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Not Just a CNC Degree

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A relationship with a local employer allowed Rock Valley College to create a 21st-century model for manufacturing instruction. That was good, because for this school’s manufacturing program, the 20th century did not end well.

Article From: 7/22/2013 Modern Machine Shop, Peter Zelinski, Senior Editor

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Something happened around the year 2000. Manufacturing education has not been the same since.

You might recall that this was the period when it became apparent that a significant amount of manufacturing work was being sent overseas. Offshoring had been happening for years, and it’s still happening today, but around 2000 is when the public became widely aware of the phenomenon, partly because offshoring activity was so high. The pullback that we would call “reshoring” was still in the future. Back then, the shift of manufacturing to low-wage countries seemed relentless.

Thomas Clark was doing the work then that he still does today. The associate professor of engineering and technology teaches manufacturing students at Rock Valley College (RVC) in Rockford, Illinois. Around the century’s end, he says, two serious developments affecting manufacturing education—both related to the development above—became apparent as well. One was a steep decline in enrollment from employees of local companies. Traditionally, manufacturing businesses had supported manufacturing-focused community college programs such as his by paying tuition for employees who enrolled as part-time students. Around 2000, the practice all but stopped. The assumption seemed to be that domestic manufacturing would be staffing down rather than staffing up.

The other change he saw was that parents became generally unwilling to see their children pursue manufacturing careers. One could hardly blame them. Manufacturers themselves seemed to be retreating from domestic manufacturing, and in the industrial city of Rockford, many of those parents no doubt had been laid off from manufacturing positions.

By 2005, Rock Valley College’s manufacturing engineering technology program was in danger of being eliminated.

But something else had also been happening. Manufacturers had eliminated their own internal training programs as well. Thus, essentially no one was adding new talent to the manufacturing labor pool. Employees let go from manufacturing moved into other fields. When manufacturing activity rebounded, plants in Rockford found themselves with too few prospective employees to hire.

That’s when one local company decided to dramatically change course. Woodward, a maker of aerospace and energy-industry components with a production plant in nearby Loves Park, came to RVC hoping to quickly ramp up a program that would ensure an ongoing pipeline of promising employee candidates. The company would pay tuition for program participants, who would work part-time at Woodward while carrying a full-time course load at RVC. Named for the college’s mascot, this program became “Golden Eagles Manufacturing,” or GEM. Recently the program was renamed “Launch.” Woodward has continued to support this program since its start in 2007, and other local manufacturers have also joined as sponsors of their own GEM or Launch students. Now, roughly half of RVC students seeking two-year degrees in manufacturing engineering technology or electrical engineering technology are funded by a Launch employer.

Mr. Clark says this development did more than rejuvenate manufacturing instruction at RVC; it led to its re-creation. For example, the very hours of activity changed. The manufacturers’ shift from subsidizing part-time students to subsidizing full-time ones produced dramatically more daytime students, where the majority of manufacturing classes used to be at night. However, the most significant change has been in the content of RVC’s instruction. This has been adapted to better prepare students for what a manufacturing career in the 21st century is likely to demand.

Facilities on Film

The college’s modern, well-equipped manufacturing facilities are worth seeing. In fact, you can see them—the college figures into a video recently produced to inform young people about studying manufacturing. As the film shows, RVC’s resources for manufacturing instruction include modern CAD classrooms, a machining lab with the CNC capacity of a thriving job shop, and a robot lab where students practice with three robots to achieve certification from FANUC Robotics.

The objective is something more than a CNC machining degree, Mr. Clark says. This is true for both Launch students and conventional students. He and the other educators who design the two-year-degree curriculum are continually challenged to include an expanding list of subjects that employers cite as important. In addition to CNC machining and robot programming, manufacturing students receive instruction in PLC programming, circuits and electronics (the manufacturing and electrical programs share several classes in common), and non-technical subject areas such as lean manufacturing, communication and working effectively on teams.

Focusing too extensively on just the technical skills that seem to be needed right now in the job market would be counterproductive, Mr. Clark says. Doing this would be a disservice to both students and employers, even though some employers press for this. The mix of manufacturing technologies will continue to change, he says, and companies will continue to adapt in the face of volatility. An employee wedded too tightly to today’s manufacturing processes is likely to be a candidate for layoff during the next major change. RVC’s goal instead is to produce manufacturing problem-solvers and lifelong learners—employees who have the technical foundation to shift into new roles at the same rate that manufacturing companies themselves are shifting and changing.

Employer Benefits

For the manufacturing companies that participate, the Launch program is a great bargain, Mr. Clark says. Arguably, it is a far better bargain than what the companies previously received by giving full-time employees the option of attending college at night.

