The investment was made in the equipment and talent necessary to deliver practical, hands-on training on-site to plants over an eighty mile radius. The resulting impact of this new ‘Industrial Maintenance Institute' on industry personnel is significant. Several cases-in-point bear mentioning:

Top organizations value best-of-breed vendors and stick with them. Although we provide a satisfaction guarantee, there are no second chances. The real cost is not the training price, but the loss of employee wages and confidence during training.

Lockheed Martin Corporation in King of Prussia, PA is one of many Lockheed locations throughout the world. This facility provides research, development and manufacture of military satellites where precision and quality are absolute hallmarks of the industry. Beginning in summer 2003, Lockheed selected the Industrial Maintenance Institute to deliver a broad range of safety, lift truck and weld training for maintenance and other personnel. Lockheed was so pleased with the training provided that it issued a blanket purchase order to eliminate the large amount of internal purchasing paperwork associated with preferred vendors such as NCC. The outlook for more projects with Lockheed over the next two years is expected to grow and flourish for this best-of-breed resource.

ImClone Systems Incorporated is a biopharmaceutical company dedicated to developing breakthrough biologic medicines in the area of oncology. The company has utilized the many advances made in the fields of molecular biology, oncology, genomics and antibody engineering to build a novel pipeline of product candidates designed to address specific genetic mechanisms involved in cancer growth and development. Its campus in Branchburg, NJ is home to the manufacturing, product development, finance, clinical, regulatory and quality assurance and commercial operations departments. In cooperation with Raritan Community College, it selected the Industrial Maintenance Institute to train the maintenance personnel in installing, programming, networking and troubleshooting the programmable controllers so vital to their processes. All participants judged the training a great help in improving their process troubleshooting skills.

Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharmaceutical Research Institute selected the Industrial Maintenance Institute to provide training in the electrical code to its maintenance personnel in two research facilities: New Brunswick, NJ and Princeton, NJ . The company is dedicated to discovering and developing innovative, cost-effective medicines that address significant unmet medical needs in 10 critical disease areas. These areas are: Alzheimer's disease, atherosclerosis/thrombosis, cancer, diabetes, hepatitis, HIV/AIDS, obesity, psychiatric disorders, rheumatoid arthritis and solid organ transplantation. It is critical to the organization to not only have electrical maintenance technicians who are current with the latest code, but also licensed under New Jersey requirements. The Industrial Maintenance Institute stepped forward and took the necessary steps to become qualified for electrical code instruction in New Jersey. Coupled with its extensive training experience and affordable price, this effort convinced Bristol-Myers Squibb that Northampton Community College is a ‘can do' provider of training.

It is surprising that few employers really know the level of competency possessed by their maintenance employees. Through IMI skills assessment and training, the employer is assured that all maintenance personnel are at a known, baseline level of skills that cover a broad range of disciplines.

Masterfoods USA, a division of Mars, Inc. in Hackettstown, NJ, produces confectionery and snackfood brands – including M&M's ® Chocolate Candies, SNICKERS ® Bar, TWIX ® Cookie Bars, STARBURST ® Fruits Chews, and COMBOS ® Brand – among the world's best loved and most widely available snacks. The highly automated manufacturing plant is dependent on tight controls and optimal conditions and a highly trained staff of ‘reliability technicians' to ensure that equipment runs smoothly and continuously. In cooperation with Warren County Community College, the plant turned to the Industrial Maintenance Institute to deliver a broad range of maintenance skills training. Starting with electrical fundamentals and followed by motor controls and programmable logic controllers, the long term training program will eventually round out with substantial mechanical, welding and fluid power training over the next two years. As a result, Masterfoods USA will have a team of technicians with a solid baseline of skills and knowledge applicable to a variety of maintenance tasks.

It's a matter of economics and survival. There is a severe supply shortage of good, cross-trained, up-to-date maintenance technicians. Many firms carry out a two-pronged attack in solving this problem. First, the existing personnel are cross-trained in several disciplines. So, instead of having a handful of maintenance specialists gathered around a particular equipment problem, in most cases one individual can solve the problem alone. That capability is the equivalent to adding several more technicians to the staff at no additional cost. Second, employers are taking their best and brightest production employees and training them through a long term maintenance program. This will help ensure long term staff needs are met.

United States Steel Corporation – Fairless Operation, in Fairless Hills near Philadelphia , is a finishing plant that customizes products to the exacting standards US Steel customers demand. The global steel market has made quality and efficiency paramount to survival for such plants. The plant also has an aging workforce that conceivably could retire soon en masse, leaving the plant dangerously close to a critical manpower shortage. By utilizing the Industrial Maintenance Institute, U.S. Steel Fairless operations in cooperation with the United Steel Workers embarked on a program to upgrade skills and knowledge among employees. Beginning with precision measurement, mechanical, safety and basic electrical skills training, the personnel will continue through progressively higher levels of training that will hone their troubleshooting and repair skills. Concurrently, the Fairless operation is working with the Industrial Maintenance Institute to implement a comprehensive apprentice program that will develop selected production personnel into maintenance technicians.

Kent Zimmerman is associate dean for technology and director of CBI's technical programs. Contact him at 610-861-5071( kzimmerman@northampton.edu ) for more information about the Industrial Maintenance Institute.

Back to Home