In his State of Union address, President Obama placed American manufacturing at the center of a \u201cblueprint\u201d for bringing back jobs and strengthening our economy.\u00a0 After years of being one of the \u201cvoices in the wilderness\u201d urging our elected leaders to \u201csave American manufacturing,\u201d it was gratifying to hear manufacturing being given such prominence.<\/p>\n
I am concerned, though, that his idea of \u201cone program, one website, and one place to go for all the information and help\u201d American workers need for training or retraining for jobs would result in more government control and more deficit funding, adding to the burden of debt for American taxpayers.\u00a0 We don\u2019t need to wait for government to come up with a new program and spend taxpayer dollars developing new curricula for training for manufacturing jobs.\u00a0\u00a0 We don\u2019t need to wash years of work and collaborations between industry, trade and professional organizations, colleges, and universities down the drain.\u00a0 A great deal has already been done and is being done to train and retrain today\u2019s workers and prepare the next generation of manufacturing workers.<\/p>\n
When considering training, we need to understand the difference between certification versus a certificate. \u00a0Certificate programs<\/em><\/strong> are training based on proprietary criteria\/curriculum and sometimes include an exam without any recertification requirements. Numerous training companies, educational institutions, and individual training consultants compete to sell training courses that purportedly include \u201ccertification.\u201d\u00a0 In many cases, these are not based on a standard body of knowledge as developed by objective third-party entities, but rather paper certificates awarded for specific training.\u00a0 Certificate programs are useful to prepare workers for entry-level positions in many industries.<\/p>\n Certifications <\/em><\/strong>are based upon profession and competency.\u00a0 Certifications are independent, third-party assessments of knowledge, skills, and experience based upon a known publicly available standard overseen by industry.\u00a0 The exam includes legally defensible content and can be referenced back to widely available industry accepted references.\u00a0 Recertification is a key component and ensures individuals show evidence of continued learning. \u00a0Professional certification is a designation earned by a person to assure they meet the minimum knowledge requirements of the profession and is transferable from state to state and company to company.<\/p>\n For example, the National Institute for Metalworking Skills<\/a> (NIMS) was formed in 1995 by the\u00a0metalworking trade associations to develop and maintain a globally competitive American workforce. \u00a0NIMS sets skills standards for the industry, certifies individual skills against the standards, and accredits training programs that meet NIMS quality requirements.\u00a0\u00a0 NIMS operates under rigorous and highly disciplined processes as the only developer of American National Standards for the nation\u2019s metalworking industry accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI).<\/p>\n NIMS has a stakeholder base of over 6,000 metalworking companies.\u00a0The major trade associations in the industry- the Association for Manufacturing Technology<\/a>, the American Machine Tool Distributors’ Association<\/a>, the National Tooling & Machining Association<\/a>,\u00a0the Precision Machine Products Association<\/a>, the Precision Metalforming Association<\/a>, and the Tooling and Manufacturing Association<\/a> have invested over $7.5 million in private funds for the development of the NIMS standards and its credentials. \u00a0The associations also contribute annually to sustain NIMS operations and are committed to the upgrading and maintenance of the standards.<\/p>\n NIMS has developed skills standards in 24 operational areas covering the breadth of metalworking operations including metalforming (Stamping, Press Brake, Roll Forming, Laser Cutting) and machining ( Machining, Tool and Die Making, Mold Making, Screw Machining, Machine Building and Machine Maintenance, Service and Repair).\u00a0The Standards range from entry (Level I) to a master level (Level III).\u00a0 All NIMS standards are industry-written and industry-validated, and are subject to regular, periodic reviews under the procedures accredited and audited by ANSI.<\/p>\n NIMS certifies individual skills against the national standards.\u00a0 The NIMS credentialing program requires that the candidate meet both performance and theory requirements. \u00a0Both the performance and knowledge examinations are industry-designed and industry-piloted. There are 52 distinct NIMS skill certifications.\u00a0 Industry uses the credentials to recruit, hire, place and promote individual workers.\u00a0 Training programs use the credentials as performance measures of attainment, often incorporating the credentials as completion requirements and as the basis for articulation among training programs.