In today’s manufacturing world, you can’t expect the new hire to have followed the same career path as the lead press brake operator or welder with 25 years’ experience. The path isn’t as straight as it used to be.
Consider Jim Baer and Steve Thompson, press brake operators for ATECH-SEH Metal Fabricators in Buffalo, N.Y. They both participated in vocational training in high school, attending school during the day and taking night classes where they learned about sheet metal work. From there, they went to work at SEH Metal Fabricators in the late 1980s and learned on the job just how different metals reacted to being formed in a press brake. Today they try to share their combined knowledge with their co-workers, who don’t have the luxury of learning slowly at the feet of experienced mentors. They need to be productive as soon as possible because no one has an abundance of knowledgeable press brake operators, and parts still need to be processed.
Author: Dan Davis
Source: Fabricator Magazine
