Manufacturers' input shaped new program

The development of the new manufacturing maintenance program at the John Jay Center for Learning isn’t just the product of the county’s educators.

It’s also been aided by input from the county’s manufacturers too.

The new program, a partnership between John Jay Center and Wright State University-Lake Campus, will help students gain skills that are in high demand from manufacturers nationwide and those here locally. The pilot program for employees of Jay-Blackford Manufacturing Council companies will start in September, and will include between eight and 12 students.

“We know there will be some hiccups and bumps along the way, we want to work those out with some friendly faces,” said Rusty Inman, executive director of the John Jay Center. “Then in January we’ll roll out to the community.”

Randy Roll, maintenance, engineering and machine shop manager at FCC Indiana, said the company is always looking for additional qualified maintenance personnel.

“Yesterday’s operator and today’s operator are two different people,” Roll said. “They have to have a little more diverse skill set.”

He added that automation of certain aspects of production means that modern day maintenance workers need experience working with automated equipment.

Roll and Stacie Paxson, human resources manager for FCC, have participated in advising the John Jay Center on the development of its new curriculum.

“It’s exciting that we were able to be involved in this,” Paxson said. “We were asking for help (with filling skills gaps) and now the cavalry’s here.”

The program, once it starts graduating students, will help FCC and other local manufacturers recruit new maintenance employees. Currently, the limited number of qualified maintenance personnel leads to competitive for a limited amount of candidates.

“The talent pool is only so deep right now. Right now manufacturers are taking people from other companies,” Roll said. “Now we’re about to make it deeper pool. Anybody coming out of that program will go to the top of the pile (of applicants).”

The program’s curriculum includes a number of courses in mechanical, electrical systems, control, automated and advanced manufacturing systems and also includes machining and welding classes.

Rather than a typical course, which is completed over a set period of time, many of the courses in the manufacturing program can be completed at the student’s pace. Roll said that the free-form pacing will be hugely beneficial for individuals who may have some knowledge in a field, but want to increase proficiency.

Roll also said that the program can help individuals increase their pay, through a biannual testing program FCC conducts.

“The end result is, the better educated you are, the more skills you have and the better pay is,” Roll said. “We’re looking for our associated to be the most successful they can be. It helps us, it helps them and it helps the community.”

Regarding the skills gap at FCC, Paxson said a candidate with the right skill set would have a job at FCC.

“If we have multiple people who walked in the door with the necessary skills, we’d hire them,” Paxson said. “There are so many opportunities in manufacturing, and every job is not necessarily right in front of a machine.”