Keeping up with education, keeping up with manufacturing

After high school graduation and a few years at a technical school, or maybe four years at a university, you’re done, right? Racking up 14 to 16 years in classrooms, full-time, should be more than enough for a career, shouldn’t it? How much education does the modern world really need from you?

Sometimes, it needs just a bit more. Whether it’s a matter of getting a license, completing a certification, or attending a seminar for professional development, education isn’t a one (diploma)-and-done sort of thing. These days, two usually isn’t enough. Times change, technologies change, and workplaces change. How can a machine operator, welder, mill operator, supervisor, or an executive keep up? It’s surprisingly easy. The Fabricators & Manufacturers Association, International^® (FMA) provides educational programs for fabricators that deal with sheet metal, plate, and roll-formed profiles. Its technology affiliate, the Tube & Pipe Association, International^® (TPA), has a similar mission for manufacturers that make tube and pipe and fabricators that turn straight lengths of tube and pipe into components or subassemblies.

The TPA’s conferences have run the gamut, including specific events aimed at tube and pipe producers; tube and pipe fabricators; and companies involved in extrusion, drawing, and tube reducing (EDTR). Likewise, FMA’s conferences have covered myriad topics, including roll forming. Late this spring, the two organizations are hosting two conferences side by side: Pipe & Tube Memphis 2019 will be accompanied by one of FMA’s best-attended and insightful events, its World-class Roll Forming Workshop.

Topics? Oh, we have good, timely topics. Following the suggestions of the members of our Tube & Pipe Technology Council — people involved in the industry — TPA’s education staff has put together a dynamite list of presentations on topics that are relevant to what’s happening on the shop floor, right now, today, as has FMA's Roll Forming Technology Council. The presentations will cover:

• Weld mill power supply technology and roll forming production and control technologies
• Evaluating steel properties for making pipe, tube, and profile.
• The many overlapping aspects of mill processes: The interactions and outcomes of tooling design, mill design, tooling setup, forming strategies, welding processes, inline punching and notching, material handling, and troubleshooting.
• The roles of lubricants and coolants in forming and fabricating pipe, tube, and profile.
• Several management topics including sales, revenue, and financial strategies; implementing Industry 4.0; and improving safety.
• How to maximize efficiency for a handful of processes: cutting pipe, making saddles, welding, galvanizing, and sourcing hydrogen for annealing.
• An economic overview and some forecast tidbits from Chris Kuehl, co-founder and managing director of Armada Corporate Intelligence and economic analyst for FMA, and insights about the state of the tube and pipe industry provided by Paul Vivian and Rick Preckel, the duo who make up the driving force behind the Preston Pipe & Tube Report.

Finally, a little insight to the potential gains to be earned from education, a quote from an 18th-century publisher, inventor, statesman, and philosopher, Poor Richard: “An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.”

See you in Memphis!