WoodDigest.com |

Some shop training is still as simple as having the new guy work side by side with the experienced machine operator.

At the same time, things aren’t always as simple as they once were. CNC machines and the software needed to run them make for a more complex picture and for more overlap between the front office and the shop floor.

Training programs also highlight the importance of effective communication through all levels of the company and encourage employees to ask for additional education.

Training for new hires generally starts with orientation to basic company products, procedures, equipment, and operations, company execs told Wood Digest. Safe practices are a central focus, along with continuing education and cross-training on different machines and systems.

Cross-training enhances workplace flexibility. It’s also a response to employee interest in learning more and helps increase worker satisfaction, execs say. Keeping records of which people are qualified on different machines allows the shop to adjust to work flow needs as different jobs come in and to compensate if someone is out sick or on vacation.

Most training is in-house, taking advantage of the benefits of training in the real-time environment.

Companies also make use of the increasingly sophisticated training programs offered by machine manufacturers and of the programs at local colleges and other facilities. Trade associations, and in some cases, union apprenticeship programs, as at Giffin Interior & Fixture discussed below, also figure into the picture.

Realistically, training starts with recruitment. A new hire’s skill set and experience level help determine where he starts and what he learns.

“There’s an expectation that people come in with a set of skills,” says Michael Federigo, vice president of operations at Nucraft Furniture in Comstock Park, Mich.
There are the expected similarities in how companies use those skills, and how they build on them in training people and in their operations. But companies also have their own individual approaches and personalities, and these are reflected as well.

NUCRAFT: LEARNING ONSITE

Most training — some 85 percent — at Nucraft is on-site. “New people are trained on the job by being paired up with an experienced associate who teaches them how to do a particular job,” Federigo says. The company has 225 employees, with 160 on the plant floor.

People with more experience, and those in certain job categories, might go to a vendor facility, such as Stiles Machinery, for training on point-to-point routers, edgebanders and for other processes and machines. Nucraft also sends some people to Stiles for training on maintenance and repairs. Some finishing training might also be done off-site.

Programmers in the engineering department go off-site for seminars on the software upgrades that roll around every two or three years. Machine operators as well may go to vendors for training on new or upgraded equipment.

Nucraft holds “a fair number of internal meetings,” Fedrigo says, that cover processes and equipment and integrating them into plant operations.

Continuing education, within the plant and off-site can provide valuable returns for the investment they make, operations managers and execs say.

“Separate from the plant technical training, we have tuition reimbursement for people who want outside training in business, CAD and technical subjects that could have any applicability to our company,” Fedrigo says. The better the employee’s communication and technical skills, he says, the more valuable that person is to the company.