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The project, which involved about 500 hours of labor, included teaching a 20-year-old CNC milling machine to communicate with a brand-new robot.If his father or one of his uncles wanted to modify or improve a piece of equipment, theyd design and rebuild it themselves, as Guillemette did for his high school senior project: a 16-foot trailer he constructed from scratch.
When Guillemette wasnt studying or working on the farm, he drove an 18-wheeler for Bellavance Trucking in Barre. Hes in demand because he also knows how to program and operate a CNC, or computer numerical code, controller to run tools such as lathes, mills, routers and grinders. He understands the fundamentals of thermodynamics, electrical conductivity, fluid dynamics, and the statics and strengths of different materials. And he can program a brand-new robot to do a handshake, or interaction, with a milling machine that was built 30 years ago. That means he can take a product from concept to design to prototype to mass production skills that are highly valued in todays high-tech manufacturing environment. Every member of the inaugural class has at least one job offer. I think it will help address the needs of our manufacturing community in a better way. In 2016, then-presidential candidate Donald Trump made the loss of American factory jobs a centerpiece of his campaign and, based on his victories in the Rust Belt states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin, that message clearly struck a chord with thousands of blue-collar voters. Economists point out that many other positions were lost, not to cheap foreign labor, but to computers, robots and automation. As Sean Gregory notes in his May 29 Time magazine article, The Jobs That Werent Saved, robots now perform about 10 percent of all manufacturing worldwide, a figure thats predicted to rise to 25 percent by 2025. In 1997, 44,000 Vermonters worked in manufacturing, according to VMEC figures. By 2010, the number had fallen to 31,000 about a 25 percent decline. In short, the average Vermonter employed in manufacturing produced about 2.5 times more in 2010 than he or she did in 1997. But in order for local companies to keep pace with those technological advances, they need highly trained workers who understand the processes behind them, such as injection versus extrusion molding and pneumatic versus hydraulic systems. She said her company, like many others in Vermont, needs to reverse a lot of outdated or inaccurate stereotypes about the word manufacturing. For years, she said, middle and high school students have been told by parents or school counselors that it meant either working in a mindless, dirty and dead-end job on an assembly line or it required a PhD in electromechanical engineering or computer science to build robots and artificial intelligence. As school districts have looked for ways to trim budgets, many have eliminated vocational training. Email For Kevin Dailey/ Moulding Arlington Vt. Skin In TheAs part of the companys long-term strategic plan to grow its local workforce ( see below ) it decided, in the words of VMECs Zider, to put some skin in the game. GW donated 35,000 toward Vermont Techs new Advanced Manufacturing Laboratory, one of five new manufacturing labs on the Randolph Center campus. The half dozen Bridgeport milling machines all have brand-new, 2017 CNC controllers like those in many manufacturing facilities around the country. In one corner, an industrial plastics training machine is nowhere near as large or complex as those found 10 miles down the road at GW. Still, Gray said the machine is ideal for teaching students the various methods used in making molded plastic products such as pill bottles, screwdriver handles and Frisbee golf discs. Email For Kevin Dailey/ Moulding Arlington Vt. Series Of PartsIn laymans terms, that means that, at the touch of a button, the system would work through the night without any human intervention hence the lights out to produce a series of parts for the next day.
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