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Education

Industry Vetted Remote Learning Solutions for Manufacturing Technology and Engineering Students.

With the rapidly changing remote learning requirements, more educational institutes are looking for cost-effective options for quality online resources to replace textbooks, enhance lectures, and provide learning tools that appeal to the “YouTube” generation.

“While most engineering courses are calculation- or design-intensive, introductory manufacturing courses tend to be primarily information-driven. Covering this content through traditional lecturing often fails to fully engage student interest, motivation, and learning potential.”

Josh Gargac – Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering, University of Mount Union.

THORS eLearning Solutions meets these challenges by providing:

  • Interactive, cloud-based learning solutions for manufacturing industry employees and students.
  • Industry-specific content that explains different manufacturing processes and materials with a workflow that mirrors real manufacturing methods.
  • Courses that are developed by combining experiential industry knowledge with theoretical insight and are presented in a user-friendly format complete with graphics, animations, and interactives.

Our courses are recognized and valued by our customers, including fortune 500 companies such as General Motors, Ford Motor Company, FCA, Mercedes Benz, Caterpillar Inc., Cummins, Navistar, Rolls Royce, as well as, other top companies and educational institutions worldwide.

We have found that many professors at various institutions are addressing the following challenges with success using THORS Solutions:

Reducing the cost of textbooks:

THORS courses are extremely complementary to the courses taught in the universities and can provide a cost-effective alternative to costly textbooks.

“It certainly makes it easier to teach manufacturing science, it’s impossible to be an expert in every type of manufacturing. The best part about THORS is you get content from vetted industry experts in a broad area of subjects including castings, metal forming and cutting, forging, and polymer work.”

Josh Gargac – Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering, University of Mount Union.

Enhancing Lectures:

When THORS assignments are giving before a lecture, students are prepared with a baseline comprehension of terminology, understanding, and application of various manufacturing processes and products.

“I would tell my colleagues that THORS is a great enhancement of the material they’re already covering. And with THORS, students are able to see the products and the processes behind them. I would highly recommend THORS to anybody who is looking for materials that are of high quality on these topics.  From a technical standpoint, they are excellent and provide instruction to the students that I don’t have time to create. The animations are excellent, and onboarding exercises are integrated into the modules as you go.  There is just no way you can create it yourself. I want to give the students an almost hands-on experience, even in an online environment, and it is great we can now do that with THORS.  I think the students really appreciate that.”

Michael Robinson – Manufacturing & STEM Assistant Professor, Butler County Community College.

Increasing Lab Time (Flipping the classroom):

THORS allows individuals to learn manufacturing fundamentals in self-paced online assignment providing for more interactive lectures and increased time for application of the subject matter

“THORS allowed for a flipped classroom where the content was delivered to the students outside the classroom, scheduled class meetings could be spent on additional hands-on activities. This allowed four weeks of lecture to be replaced with four fabrication lab exercises.”

Josh Gargac – Professor of Mechanical Engineering, University of Mount Union

Bring Manufacturing Processes to Life:

The manufacturing process is difficult at best to describe in a 2D manner. Many logistical issues also prevent the availability of in-person plant tours and even in those cases much of what is viewed in not easily explained. With the use of THORS crossed sectioned animations, videos, and interactives, in many cases, the learner can gain a better understanding of the process than they would standing in front of a machine.

“For me, it brings to my student’s real-world examples of the types of training that takes place with well done and realistic videos and or simulations with culminates in learning and then a THORS certificate, it just complements the way students like to learn today.”

Rob Speckert – Professor Department of Engineering Technology, Miami University

Using Competency-Based Embedded Preexisting Tests and Quizzes:

Finding time to locate meaningful related content and then creating the associated worksheets, tests and quizzes can be very difficult and time-consuming.

“THORS has competency-based examinations, pretests and post examinations included within each course. As an instructor, it saves me considerable time.  Not that I mind giving tests, but it’s superior because its integrated with the material and comes up at the right time within the material.  It really makes it easy for the students to learn. That is a really big plus for me. It’s not just a bunch of videos – it has competency-based activity going on throughout it which I think is a real plus.”

