Two Thumbs Up For WESTEC 2001 By: Larry Olson Having the tools to boost your shop's productivity is a great idea; but how do your people get the training they need when they need it? Keeping your shop personnel up-to-date on the latest technology can be a full-time job. Of course, you can always rely on an occasional ad in the paper to attract the talent that you need. However, when you are able bring in even experience people, there is always some training involved. While the equipment supplier will provide some training initially, this can only go so far in keeping up with the latest manufacturing techniques.
By: Larry Olson
Having the tools to boost your shop's productivity is a great idea; but how do your people get the training they need when they need it?
Traditional training in classrooms and seminars with workbooks and videos results in hours and days of lost production. In addition, since many top "schools" are conducted off-site, travel, lodging, and meal expenses are involved for the attendees. Meanwhile, the training material could possibly be obsolete or a poor fit for your particular shop situation, especially if the people you send are more advanced or not as proficient at that class level. Finally, taking a worker away from the shop to teach how to be more effective on the job (while cutting productivity in the process) just does not make much sense.
Fortunately, there is a better way. Tooling UniversityTM, a venture of Jergens, Inc. (Cleveland, OH), has established an Internet-based curriculum supported by experts and partner companies in an expanding list of metalworking disciplines, including: metal cutting (Valenite), workholding (Jergens), materials (Castle Metals), metalforming (Dayton), and others planned for later this year. Training at ToolingUTM in each topic area is designed to proceed at the particular pace and level of each student, taking advantage of prior background and experience, and requiring only as much or as little time as available (during the day, on the job or at break time, or even at home in the evenings).
This approach to personalized, Internet-based instruction is actually more one-on-one than the traditional classroom situation, with instructors assigned to each "department," pre-testing and final exams, "chat" forums for questions, and certification at the completion of each course. As ToolingU continues to develop, more partner companies will be brought in (hopefully in the CAM area, as noted earlier), and the base of experience and number of topics will broaden. This innovative use of the Internet is just the thing to give apprentices a solid start and enable experienced machinists to brush up on the latest techniques, quickly and painlessly. Check it out at their website, www.toolingu.com.
- Larry Olson