Since retiring from my FT Position as Senior Professor of Advanced Manufacturing Technology at HVCC, I have embarked on putting my time and effort into helping regional manufacturers upgrade their workforce and operations.
The shortage of skilled workers is beyond critical at this point-in-time. By 2030 there will be a four-million skilled worker job shortfall in all manufacturing jobs and at least a one-million skilled worker shortfall in the metal and plastics fabrication industry. This will be a 50% increase from just this year. I’ve attached a short video from CNBC for your reference.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Prp3jAWBX7A
A solid manufacturing company percentage wise, has anywhere from 10-15% of high-skilled workers on their payroll. These are the workers who generate CNC programs via CAD/CAM and set-up your CNC and QC Equipment by performing all aspects required to run your facility. The machines cited above are usually vertical machining centers, horizontal machining centers, turning centers, EDM’s and CMM’s and other, automated machines. The other 80-85% are semi-skilled workers, who possess the basic math, print reading and metrology to perform their jobs efficiently. These jobs are usually your production and assembly operations and some other support services.
If you have a company where you are continually stymied by the lack of skilled workers in order to fill orders in a timely and quality manner, this is what David P Larkin & Associates can do for you:
1) First, DPLA can come in and do an overview of your factory floor operations and ascertain the skill level of your workforce. This normally takes ten-hours (including travel time) to do screening tests for your workforce, and another ten-hours (including travel time) to do an on-the-floor review of your operation. DPLA will share the test results your workforce generated from the screening tests (Shop Math, Print Reading and Metrology) with your company’s management, along with a white paper of our findings on your shop floor with recommendations.
2) In most cases with the acute skilled labor shortages today manufacturers are experiencing today, the findings usually fall along the lines of less than 30% of the typical semi-skilled workforce possessing the necessary shop math, print reading and metrology skills to perform their jobs in an effective manner. What this means is that a company is losing money each day this problem continues.
3) The usual path forward is for DPLA to initially train the semi-skilled workforce on the work-site so that they can master Shop Math (24-hours per employee), Print Reading (24-hours per employee) and Metrology (16-hours per employee). So as not to remove all workers from the shop floor at any one-time, most companies usually have AM and PM sessions.
4) After completing the basic courses and depending on the company, DPLA offers basic CNC Training (16-hours per employee) , GD&T Training (16-hours per employee), CMM Training (TBD), EDM (Wire and Sinker) Training.(TBD).
5) DPLA also offers Advanced CNC Training where DPLA will take a long running or even new job and optimize the program, set-up, tooling and see it through FPI. DPLA can also video the whole process so at any future point the company can use the video to train new operators.
6) DPLA can also set-up an employee skill matrix and annual review system that every company should have in place in order to be successful.
If what I have described above appears to describe your company, please give me a call or drop me an email and we can begin the process of making your company more profitable in the future.