<\/p>\n NIMS accredits training programs that meet its quality requirements. \u00a0The NIMS accreditation requirements include an on-site audit and evaluation by a NIMS industry team that reviews and conducts on-site inspections of all aspects of the training programs, including administrative support, curriculum, plant, equipment and tooling, student and trainee progress, industry involvement, instructor qualifications and safety. \u00a0\u00a0Officials governing NIMS accredited programs report annually on progress and are subject to re-accreditation on a five year cycle. Developed in partnership with the United States Department of Labor, the new system is the result of two years of work.\u00a0 Over 300 companies participated in the deliberations and design. \u00a0\u00a0The new National Guideline Standards for NIMS Competency-based Apprenticeship have been approved by the Department of Labor.\u00a0 NIMS has trained Department of Labor apprenticeship staff at the national and state level in the new system.<\/p>\n Another professional organization that provides certification is the Society of Manufacturing Engineers<\/a> (SME), the world\u2019s leading professional society advancing manufacturing knowledge and influencing more than half a million manufacturing practitioners annually. \u00a0Through its local chapters, technical communities, publications, expositions, and professional development resources, SME promotes an increased awareness of manufacturing engineering and keeps manufacturing professionals up to date on leading trends and technologies.\u00a0 SME provides the following professional certifications:\u00a0 Manufacturing Technologist, Manufacturing Engineering, Engineering Manager, Lean Certification (Bronze, Silver, and Gold), and Six Sigma.<\/p>\n SME\u2019s Certified Manufacturing Technologist program is utilized as an outcome assessment by numerous colleges and universities with Manufacturing, Manufacturing Engineering or Engineering Technology programs. \u00a0Students who successfully earn the certification demonstrate broad knowledge and its application as related to the fundamentals of manufacturing, which sets them apart from other potential job candidates.In addition, the SME Education Foundation has the mission to prepare the next generation of manufacturing engineers and technologists through outreach programs to encourage students to study Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) as well as Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM) education.\u00a0 Over its 30-year history, SME has invested $17.3 million in grants to 35 colleges and universities to develop industry-driven curricula.<\/p>\n In 2010, the Society of Manufacturing acquired Tooling University LLC (Tooling U<\/a>) based in Cleveland, Ohio to provide online, onsite, and webinar training for manufacturing companies and educational institutions. With more than 400 unique titles, Tooling U offers a full range of content to train machine operators, welders, assemblers, inspectors, and maintenance professionals. \u00a0These classes are delivered through a custom learning management system (LMS), which provides extensive tracking and reporting capabilities. The competencies tie the online curriculum to matching hands-on tasks that put the theory to practice.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In his State of Union address, President Obama placed American manufacturing at the center of a \u201cblueprint\u201d for bringing back jobs and strengthening our economy.\u00a0 After years of being one of the \u201cvoices in the wilderness\u201d urging our elected leaders to \u201csave American manufacturing,\u201d it was gratifying to hear manufacturing being given such prominence. I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,37],"tags":[40,41,39,38],"class_list":["post-287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-training","tag-certificate-programs","tag-certifications","tag-retraining","tag-training-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/savingusmanufacturing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/savingusmanufacturing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/savingusmanufacturing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/savingusmanufacturing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/savingusmanufacturing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=287"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/savingusmanufacturing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":289,"href":"https:\/\/savingusmanufacturing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287\/revisions\/289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/savingusmanufacturing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/savingusmanufacturing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/savingusmanufacturing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nNIMS has launched a new Competency-based Apprenticeship System for the nation\u2019s metalworking industry. \u00a0The NIMS system represents a dramatic departure from the time based system and integrates the NIMS national standards and skill certifications in defining and measuring required competencies.<\/p>\n\n\n
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