In the Launch model, the student’s paid studies and part-time job are mutually connected. This pressures the student to perform acceptably at each or risk losing both. (A student earning below a C in any course is financially responsible for that course.) Meanwhile, the part-time workers’ wages are low for the quality of work these employees can provide. And at the end of the two-year commitment, while the sponsor company has the inside track to hiring the student, there is no formal or informal expectation of a job. For the price of two-year tuition, therefore, the Launch employer has the chance to vet a prospective employee through a long trial period, and also groom and condition this person to be ready to perform effectively on the first day of work after college, if he or she is indeed hired.

Understanding manufacturing is no longer a prerequisite for entering the program, Mr. Clark says. In fact, incoming students who imagine they are interested in manufacturing might be imagining something out of date. Students should be interested in both mental work and hands-on work, he says, and certainly they ought to enjoy math. But the Launch program’s promise of paid tuition attracts some students who might never have considered manufacturing before, and that’s by design. Many students grow to love the field as they discover all that it entails.

Work-study is essential to this discovery, he says. Providing work experience in parallel with academic learning is a key reason why the Launch program works, and why it produces employees valuable enough that companies keep returning to sponsor more students. He sees the work experience building not only knowledge, but also character.

Again, the program attracts many students who have never worked in manufacturing, including many who have little basis for understanding what the field will ask of them. Little clues reveal this, he says—casual signs of sloppiness or disrespect that are apparent in new students. But once the student starts working for a company, he says he sees the positive changes. On the job, the student acquires the many disciplines that are natural and necessary to manufacturing, including consistency, precision, attention to detail, commitment to safety, and appreciation for the properties of different materials. What other field can promise to impart all of this? Academic knowledge of manufacturing is one thing, he says, but actually working in manufacturing develops maturity—and that maturity is as valuable to employers as any particular skill.

Video: Student Project at Clinkenbeard

Clinkenbeard is a Rockford, Illinois, contract manufacturer that recently sponsored another type of work-study experience at Rock Valley College: a Capstone project. Students in both manufacturing engineering technology and electrical engineering technology take a “Capstone” class in their final semester. For the chance to work with soon-to-graduate students and obtain free consulting, local manufacturing and engineering businesses submit project needs to this class’s instructors. For the projects that are chosen, four-person student teams work on-site with the local businesses to try to complete the projects successfully. Students report on the experience in presentations at the end of this class.

Clinkenbeard’s project was straightforward, but it related to a significant change in operations the company was (and still is) contemplating. The company’s specialty has always been speed—rapid delivery of cast and/or machined parts to customers facing urgent production needs. The work is typically low-quantity, and typically the day shift attends to this production. However, that leaves machining capacity unused overnight. This situation led Clinkenbeard to wonder: What if the company added a lightly staffed, additional shift to perform more typical production machining at night?

The result would be a shop with a split personality. Clinkenbeard would run jobs engineered around urgency by day, while it ran higher-volume and longer-lead-time production at night. To make this arrangement work, employees would need to be able to switch setups on the machine tools quickly. Ideally, the night shift would remove a day-shift setup, use the machine, then replace that setup before the day shift begins again. Therefore, a system for quick-change fixturing would be key, a system including fixture-locating plates designed to a common standard and customized for the shop’s machining centers. Working with Clinkenbeard staff members to understand their needs, the RVC Capstone devised and designed these plates.

This project is the subject of a new video, the latest in a series of videos (produced in cooperation with the SME Education Foundation and AMT—the Association for Manufacturing Technology) distributed on DVD to high schools and middle schools across the U.S. to portray and highlight careers in manufacturing. The RVC Capstone team’s project at Clinkenbeard showcases what studying manufacturing technology consists of and what that study might look like. Learn more and watch the video here.

<img id="TB_Image" width="500" height="333" alt="CAD software instruction uses teaching areas such as this one. On one of the days we filmed the video at RVC (see below), students in this classroom were taking a final exam on their mastery of Solidworks." src="http://d2n4wb9orp1vta.cloudfront.net/resources/images/cdn/cms/1308mms_notjustacncdegree_1.jpg"></img>
CAD software instruction uses teaching areas such as this one. On one of the days we filmed the video at RVC (see below), students in this classroom were taking a final exam on their mastery of Solidworks.

<img id="TB_Image" width="500" height="333" alt="RVC’s Thomas Clark (farthest right) says teaching only the technical skills immediately needed today is counterproductive. Manufacturing will keep changing rapidly. His program’s goal is to produce manufacturing problem-solvers and lifelong learners." src="http://d2n4wb9orp1vta.cloudfront.net/resources/images/cdn/cms/0813mms_notjustacncdegree_3.jpg"></img>
RVC’s Thomas Clark (farthest right) says teaching only the technical skills immediately needed today is counterproductive. Manufacturing will keep changing rapidly. His program’s goal is to produce manufacturing problem-solvers and lifelong learners.

