There has been a lot of published opinions on quality training for production workers in manufacturing plants. Although this is good, much of the training is more general philosophy than the needed technical knowledge to accomplish true quality improvement.

A two-year Associate Degree in a manufacturing related field is now the ideal. For example, Richland College, a two year community college in Dallas, Texas; offers training programs in Computer Aided Design and Manufacturing (CAD/CAM) with Computer Numeric Control (CNC) machining.

Some of the courses include:
AutoCAD 2000 Mechanical design Pro/Engineer Solid Modeling
Intermediate Machining Techniques
CAD/CAM Interfacing with SmartCAM CNC software
Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing
Robotics
Hydraulics and Pneumatics
Electronics for Automated Systems

Manufacturing companies can propel themselves into world-class quality manufacturing leadership by working with the local two-year Community Colleges.

When Congress passed the $125 million Tech Prep bill in the nineties, it said that the people who make things happen are not the engineers, but the technicians on the factory floor.

Fortune magazine (1994) said that as companies use technology to eliminate quality defects and improve customer service, technicians are the front-line workers who turn black box technology into productivity gains.

Manufacturing plants and the local community colleges And technical institutes can forge the partnerships that are so vital to our industrial renaissance.

Glen W. Spielbauer