Articles: Training

Degrees, Diplomas, and Certificates

by Tom Byerley, Director, University of Tennessee’s Reliability and Maintainability Center

In the reliability and maintenance world (and elsewhere I suppose), there continues to be significant confusion concerning the meaning and proper use of the three words, certificate, diploma and degree. 

Developing a Skilled Workforce: Shaw Industries’ START Program

Originally presented at Reliability 2.0

Written by Casey Wagner, Training Manager Industrial Maintenance, Shaw Industries Group, Inc. and Eric Rodgers, SVP Manufacturing Group, General Physics Corporation

Background  

Shaw has a rich history in carpeting and flooring and from its early beginnings in 1946 Shaw has remained an industry leader. Maintaining a leadership position requires constant diligence and focus on your products, quality, manufacturing processes and your people. Early in 2005, Shaw Industries understood that a proactive workforce development initiative would be required to sustain current and future business operations. Specifically, building the skilled workforce was a growing concern with labor resources being very hard to find and many that were found were highly under skilled. Shaw was facing a considerable workforce issue – how to address both aging workforce departures and the lack of qualified and skilled replacement workers.

 

Developing an Effective Workforce

The dominate trend in corporate America over the past ten years is to cut cost through headcount reduction, reducing maintenance activities and a variety of other arbitrary means. Many view headcount reduction as the only means of achieving a competitive position that would permit our industries to survive in the ever-increasing competitiveness of the world market. Unfortunately, companies cannot cost cut their way to prosperity. If cutting cost is not the answer, to only real option is to increase the productivity of our critical assets. This is certainly true of our workforce.

Do Your Planners Have the Training they need to be Effective?

by Alan Warmack, Marshall Institute

Are you considering the implementation of Planning and Scheduling in your Maintenance group? Maybe you have already started the process and chosen the Planners to take you forward in your Continuous Improvement Process. In either case, strong consideration should be given to the types and levels of training your Planners have, or are going to receive in order to make them effective in their new job.

Forward to the Basics, Using Education to Create Real Partnerships

In the current downturn, many have been doing less with less from a Maintenance and Reliability perspective. With cost reductions and in survival mode, many Maintenance groups have worked to get the last useable life from failing equipment; often deferring Maintenance for the short-term to help achieve those goals. Maintenance in the New Normal or the Reset economy will be more challenging than ever. Interestingly, businesses have gotten used tomaking do with less so don't look for the pendulum to swing the other way in the recovery. Furthermore, recognize the recovery may actually be a non-employment recovery which will be slow to replace jobs eliminated in the downturn.

How To Develop and Implement a Successful Maintenance Skills Training Program

Maintenance Skills Training for industry is a hot subject right now. In many areas of the country, companies are competing for skilled maintenance personnel.

Tammy Bodack with Charlotte's Central Piedmont Community College states that the city's total unemployment rate is less than 2% and the skilled unemployment rate is lower than that.

The skill level of the maintenance personnel in most companies is well below what industry would say is acceptable.

 

How to know if you’re choosing the right training for your company’s needs

By Cynthia Rishko, National Technology Transfer, Inc.

Training Pays

Employee training programs cost money that employers might be reluctant to spend-especially in tough economic times. Often times giving serious consideration to an employee training program is delayed until an incident occurs that highlights the need for a change in the status quo. The truth is that money spent on training employees well can benefit a company in many ways for years. The benefits come in the form of increased efficiency and productivity; less downtime or complete breakdown of systems; less reliance on high priced outside consultants to resolve issues, as well a decrease in insurance liabilities due to accidents on the job, along with their potential for OSHA penalties.

The Changing Role of the Craftsperson in North America

By Chuck Kooistra Sr. Vice President, General Physics Corporation

The most pressing issue in North American manufacturing does not involve competition from overseas. The critical issue involves the short supply of qualified technical labor available to get the work done.

The Development of a Local and Distance Delivered Reliability and Maintainability Engineering Master

By: Wes Hines, Director, Reliability and Maintainability Engineering Program, College of Engineering,

University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996-2300

 Abstract

 

This paper presents the development of a Master of Science (MS) degree program in Reliability and Maintainability Engineering at the University of Tennessee. The maintenance program at UT began a decade ago with the formation of the Maintenance and Reliability center and the academic program grew through a National Science Foundation curriculum development grant.  The academic program was initially limited to a few classes leading to undergraduate and graduate certificates.  This paper describes the curricular development process including surveys designed to measure industrial demand and presents the final MS curriculum.  Lastly, the dual delivery system, that includes a web-based distance delivery system, is presented.

There’s More to Training than Skills Development

Originally presented at Reliability 2.0

Ken Bass, CMRP, Director, Content and Quality, Management Resources Group

Most organizations have recognized for many years that when we change the way any job is done, we most likely change the knowledge and skills necessary to succeed at that job. For minor changes in the work, some on the job training is sufficient. When the changes involve dramatic differences in the knowledge and skills base, formal training is required. But one question remains. That is, is “how to” training enough since it is very specific to the knowledge and skills for a discrete set of tasks?

Training - The Backbone of Cultural Change

During the current time globalization and the forces of competition are causing many of the worlds industries to change frequently in order to either remain in the game, or to try to gain advantage in some manner. Organizational structures are becoming transient things used as a tool to facilitate change. For example people often are required to do project work for short periods in order to maintain the continuous improvement focus that an organization may wish to achieve.

As a result here are many and regular changes occurring within the fields of maintenance as well. A CMMS system may be implemented, maintenance strategy review undertaken, business processes reviewed or even the regular addition of root cause analysis projects. TPM and lean maintenance programs have also now entered the landscape as part of the changes open to maintenance departments.

All of these forces can cause the organizational culture to shift somewhat. The organisation of the early twenty first century finds itself in the situation where it is always breaking paradigms and accepting new ones only to break them again as their advancement continues.
However much if the continual change within some organizations is due to the lack of success of previous programs. The Program of the Month phenomena. I feel that there is somewhat of a misunderstanding of this issue. Mindsets such as these are often attributed to the fact that management are not fully behind the concept, or a coping mechanism for a workforce that has reached a saturation point in terms of the continual changes that they need to endure.

 

Warning: Vocational Classes Falling Out of Favor

Decline in Technical Education a Serious Threat to U.S. Manufacturing Capabilities

By Robert M. Williamson, president of Strategic Work Systems

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