Page 44 - CNC West web Feb March 2022

Recruitment and knowledge sharing
Tim Paul
In my last article, “Machining Education – Ready for change,” I suggested that we as the machining industry take a serious look at changing what we teach and how we teach it when it comes to machining. That article was like whacking a hornet’s nest: it stirred up a swarm of great conversations full of strong opinions. My article wasn’t intended to be a complete answer
to all our industries problems. It was really intended to encourage readers to question if we are teaching the right things, the right way, in the right order.
Wrapping up the last article, I said next time I would explore what we can do as an to attract more people into manufacturing trades, while discussing what we can do
to respect, preserve, and share experiential knowledge throughout the industry. This time, I’ll share my
thoughts on two main topics, recruitment and knowledge sharing.
Recruitment:
I recently read an article that said, “The funnel and pipeline that feed talent to the precision manufacturing industry has sprung a leak”. The reality is that the funnel isn’t filling up and a big percentage of people that make it into the pipeline are dropping out before they complete vocational programs. For the purposes of this article, I’ll focus on our school system and the connection to
industry
businesses. Over several secondary schools have focused on transferring universities. I’m no more college than I am to every CNC machining center. on investment) potential, to end up wasting big
Whatcanwedoasan
people to our industry?
business owners contact
workers of our industry.
of Kad Models called me
be taken at a local level to
to the community. Brian
as he owns an established
Area as well as a new
things that stood out to
Brian was when he said,
house events for their communities.” He explained what he has done and how interested and engaged the community was as he opened his shop up for visitors. Brian has done a great job recruiting smart people and sharing his knowledge and experience with them to produce a highly productive team. I think Brian’s fresh look at how to engage his community and foster the next generation of machinists will continue to support his shop’s growth for generations.
Knowledge Sharing:
I hate to sound like an alarmist, but our industry is at a very real risk of losing a large portion of our knowledge over a very short period. I am aware of several multimillion-dollar companies around the country where most of their skilled machinists will be retiring in the next 3-5 years and they have no plan in place to replace their skilled workforce. They have some engagement with local community colleges, but largely they are just hoping there is some external solution that solves their problem.
There seems to be three general groups when it comes to how companies hire and train their skilled
decades our primary and become a feeder system students to four-year opposed to everyone going to machine shop buying a 6-axis Both have huge ROI (return and both have the potential amounts of money.
Photos: Kacie Merchand / KAD Models
industry to better recruit
Over the years I’ve had several me to discuss the future of Most recently, Brian Kippen
to discuss what actions could recruit and promote the trade has an interesting perspective shop in California’s Bay
shop in Vermont. One of the me in my conversation with
42 www.CNC-West.com CNC WEST February/March 2022
“Machine shops should have open