<img id="TB_Image" width="500" height="406" right.'="" at="" picks="" s="" alt="So-called “soft” skills
are vital. The curriculum is designed to teach students teamwork and effective communication along with the technical instruction. Here, manufacturing engineering technology student Sara McKee describes her team’s Capstone project (see below). Learn more about Ms. McKee’s studies in a video called “Meet a Manufacturing Student.” Find the link under Editor" src="http://d2n4wb9orp1vta.cloudfront.net/resources/images/cdn/cms/0813mms_notjustacncdegree_2.jpg"></img>
So-called “soft” skills are vital. The curriculum is designed to teach students teamwork and effective communication along with the technical instruction. Here, manufacturing engineering technology student Sara McKee describes her team’s Capstone project (see below). Learn more about Ms. McKee’s studies in a video called “Meet a Manufacturing Student.” Find the link under Editor's Picks at right.

<img id="TB_Image" width="395.2" height="494" alt="The college’s machining bay includes seven CNC machine tools. In addition to learning to program machines such as these, students also learn robot programming in a separate lab." src="http://d2n4wb9orp1vta.cloudfront.net/resources/images/cdn/cms/0813mms_notjustacncdegree_4.jpg"></img>
The college’s machining bay includes seven CNC machine tools. In addition to learning to program machines such as these, students also learn robot programming in a separate lab.

<img id="TB_Image" width="500" height="415" alt="Tyler West of the Clinkenbeard Capstone team describes the work his team performed. A fixture-locating system his team developed will be used in production." src="http://d2n4wb9orp1vta.cloudfront.net/resources/images/cdn/cms/0813mms_notjustacncdegree_SIDEBAR_S1.jpg"></img>
Tyler West of the Clinkenbeard Capstone team describes the work his team performed. A fixture-locating system his team developed will be used in production.

<img id="TB_Image" width="500" height="375" alt="Clinkenbeard’s Patrick Sheldon works on a five-axis-machined manifold that is typical of the company’s complex, short-lead-time production." src="http://d2n4wb9orp1vta.cloudfront.net/resources/images/cdn/cms/0813mms_notjustacncdegree_SIDEBAR_S2.jpg"></img>
Clinkenbeard’s Patrick Sheldon works on a five-axis-machined manifold that is typical of the company’s complex, short-lead-time production.

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Article From: 7/22/2013 Modern Machine Shop, Peter Zelinski, Senior Editor

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Thanks, I had not seen this. There are areas that refuse---and I mean refuse to die and these companies highlighted in Rockford are some of them. Clinkenbeard has been on the cutting edge of 5th axis machining from the get go. Woodward will not let go of manufacturing in US and has a strong presence in the Rockford area. I must also make sure people know there are many other unnamed companies that work with this program to make it a sucsess than just the few named.

So, what's the payoff with companies working with each other and a local collage? Woodward decides to build a 2nd plant in the Rockford (Loves Park) area. The 2nd plant will be 400-450,000 sq ft and employe an additional 1500 people by 2020. Site prep is done and footings were pored this week. Target to start something in the new building is Dec. 2014.
 
Good to see

Thanks, I had not seen this. There are areas that refuse---and I mean refuse to die and these companies highlighted in Rockford are some of them. Clinkenbeard has been on the cutting edge of 5th axis machining from the get go. Woodward will not let go of manufacturing in US and has a strong presence in the Rockford area. I must also make sure people know there are many other unnamed companies that work with this program to make it a sucsess than just the few named.

So, what's the payoff with companies working with each other and a local collage? Woodward decides to build a 2nd plant in the Rockford (Loves Park) area. The 2nd plant will be 400-450,000 sq ft and employe an additional 1500 people by 2020. Site prep is done and footings were pored this week. Target to start something in the new building is Dec. 2014.

I have seen over the years here in Texas there was a fine Course offered even way back when they had no CNC's nor cad. Many completed their courses even in the 90's where they had training on CNC Machines. Unfortunately the cutbacks and offshoring took it's toll on many of these young machinist who the company before would actively recruit to fill positions. When everything started outsourcing these people lost their jobs and left the field with a lot of feelings of anger and betrayal which we have all felt . People like my self hung in taking layoffs from time to time and returning back when I could and when demand offered openings. It amazes me countries have still set the example for us not to do this and have strong manufacturing bases because they did not jump on the bandwagon to outsource. Their economies are stronger for it. One country Germany comes to mind. Wish more manufacturing comes back and there are still guys like me who will work and be happy for that work being there to do.
 








 
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