New NIMS credential validates worker, student inspection skills in metalworking

The National Institute for Metalworking Skills (NIMS), Fairfax, Va., has launched a new credential to validate an instructor’s or evaluator’s parts inspection skills.

According to Montez King, executive director of NIMS, “Validating skills has become ever more important to employers and of course a necessity for educational institutions offering certificate-type training programs in manufacturing technology.”

Designed for manufacturers and schools, the new NIMS Inspector Credential allows a fast, efficient performance validation process within the NIMS online structural framework. Previously shops and schools had to send test parts to be inspected and evaluated by a NIMS-sanctioned review committee of industry volunteers, which guaranteed quality control but could take up to four weeks or longer and often created a backlog of uninspected parts. Now the validation can be done on-site by instructors themselves, and credentials can be issued much more quickly.