took a long, hard look at the country's welder shortage. The manager of training for Lorain County Community College's welding program in Elyria, Ohio, saw a need to tackle the issue at the source: education.

Smith, together with representatives from the American Welding Society and elsewhere, started the National Center for Welding Education and TrainingWeld Ed for shortfunded by the National Science Foundation. The program focuses on educating someone who's not necessarily a hands-on welder, not a welding engineer, but a little of both. It is the hope that graduates of such programs would go on to become weld technicians and eventually land in supervisory roles.

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Get with the program

February 7th, 2008
By: Vicki Bell

Have you ever noticed how things run in cycles? Feast or famine? Drought or flood? No phone calls, or one call after another? I telecommute, and days go by that my work phone doesn't ring at all. On those days, all communication transpires electronically. This is not one of those days.

Among the many unexpected calls today was one from a business owner in Ohio who has an idea. He wants to start a program to train industrial workers. The idea came to this gentleman as he drove around and kept seeing signs seeking CNC operators. He feels that most trade programs now are geared toward training people to work in the HVAC field and not in manufacturing. He thinks there's a need for and money to be made training skilled labor. I know the former to be true; can't speak for the latter.

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A new kind of craftsperson for the job shop

December 18th, 2007
By: Tim Heston

Dan Andersen graduated in 1992, trained as a robotics technician, only to find himself a few years later at Louis Industries, which at the time specialized in sheet metal cutting; no robotsjust flat-sheet processing, period.

I didn"t grow up running a press brake, running the plasma cutter, running the punch press, he said. But over the years I have worked hand in hand with the operators, without running a press brake [and other machine tools], seeing the difficulties they had. And I feel I"ve become a real craftsman without running a press brake [or other machines] for a significant period of time.

That statement spurs an ongoing debate in industry, one top of mind for many metal fabricators as they struggle to find skilled labor. What defines a skilled person today? What does the shop floor really need?

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Educators, listen up

December 13th, 2007
By: Vicki Bell

Much has been said and written about the skilled labor shortage, yet it remains an issue that plagues manufacturers across the U.S. and the rest of the world.

Skill comes from training and experience. It begins when an individual is exposed to a craft, develops an interest, and decides to pursue the opportunity. It continues with education and practice. Sounds simple enough. Why is it so difficult to attract prospective skilled workers and persuade education decision-makers to invest in technical training programs?

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