PCB007 Magazine

PCB-May2017

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82 The PCB Magazine • May 2017 we can say, "Hey, if you want to get this, here are some courses at your local college that will aim you in the right direction." And then com- pleting those would work toward fulfillment of the requirements. Bergman: The fact that we have IPC EDGE available gives us a lot of options, and one of the reasons why we want to spend time on pre- paring a roadmap is because there's an enor- mous amount of education to be done. For ex- ample: One of our member companies has tak- en several of our videos and built a monthly program for workfor ce retraining. This com- pany finds people out of work from other in- dustries, runs them through a crash course and turns them into productive employees who can work in an electronics manufacturing en- vironment. This company has wrapped com- pany-specific needs around training resources from IPC and they've had ver y good success. We're going to be releasing a case study on this within the next couple of weeks. So this raises the question: Could this be done at an indus - try level? We had a keynote talk at APEX last year on the robotic competitions and trying to get ed- ucation in front of young kids, high school kids [1] . IPC EDGE gives us an enormous poten- tial. If you're looking to get more new people into the industry, what better way of getting them while they're excited and engaged in proj- ects including electronics manufacturing. We have the possibility of delivering both educa- tion as well as promoting the importance of our industry as a career path. Workforce retraining is certainly going to be high on our roadmap and is of interest to our current administration in Washington, as well as globally. Kris mentioned the 6012DA automotive and how it was European-initiated. The thing that fascinates me about that particular docu- ment was that, as soon as it was available, an automotive company in China said, "We real- ly need some training around that, because it's important to us and we want to have people trained to the 6012DA." So that drove our in- terest in creating the program. Demand for ed- ucation can come from anywhere, which again stresses the need for a good roadmap. Goldman: Here's another thought; I talked with Doug Pauls and he told me a great deal about the Rockwell-Collins Roadshow, as he calls it, where he and another fellow go out to the high schools in Iowa, where Rockwell-Collins is located, and put on this little roadshow with some demonstrations. Basically, the idea is to generate interest in high school students to consider a manufacturing en- gineering type career. They've been doing it long enough that they're actually seeing results where Rockwell-Collins has hired people that became in- terested in engineering because they saw this road- show in their high school. I thought that was good news. Bergman: That's cool. I believe Rockwell-Collins is very proactive. They have been really engaged in our emerging engineer program as well. Goldman: Yes they are, and he tells me they have made a roadshow available for others to pick up and use around the country. That would really get the word out, shall we say. IPC does training—you do this, you do that, but you can't be everywhere. How about every company picking a high school and going to it and talking about engineering and our industry? We could talk all day about this kind of stuff. Bergman: Yeah, we were talking about this yes- terday and John Mitchell mentioned, "We're 120 people globally supporting a $2 trillion in- dustry." So, you need to be creative to get ev- erywhere. Goldman: And you know how people often say, "Well, why doesn't IPC do that for us?" IPC can provide tools and that kind of thing, which is what IPC and IPC volunteers do really well, but you don't go out and teach the person. Somebody's got to want to do that and they've got to learn it them- selves, too. Roberson: Yes, we're happy to come onsite and assist in some of these things. Goldman: Are there any other areas where you see possibilities or that you've been concerned about, or that people have told you they're concerned about? INDUSTRY KNOWLEDGE—PREPARING THE NEXT GENERATION

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