From the Web: Research in 3-D; how manufacturing can gain momentum in 2015; training success stories

If the amount of money being invested in 3-D printing research is any indication of the expectations for this technology’s future role in fabricating, it appears that it will be significant. Sweden’s Sandvik AB, a maker of cutting tools, has joined companies like Germany’s Siemens AG in exploring 3-D printing possibilities. The company is boosting its research spending on the technology to expand its capabilities in a market set to grow to $21 billion in a decade.

Sandvik is hiring staff for a new 3-D printing research and development center in Sandviken, Sweden, Mikael Schuisky, operations manager for additive manufacturing, said in an interview. The team will unify 3-D initiatives across the business and examine how the technology can be used in its production of everything from mining drill rigs to fuel tubes for nuclear power plants.

“We’re taking this to another level,” Schuisky said. “We’re making a focused strategic push to research this for the benefit of the entire group.”

Schuisky also said, “What is attractive about 3-D printing is the new way of thinking. We are used to thinking that objects are processed out of a material. We need to start thinking about starting from a blank canvas.”

What will it take for U.S. manufacturing to gain momentum in 2015? A recent article on strategicsourceror.com discussed this topic, noting that “depending on who you speak to, the United States manufacturing sector is either undergoing a second renaissance or doesn’t exist at all.

”The truth of the matter is that the current state of the U.S. production economy exists somewhere in the middle of the two. While it isn't necessarily decrepit, procurement officers across the globe aren't advising their superiors to partner up with U.S. manufacturing firms.”

Why not? According to the article, supply chain concerns have purchasing management officers skeptical, particularly regarding mineral and metal supplies.

Although the U.S. reportedly has $6.2 trillion worth of mineral and metal reserves, foreign companies still provide it with more than 50 percent of the materials its manufacturers require, largely due to resistance to bolster the U.S. mining sector. To mitigate this resistance, “miners will have to present lawmakers with new mineral and metal extraction methods that are significantly less harmful than practices that have been available for some time."

The state of Kentucky has announced that it is expanding a program that enables students to earn college credit while working at manufacturing facilities. The expansion includes some of the state’s largest employers, including GE Appliances and Ford Motor Company in Louisville.

Students go to class two days a week while getting paid to work at a manufacturing plant three days a week for five semesters, or about two years. At the end, the company has no obligation to hire the student, and the student has no obligation to keep working there. But most of the students get hired full-time by their sponsoring companies.

"It was like pulling teeth to go to local high schools to talk about manufacturing, said Wil James, president of Toyota Manufacturing of Kentucky and chairman of the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce. "Some of the students were like, 'Nah, I don't want to work in a dirty, dingy environment,' which is not the case."

James said the program, called the Kentucky Federation for Advance Manufacturing Education, can change that perception by exposing students to modern manufacturing facilities that rely on robots and the latest electronics, and need skilled workers to control them.

It can also address the state's shortage of skilled workers. Middle-skilled jobs, which require education beyond high school but short of a four-year college degree, make up 58 percent of the state's labor market. But just 48 percent of Kentucky workers have the training necessary to do those jobs, according to the National Skills Coalition.

Graduates from a 288-hour fabricated metal product-training program at Middlesex County College in New Jersey also are reaping the benefits of a market looking for skilled workers. Over the three years of this statewide program funded by the New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development, 90 percent of the graduates have found jobs.

The program teaches students machine shop safety; print reading; measurement and inspection techniques; lathe, milling, grinding, sawing and drilling operations; introduction to welding; tool geometry and sharpening; and computer numerical control operations.

They also receive individual attention in employment skills such as resume writing, interviewing techniques and workplace communication.

Middle school students at Washington Junior High in Manitowoc, Wis., also are gaining experience in working with metal, albeit in a different manner than fabricating. The students in Jeff Koh’s metals technology class are learning how to pour molten metal and create molds as an introduction to careers in the metal-casting industry.

The goal of the program, called Foundry in a Box, is to educate students on the metal casting industry and instill an interest in metal casting careers.

"A lot of people are not familiar with metal casting. This region has a lot of metal casting jobs. We are looking for employees," Weiss said. "We want to make people aware of what the possibilities are in metal casting and familiarize people with manufacturing."