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Building a knowledge worker for the digital manufacturing age

Passing down tribal knowledge in an informal manner is no way to train the modern manufacturing workforce

Manufacturing needs knowledge workers.

Manufacturing workers need to advance their own skills and keep pace with the development of new metal forming and fabricating technology. gilaxia/Getty Images

Success in the business of forming sheet metal components demands that companies develop a smart education plan. Change and more complexities in materials and technologies compel component suppliers to use best case processes, understand material sciences, and remain aware of emerging forming and information technologies. Effective planning allows companies to address their greatest needs and engage their employees to improve operations and business results.

Once, forming sheet metal components was a skill defined by experiences passed down through generations. The science was there. With only a few types of sheet metal available, though, much of the most important knowledge could be retained in the experiences of skilled tradespeople.

Today’s dynamic forming environment requires that forming organizations better understand the science and the landscape of constantly changing demands. Aluminum is more ubiquitous. The range of steel’s strength and ductility is many times broader than it was only 25 years ago. Learning is much more essential and its requirements very different from the rules of thumb that served us so well in the past.

Sheet metal forming includes three primary components:

  1. Materials include the coils, or blanks, you receive that are converted into your final product.
  2. Technologies include assets used to form components and information technologies to monitor and operate your plant floor.
  3. Processes include the actions your employees and technologies employ to convert materials into formed components. They also include activities to prevent equipment failure.

The learning opportunities for these components are:

  • Occupational skills training, which includes learning the skills and knowledge to perform assigned activities proficiently and safely.
  • Continuing education, which includes training to update and reinforce existing skills.
  • Monitoring, which includes learning from collected experiences during production.

Occupational Skills Training

Materials. The growth in available materials and their wide range of mechanical properties drives changes in technologies and amplifies the need to learn. Sheet materials will have variable properties throughout a grade and across a single coil. Hot-rolled coils will probably have greater variability in dimensions and surface properties than cold-rolled coils. Many factors in milling, blanking, treating, and storage might influence your material’s mechanical properties and friction during the forming operation.

Your staff must understand the fundamentals of mechanical properties as they relate to your forming operation. They also should understand the impact of surface properties, material ductility, and strength on forming and lubrication.

Technology. Information technology continues to advance at accelerating speed. Simulation software is common in designing forming processes. Used properly, virtual simulation can reduce the number of expensive die tryout cycles. Equipment monitoring devices can warn you of situations that might require maintenance or adjustment. Emerging Internet of Things (IoT) projects can help employees quickly identify potential issues and respond before they impact reliability.

Forming technology also continues to advance. Stronger metals and complex geometries lead to new tooling, press technologies, procedures, and techniques in hot and cold forming, flex-forming, and incremental forming.

New technologies offer metal forming organizations the ability to better meet component specifications. This all can lead to lighter, stronger products. Your employees should be made aware of new technologies as they gain acceptance. If you move into a new market, staff should receive intensive learning in employing these new technologies both to improve product quality and to support efficient operations. No technology will be worth your investment if it’s not properly deployed and utilized.

Processes. Many processes are used to form a blank into a formed component. Forming itself includes processes to deform and join the workpiece into a component. Reliability and maintenance efforts rely on processes to prevent stoppages and support equipment efficiency. There also are processes to monitor and ensure quality control, safety, and effective work habits.

Your employees should be trained in their roles executing and maintaining the processes they support. Also, every employee must be trained in safety processes and protocols, effective work habits, and their roles monitoring equipment for reliability issues.

Continuing Education. Things change. We are continuously re-evaluating testing procedures and developing new material grades. New materials respond differently to forming, which affects springback, edge quality, splitting, wrinkling, welding, and joining procedures. If your people are at least aware of these changes, they can learn about them early in your production life cycle and respond before your forming operation becomes a source of frustration.

Production Monitoring. Your own production flow offers many opportunities to learn. Those opportunities present themselves from the moment you unload your material until the final formed component. For example, mill certifications offer valuable feedback about the consistency of material properties being delivered to the facility and the potential root causes of defective parts. In another example, equipment monitors can provide insight into maintenance and repair issues and perhaps employee training deficiencies.

IoT and artificial intelligence promise to help management and staff to evaluate causes and effects of success and failure using computational methods. However, computational methods are valuable only in the context of deep employee knowledge of the equipment, processes, and materials they use.

The Need for the Smart Worker

In today’s dynamic manufacturing environment, passing down experience and rules of thumb isn’t enough to support efficient production. Your employees must understand the dynamics they manage daily and the consequences of their actions and decisions.

This can’t be accomplished casually. Metal fabricating and forming organizations must develop plans for occupational skills training, continuing education, and production monitoring if they are to continue to develop quality components and support new markets.

About the Author
4M Partners LLC

Bill Frahm

President

P.O. Box 71191

Rochester Hills, MI 48307

248-506-5873