Machining Students Snapped Up

With thousands of CNC machine operator, CNC machine programmer and machinist jobs expected to become available in New England, by 2012, the six New England divisions of the Manufacturing Extension Partnership have launched a regional program designed to equip workers with the skills necessary to fill these positions.
The program is working with approximately 30 New England advanced machine shops to assist them with the current skills shortage. Due to the limited number of people entering training programs, those advanced manufacturers continue to have difficulty finding workers with the necessary skills and knowledge.
The program – called the Machine Operator Skills Training Program (M.O.S.T) – is charged with training 300 new CNC operators in 18 months.
Funded by a Department of Labor grant , the Manufacturing Extension Partnership program is using a Mobil Training Unit to bring state of the art technology to the advance machine shops including some in rural areas.
The workers are put through an intensive 80-hour basic operator skills training curriculum that includes hands on experience using a CNC Mill and CNC lathe.
The 80 hour basic operator skills training process is followed by a structured eight week program of on-the-job training so that at its end, operator trainees will be capable, basically trained CNC machine operators and ready to begin work.
It was announced at the Eastec trade show that eight students who recently completed the course immediately got jobs with the shops that sponsored them.
For more information call Ted Bauer at [email protected] or call (508) 831-7020