Michael Robinson – Manufacturing & STEM Assistant Professor, Butler County Community College.

Finding High Quality, In-depth Information that is Used and Recognized in Industry:

Students receive a THORS certificate upon completing each course. These certificates are valued by our customers worldwide.

“First, I think THORS has credibility. I promote it before I have my students take the THORS courses and explain how THORS came about and how it serves industry and list some of the major THORS clients, like GM, to my students. I let them know this is the type of learning they use an industry. I like how things flow in each module the details in the industry-based content that it presents.”

Rob Speckert – Professor Department of Engineering Technology, Miami University

Planning for the Further Impact of COVID-19 and Remote Teaching Strategies:

With today’s everchanging environment educators need to develop plans for either distance learning, face to face learning or some mixture of both.

“Thank God we had THORS in the spring when we had to switch quickly over to remote instruction.  There’s no way you can develop that quality of material in such a short amount of time. You have to have quality material available and ready to go when remote learning is mandated. It has to be “in the can” and ready to deploy.  The THORS program meets that challenge well.

When it comes to remote instruction, students don’t want to sit there and just read. They like the interaction and that’s what I like about THORS.  It’s not a replacement for face-to-face instruction, but it’s an enhancement beyond having students just reading PowerPoint slides or watching videos.”

Michael Robinson – Manufacturing & STEM Assistant Professor, Butler County Community College

We are interested in speaking with you! See how THORS can aid with your company or learning institution in meeting your future training needs.

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Featured

Essential Quality Terms Used in 7QC Tools

The 7QC tools are statistical tools that help individuals, organizations, and businesses resolve quality issues for products and processes. To utilize the 7QC tools it is important to understand the following essential quality terms:

You can read our other blog 7QC: An Introduction to the Seven Basic Tools of Quality here.

80/20 Rule: The 80/20 Rule, also called the “Pareto Principle,” states that 80% of the problems arise from 20% of the sources.

Average: The average, or mean, of a set of sample data is calculated as the sum of the data points divided by the total number of data points.

Central Issue: The problem that needs to be solved.

Control Limits: Control limits are defined as the values that represent the maximum and minimum amount of variation that the averages of data points within subgroups of a process can exhibit. When the subgroups exist beyond the control limits or exhibit specific patterns or trends, then the process is said to be “out-of-control.”

Correlation: Correlation is defined as the level of dependency or association between two variables. Most commonly, linear relationships are evaluated using the Pearson’s correlation coefficient, which is a calculated statistical value.

Cumulative Percentage: The cumulative percentage is the running total of each factor summing to 100%.

Dependent Variable: A dependent variable is the variable, or factor, that changes when other variables change. Outputs from a process, or product characteristics, are typically dependent variables.

Five W’s: The phrase “Five W’s” is short form for asking the Who, What, When, Where, and Why questions.

Frequency Distribution: Frequency distribution shows the variation in a given set of data when the data are tallied into groups.

Independent Variable: An independent variable is the variable, or factor, that does not change when other variables change. Inputs to a process, or process characteristics, are typically independent variables.

Intervals: Intervals are the sub-groups into which data are classified in order to construct a histogram. Intervals are always mutually exclusive, meaning the data points that equal the upper limit of an interval can only exist in that interval and not in the next interval.

Major Categories: The major groupings under which possible causes may be sorted to solve the central issue.

Mode: Mode is the value or number that appears the most often in a set of numbers or data.

Normal distribution: Statistically, a normal distribution is represented in a histogram when a smooth, symmetric curve can be generated from the bars where the mean, or average, is the center of the curve and the rest of it tails off to near zero on either side. Normal distributions are a bell-shaped curve.

Paired Data: When two variables are collected jointly such that for each value of the independent variable (x), a corresponding value for the dependent variable (y) is generated, then the data point (x,y) is said to be paired data.

Population: A population is the entire data set under consideration while analyzing data.

Primary Axis: The primary axis is the Y axis on the left side of the graph used to depict the frequencies.

