Training on demand

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, online, or virtual, machinist training was well established. But demand grew as in-person instruction was restricted, and interest will continue to flourish after herd immunity is achieved.

For the past decade, Mazak Corp. has offered online, on-demand training in addition to instructor-led courses at its training center and more customized training at customer facilities. When the coronavirus reared its ugly, spiked head in March 2020, all instructor-led courses went online until October, said Roy Gentry, national training manager for the Florence, Kentucky-based machine tool builder. The percentage shifted to about 50% earlier this year, and he expects about 30% of students to remain online for the instructor-led courses by summer.

“People who still don’t want to travel can take the online instructor-led classes,” he said, “but some people want that hands-on, face-to-face interaction, and we have that too.”

Gentry predicts that in the near future, Mazak will offer hybrid classes in which some students receive instruction at the training center and some students study remotely. Regardless of where students are, class sizes have a hard limit of eight people.

Programming instructor Patrick Reynold conducts a remote training course at Mazak’s training center in Florence, Kentucky. Image courtesy of Mazak

“We like to keep it around six,” he said. “We limit class size because the more people you get in, people become less likely to participate, and you usually have one person who steps up and does everything. But then the rest kind of suffer as a result.”

Gentry said virtual programming classes had no problem reaching the limit because there is no difference in taking them remotely or in person. In addition to having a PC, he recommends that remote students have two monitors: one to show the control simulator and one to watch the instructor.

On the flip side, end users are more reluctant to have their maintenance personnel participate online because they feel that in-person, hands-on training is more beneficial if not required, he said. Mazak offers online, instructor-led maintenance classes, but some learning activities obviously can’t be performed remotely, such as disassembling a turret.

“You have to be in the training center to do that,” Gentry said. “What we do as the next best thing is take a headset out to a unit, and our instructor then will show the parts that are coming apart. They show them how to do it so the students can see it remotely, but they can’t touch it.”

With online education, besides saving the travel, lodging and feeding expenses associated with sending a worker to the training center, he said Mazak customers avoid releasing the worker for a week, which might cause a production problem if an emergency arises on the shop floor. However, keeping students focused and engaged in the class is critical to learning the material, he said.

“A major consideration for participating in remote training is to make sure the students can stay in class,” Gentry said. “In an emergency, you can pull them out, but we like to minimize those interruptions.”

He said the machine builder’s online, on-demand courses, which a student can take anytime day or night and require about 20 to 30 minutes to complete, aren’t subject to those types of demands and can be accessed repeatedly as reference material. Those courses focus on basic instruction for machine setup and operation; programming; and electrical, pneumatic and mechanical maintenance but have evolved over time to cover more Mazak-specific content, he said.

“If someone wants to learn online how to troubleshoot electrical circuits, there is a ton of information on the internet, such as YouTube, that they can access and do that,” Gentry said. “We are trying to focus on information that they don’t have readily available to them.”

Manufacturers always have faced the challenge of replacing institutional, or organizational, knowledge as older workers retire. Unexpectedly and unfortunately, the pandemic accelerated the amount of knowledge leaving the workforce through risk mitigation, illness and death.

“We don’t know the effects just yet of this recent downturn and the most recent exit of the workforce,” Gentry said, “but I believe it is going to be even wider than it was two, three years ago. We will definitely see an uptick in on-demand, online training.”

Recipe for Success

With its motto of “Be a Better CNC’er,” CNC Cookbook Inc. offers free online courses and guides to help established metalworking professionals and hobbyists, as well as people new to the trade, improve their skills, said Bob Warfield, founder and CEO of the Aptos, California-based software developer.

“Knowledge is a powerful way to get there,” he said.

Fourteen courses and guides are set up as modules, or chapters, that participants progress through. Warfield said the most popular lesson covers G code programming, followed by the master class on speeds and feeds and courses for geometric dimensioning and tolerancing, metrology and lean manufacturing principles.

Penn Foster’s machinist training program offers 89 courses for aspiring apprentices. Image courtesy of Penn Foster

The G code programming course is particularly effective for beginners, he said, noting that the
company’s G-Wizard Editor software, which is an adjunct to the course, explains in plain English what each line of G code does. He said about 40% of those taking any course are beginners with the remainder being established professionals looking to expand their knowledge.

“It’s set up to get your head around what’s going on with programming,” Warfield said.

He said about 15,000 visitors to the company’s website join one of the courses each month.

Participants don’t have to sign up for a course except for the speeds and feeds master class in which students receive a new module each week via email, Warfield said.

“People seem to like that,” he said. “I’m thinking I might want to provide that option on all the courses.”

Courses don’t include tests, but Warfield said he has received requests for them.

“That’s coming,” he said.

Warfield recommends using the courses to augment what participants are doing elsewhere before enrolling in a community college’s or vocational-technical school’s program if they want to work at a job shop or other parts manufacturer.

“In the end,” he said, “you are going to want to have that hands-on (education), as well as the theoretical shop talk-type of training.”

Educational institutions even can incorporate CNC Cookbook material into their programs if they provide proper attribution, Warfield said, noting that more than 300 have done so.