Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1454922
REAL TIME WITH... IPC APEX EXPO 2022 SHOW & TELL MAGAZINE I I-CONNECT007 133 different industry, or is coming straight out of college. Matties: In John Mitchell's keynote, he talked a lot about the skills gap and how the IPC is helping to fast-track people from zero to oper- ator level. Lynn: at's a training curriculum called Elec- tronics Assembly for Operators. ere are about nine modules that take a student or new employee from zero knowledge about the electronics industry up to understanding safety ESD, and understanding the industry as a whole. One of the modules explains to them where they live in the industry, what role that they're playing, and how their actions can affect the product down the line, whether that's ESD safety, how to identify components, how to look at a bill of materials, or how to start to build things. Matties: is is a program that an organization would bring in and then share with its poten- tial or new employees? Lynn: Absolutely. It's made for industry by industry. We partner with the industry, find- ing those subject matter experts; we've got trainers all over the world, with some of the biggest companies. ose folks come to us and say, "Hey, we've got this issue," and we've got a bunch of people who are really good at building learning materials. eir focus isn't so much on the technical side, but the learning side. How do you teach people this? We've done a good job of creating mod- ules of learning and instruction that take a new hire from zero knowledge about the indus- try, so they end up being one of your more productive people; we get them on the floor faster. You're saving money when it comes to time off the line, but you're also getting a qual- ity employee and that's going to lead to better quality products. Matties: You're really focused on best practice and approach anyway? Lynn: Absolutely. Matties: What's the success rate? How do you measure your success? Lynn: Well, that is a great question, because you're always looking for ROI on your train- ing. What we saw with some of the people that piloted and some of the very early adopters of our program is we had one group that was able to cut about a day and a half out of training. at's getting people on the line faster, keep- ing them off the line for less time. Time really is the easiest one to measure. But do you also look at your line as far as seeing a reduction in rework? Do you see better quality product coming through? What are your inspectors seeing? at's a hard thing to document, but over time you should see better results. Matties: Now, your program is really founda- tional, and the expectation is that the company will then augment that with their own pro- grams, or do you have a continuation program to take them to the next level? Lynn: at's a good point, because these are programs and learning tools that a trainer at a company uses in their arsenal of teaching tools. It's flexible enough that if your operator needs an understanding of wiring cable assem- blies, there's an additional module that covers that. e trainer can customize the learning specifically to the jobs that their employees are doing. When they can do that, it helps them integrate that tool within their whole toolbox. ere are additional things as well. If you want to learn how to navigate A-610 and your operators need a little bit more under- standing of A-610 and how to navigate that document, the vocabulary of that document, there's an additional class for that; also for the