Laid-off Workers in Manchester, Waterbury Areas Retrained to Fill High-Demand Manufacturing Jobs
CBIA writer/editor
Photo by Nancy Castonguay
CBIA has partnered with Manchester Community College (MCC) to add lean manufacturing courses to the college's Precision Manufacturing Institute. The courses, which include online simulation training, help laid-off workers acquire skills in demand in today’s manufacturing workplace. Of the five students who completed the program this past fall, four have secured manufacturing jobs, and one is continuing his education. A second cohort is currently participating in the program, with 12 students expected to graduate this month.
"Ensuring that employees know how to operate increasingly complex machinery and manage computer-controlled processes is creating new challenges for manufacturers," says Judith K. Resnick, executive director of CBIA’s Education Foundation and director of workforce development and training. Even in today's economy, she says, manufacturers are having difficulty finding employees with the experience required for certain jobs.
“This program gives prospective employees the expertise that companies need in order to compete in a global marketplace,” says Nancy Castonguay, advanced manufacturing grant manager for CBIA. “It also helps get people back to work by making them more marketable.”
CBIA member companies Advanced Mold & Manufacturing (Manchester), Forrest Machine Products (Rocky Hill), and Turbocare (East Hartford) have all hired students who completed the training.
Multimodal education The 28-week program includes hands-on machining and Oxygen Education’s web-delivered training in advanced manufacturing to supplement the classroom curriculum.
Oxygen Education’s interactive software produces highly detailed, faithful representations of actual machines found on the shop floor, enabling students to set up, operate, and maintain all the major types and brands of CNC equipment from any computer with Internet access. Through online simulation training, users get familiar with complex assemblies and control panels at their own pace, exploring and test-driving the equipment and its various functions. Students must attain a certain score on each test, usually between 85 and 100, before progressing to the next level.
Licenses to use Oxygen Education software were provided by a grant program funded by the U.S. Department of Labor High Growth Job Training Initiative, a competitive grant awarded to CBIA in 2006. |
"We're proud of the achievements of our students," says Janet Alampi, MCC’s director of business and industry services. "It takes incredible patience and skill to learn precision machining.” To encourage student success, she says, MCC has invested in state-of-the art facilities and continually updates its curriculum to better meet the needs of local manufacturers.
“We're grateful for the support of CBIA in helping us achieve this goal," she adds.
Twenty-three complete training at MASC
In the Waterbury area, 23 laid-off workers completed one of two 13-week training sessions focused on shop essentials, math, blueprint reading, CNC precision machining, and lean manufacturing. Nearly all have secured high-demand jobs in manufacturing. Sessions were held in the summer and fall at the Manufacturing Alliance Service Corp. (MASC) Technical Training Center, which replicates a contemporary manufacturing floor.
“At a time when manufacturing has been experiencing a national decline,” says MASC director Frank Johnson, “the precision metal manufacturing sector has been adding jobs in the Naugatuck Valley region, attesting to its continuing strength and importance. If area manufacturers are going to sustain productivity, they will need skilled workers.”
The Waterbury program was funded by a U.S. Department of Labor High Growth Job Training Initiative grant as well as Workforce Investment Act training dollars provided by the Northwest Workforce Investment Board.
Quinebaug Valley Community College is the community college system’s managing partner for the U.S. DOL grant program, helping facilitate program implementation (including instruction, accounting, tracking outcomes, and directing distribution of scholarships) across all of Connecticut’s community colleges.
