Earnest efforts by
shops like this one help spread Manufacturing Day’s message about the realities
of modern manufacturing and the opportunities associated with a career in the
field.
Blog
Post: 10/19/2017
Senior Editor, Modern Machine Shop
National Taco Day.
National Golf Lover’s Day. National Talk Like a Pirate Day. It seems like
there’s an unofficial holiday for virtually everything, many of which are
downright silly. And yet, naming a specific day to honor a specific area of
interest can have a real impact, particularly when celebrating is about more
than just marking the occasion on a calendar.
Leave it to the
manufacturers to make their day a day of real action. Conceived in 2012 by the
Fabricators and Manufacturers Association, International (FAM) and produced
annually by the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) and the
Manufacturing Institute (MI), Manufacturing Day is scheduled for the first Friday of
every October (this year’s edition was October 6). From the outset, the intent
has been for shops to open their doors to the public in order to lay outdated
misconceptions to rest and expose the true reality of what it’s like to make
things for a living.
Figures from the
official website show that
business owners have gotten the message. However, the best showcase of
Manufacturing Day’s impact and the effort behind it can be found not in
statistics, but in the real-world experiences of the shops and students that
this expanding initiative brings together.
Ground-up Growth
The photos above come
from one of many shops that have helped drive the growth of Manufacturing
Day. M.R. Mold and Engineering, a Brea, California, specialist in liquid
silicone rubber (LSR) injection mold tooling, first participated in 2015 and
considered it a great success, says Geralyn Anderson, marketing director.
Although the shop had to skip 2016 due to scheduling conflicts, leadership was
eager to host students again in 2017. Suffice it to say, this year’s event
exceeded expectations, attracting more than 300 young people from eight area
high schools. “We had 60 students in 2015, and we had hoped for about the same
this year, but people came out of the woodwork,” Ms. Anderson says. “We had to
expand this event to three days to accommodate everyone.”
This success can be
attributed in part to relationships the shop has been cultivating since at
least 2015, when President Rick Finnie visited Brea Olinda High School to give
a presentation. That same year, Ms. Anderson sat on a committee that critiqued
exit interviews for seniors graduating Century High School as part of a Santa
Ana United School District (SAUSD) requirement to research a specific career
path. Contingents from both Brea and SAUSD schools were larger in 2017 than
2015, with 80 technical students hailing from SAUSD’s Segerstrom High alone.
Of course, the
existence of local technical programs like SAUSD’s is a contributing factor in
its own right, but this hasn’t diminished the need for action on the shop’s
part. For instance, Mr. Finnie reportedly attended a recent school district
meeting in Brea to engage officials who are trying to institute their own such
program. There’s also something to be said for putting effort into ensuring
students take as much knowledge and inspiration from their visit as possible.
Beyond just carefully planning each stop of the toolmaking tour, M.R. Mold
brought in personnel from material supplier R.D. Abbott to
provide a complete picture of how a part moves from design to completion. At
the shop’s technical center, where customer molds are sampled, students were
treated to a 7-minute PowerPoint presentation, a close-up look at raw material
(both silicone and plastic), and demonstrations of both pumping units and
injection molding machines in action.
Benefits for Shop and Industry
The 2017 event also
marked the start of something new. M.R. Mold has just begun conversations with
various high schools that attended, including Brea Olinda High, McBride
High School in Long Beach, and Segerstrom High and other SAUSD schools, about a
job-shadowing program to supplement the schools’ individual technical education
efforts. “Our initial thoughts are that no matter what area of our company the
student may be interested in—programming, engineering—we would have them shadow
someone in the shop or molding area to understand the impact that position has
on the rest of the business,” Ms. Anderson says. Work with teachers and other
school officials on this proposal will begin in earnest after the first of the
year, she says.
M.R. Mold’s enthusiasm
for workforce development hasn’t gone unnoticed by peers. For instance, a
$1,000 grant from the American Mold Builders Association (AMBA) helped cover the cost of bussing
students from area high schools. Manufacturing Day also marked the launch of
the AMBA’s Educational Outreach Award, in which three individuals from member
companies, including Mr. Finnie, were honored with the opportunity to award scholarships
to educational programs of their choice.
For his part, Mr.
Finnie has long considered himself an ambassador for the industry. For example,
he’s been known to share his knowledge among processors and competitors alike
in silicone elastomers classes at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Penn
State University and Akron University. He views such activities as particularly
important in a field like LSR tooling, which, as detailed in this article from 2015, must be constructed differently than more
common plastic injection molds. “If we’re going to keep manufacturing in the
U.S., the industry needs to be educated,” he’s quoted as saying in that
article’s conclusion.
Based on the shop’s
Manufacturing Day efforts this year, his passion hasn’t waned. And based on the
growth of Manufacturing Day as a whole, he’s not the only one who thinks this
way. Nor is M.R. Mold the only shop with positive stories to tell about their
own efforts. In an era when fresh talent is as important as it is scarce,
that’s encouraging.
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