Push under way to grow new robotics program


Written on December 7, 2011 – 8:58 am | by hemroids

A new robotics program in St. Joseph County is teaching the skills needed to work in manufacturing.

The goal is to grow the program with more students and get the message out that manufacturing in the 21st century is highly employable.

That’s how Ginny Kowalski, supervisor who oversees all of the Career-Technical Education for St. Joseph County Intermediate School District, sees the new robotics program. Classes are held at Glen Oaks Community College.

Kowalski said there are currently jobs in St. Joseph County that go unfilled because the workforce does not have the skills necessary.

“Manufacturing is changing as are the skills needed,” she said.

CTE consortium programs are open to students from Centreville, Constantine, Mendon, Sturgis, Three Rivers and White Pigeon.

“We have 10 CTE programs,” Kowalski said. “Our goal for the program is to introduce to high school students the current skills needed to work in manufacturing. We believe high school students do not have accurate knowledge of the skills now needed for the 21st century to work in manufacturing.”

Ted Duggan, general manager of Vaupell Midwest Molding & Tooling in Constantine, has a special interest in the CTE program. He said it’s because workers with updated manufacturing skills are getting harder to find.

“We went through a rough time in 2009 when the economy was bad but now that is behind us,” Duggan said. “We rose from a low of 110 employees to 140 today. In the next year, we are going to need at least 10 more people. We need skilled people to run injection molding operations.”

Vaupell has donated equipment to support the robotics program at Glen Oaks and Ron Balyeat, manufacturing engineer participates on the Robotics Advisory Committee.  Duggan plans to work with CTE through co-op or intern positions at Vaupell and help students by challenging them with hands-on trouble shooting projects.

Mark Murry, CTE robotics instructor, said he is excited about the new class. Eighteen students are enrolled and more are expected next year.

Vaupell Midwest Molding & Tooling specializes in designing and building injection molds as well as injection molding and assembly for regional and national customers in orthopaedic, surgical instrument, aerospace, defense and commercial markets.
Vaupell Midwest is part of Vaupell Holdings, a global contract manufacturer of custom injection molded components and assemblies focused on the aerospace, medical, and defense marketplaces.

Vaupell provides advanced, integrated solutions to select customers in these niche markets and can assist in all phases of a company’s product life cycle. Leonard Vaupell founded the company in 1947 in  Seattle and supplied the first plastic parts to The Boeing Company.

Related articles on WeblogPlaza

Tags:



Post a Comment

CAPTCHA Image
*