Festo, Sinclair Community College and area companies Art Metal Group, Clippard Instruments, MQ Automation and Nestlé worked for the past two years to create a two-year Mechatronics Apprenticeship Program to help employers develop the skills missing in today’s workforce.
The apprenticeship program highlight’s Festo belief in the concept of vocational education, said Yannick Schilly, vice president of operations and COO of Festo Corp.
“In Germany and worldwide, we have more than 400 apprentices in a vocational education program,” Schilly said. “Festo has 18,000 employees worldwide, so we need to fill our pipeline of talents for the future, and we don’t need only engineers or academic levels of qualification, we need also the person with the hands-on mechatronic aptitude able to operate or maintain or assemble complex automation systems.”
The program’s first group launched less than two months ago and includes 11 apprentices who are training for careers as maintenance technicians, automation specialists, service technicians and manufacturing technicians.
Combining theoretical education at the college with hands-on training at the Festo Learning Center and on-the-job training at the participating companies, the program helps individuals learn advanced manufacturing skills and earn an associate’s degree in mechatronics, technology combining electronics and mechanical engineering.
Apprentices spend one day a week at Sinclair Community College for classes, one day using state-of-the-art equipment at Festo’s Midwest Learning Center at 7777 Columbia Road in Mason to practice what they have learned and three days working to use that new skill and knowledge in a real-life work environment for their respective employers.
“Overall, the program’s real fun,” said Rahim Graham, an 18-year-old Colerain High School graduate and an apprentice in the program. “(It’s) interactive with other people and, at the same time, learning and working.”
Employment at the facility is up to 170 employees and on track for 250 workers by 2018, company officials said Friday. Room for expansion exists both in-house and on the company’s sprawling 47-acre campus, which is visible along Interstate 71.
“We thought, as Festo Didactic is the market leader in industrial automation and market leader in industrial education and training, why not to work with the community here and to offer a vocational education apprenticeship program designed for manufacturing here in Ohio,” Schilly said.
The company is excited about the possibility of working with more companies to increase skills, help U.S. industrial activity and prepare Ohio and the nation for Industry 4.0, Schilly said.
Industry 4.0 is a term coined by the German government and one that is referred to by many as “the fourth industrial revolution,” one expected to bridge the virtual world of Internet and the cloud with the physical world.
The idea for the apprenticeship program was born out of the region’s need for highly-skilled workers, said Carolin McCaffrey, head of the learning center.
“If you look at Ohio, there are about 30,000 positions unfilled and about 130,000 people looking for a job,” McCaffrey said. “That’s the mismatch we’re talking about. That’s the skills gap.”
Going forward, a high percentage of manufacturing jobs will require additional education beyond a high school degree, she said.
“We’re offering an alternative for those younger people that are looking for a living wage, that are looking for a job career in advanced manufacturing, but would not necessarily go to college,” McCaffrey said. “They will get, in two years, an associate’s degree and if they do choose to continue afterwards, they can do that and they’re debt free.”
Recruitment for next year’s apprenticeship program is set to start soon and will include 16 students, with greater numbers of enrollment planned in subsequent years, McCaffery said.
Getting the program up and running required “a great deal of collaboration” and working with Festo to understand the type of curriculum aspects it needed included in the program, according to Anthony Ponder, dean of science, mathematics and engineering at Sinclair Community College’s Courseview Campus in Mason.
Sinclair then reviewed its curriculum to determine the best way to deliver key outcomes that the company requested, Ponder said.
“It’s incredibly important for this community to continue to find ways to link the workforce needs of companies like Festo with the futures of our young people in the community,” said Scott Markland, vice president for Sinclair Community College’s regional centers in Mason, Eaton, Englewood and Huber Heights. “Where there are disconnects, it’s our job to figure out connecting those pieces together to provide meaningful opportunities and experiences for those young people to get the kind of training needed to make an operation like this to run and to run really well.”
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