NIMS Partners for Job Training Along Auto Corridor

The National Institute for Metalworking Skills (NIMS), Lightweight Innovations for Tomorrow (LIFT)—a new national manufacturing innovation institute—and Ivy Tech Community College are partnering to enhance and expand training to fill the largest number of open manufacturing jobs in states along the U.S. auto corridor. The partners have a goal to prepare a new industrial-technology maintenance workforce to drive performance and improvement of high-tech manufacturing along a corridor that includes Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee.

“Manufacturing enterprises—especially those serving the defense and transportation sectors—continue to embrace new lightweight metals and technologies, adding advanced technical requirements to critical jobs already going unfilled because workers do not have the required skills,” says Larry Brown, executive director, LIFT. “This is an unprecedented partnership among our new manufacturing innovation institute, a national credentialing body and a premier statewide community college system collaborating to address the workforce needs of our industry partners and their supply chains.”

There are currently 38,727 industrial technology maintenance jobs posted in the region, according to NIMS officials, entailing maintenance, troubleshooting and improvement of complex machines and automation systems. To support the rapid deployment of new lightweighting technologies being developed at LIFT, workers must understand and be confident in using the latest advanced technologies, help integrate them into companies’ processes and maintain their performance over time.

The initiative will focus on building high-quality training programs by:

• Rolling out what reportedly are the first-ever industry standards for educating and training the industrial technology maintenance workforce;

• Training instructors from community colleges across the entire region; and

In partnership with Ivy Tech, NIMS worked with more than 125 industry, education and workforce-development experts to develop the industry standards for the training programs and the credentials that will prepare industrial technology mechanics and technicians. Ivy Tech will launch a new instructor-training facility to prepare 50 instructors to deliver the training, and NIMS will bring to market credentials that certify individuals’ skills by the fall of 2016.

Technologies: Training

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