Primary Causes: The principle causes specific to a particular category.

Range: Range is calculated as the difference between the maximum and minimum observed values of a set of sample data.

Sample: A sample is a smaller subgroup of data that is taken from within the population.

Secondary Axis: The secondary axis is the Y axis on the right side of the graph used to depict the cumulative percentages.

Secondary Causes: The causes derived from the primary causes after further brainstorming.

Standard Deviation: Standard deviation is defined as the amount of variation that exists within a sample data set. The Greek letter “sigma,” σ, is used to represent standard deviation.

Stratified Data: When collected data show tendencies of being divided into more than one subgroup, then the data are said to be stratified.

Stratified Sampling: Stratified sampling is the method of collecting and sorting data from a population into smaller logical segments after sampling takes place.

Subgroup: Subgroup is defined as a small collection of data points, typically between 2 and 10 data points, that are compiled together within a short interval of time. The average of the data points within a subgroup is represented as a single dot in the control chart.

Tally Marks: Tally marks are used to determine quantity. Each tally mark represents the value 1, where I = 1. When the amount of tally marks reaches 5, the fifth tally mark strikes across the previous 4 marks to be recorded as a fifth tally, ||||. The tally marks continue as single tallies until the next multiple of 5, the value 10, is to be recorded, |||| ||||. [Put slashes across the 4 tallies here and at the 5 location.]

Tertiary Causes: The causes derived from the secondary causes after further brainstorming.

Variable: A variable is a type of characteristic that can be used to separate/segregate data into groupings that affect a given process or outcome, and it can change according to outside influences like time, place, and standards.

To learn more about these Seven Basic Tools of Quality Control, and to learn how to apply these tools to solving quality problems by viewing examples, check out the online 7QC courses in the THORS Academy Library, brought to you by THORS eLearning Solutions.

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COVID Featured

Five Plans to Prepare Employees for Returning to Work Post COVID-19

Easing back to a normal work schedule after COVID-19 will take time and strategy. Many different measures must be in place in order to prepare the workforce for new protocols centered around mitigating the after-effects of COVID-19. A response team may be appointed in order to make necessary decisions and changes to company policies, which may include members from legal, human resources, and IT and communications, to name a few.

To ensure and protect the safety of all workers, it is suggested to implement the following five main types of preparation plans.

Step 1 A Contingency Plan for Infectious Disease & Response

A contingency plan for infectious disease and response is a proactive process used to identify and analyze the potential risks that the possible future events may pose and to formulate preventive measures for maintaining the regular operations of an organization.

It is not yet known if the pandemic COVID-19 will be an endemic disease to regularly combat in the future. Regardless, suggested best practices are to implement measures based on past experiences with other communicable diseases, such as SARS and MERS.

When developing a contingency plan, first, the identified potential risks are listed, and then appropriate preventive actions to mitigate them are determined and implemented based on the impact of the potential risk.

By ensuring safety of personnel and infrastructure, an organization will be able to avoid adversities and function efficiently without any interruptions.

Contingency plans for each manufacturing or service industry will be unique depending on their geographical location, size, weather conditions, and accessibility. In the development of a company’s specific contingency plans, regularly consult organization’s websites for additional resources, such as the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the World Health Organization (WHO), and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).

2) Infection Control Measures

Creating a plan for infection control begins with working with local and state health departments in order to follow current and appropriate guidelines and protocols. Establish hygiene measures which assist in illness prevention. Remind employees also about the use of, and where to obtain, necessary supplies such as hand sanitizer, tissues, and cleaning products.

Some of these directives could include the following:

  • Reminding about cough and sneeze etiquette
  • Hand washing and hand sanitizing
  • Increasing distance between people to at least 6 feet
  • Staggering shifts or schedules
  • Creating a remote working or delivery program
  • Encouraging appropriate additional PPE
  • Increasing cleaning measures

When a plan is determined, the reliable and up-to-date guidelines for employees to follow should be communicated and posted in highly visible areas.

3) Additional Policies

Policies and procedures for illness reporting during COVID-19 must be in place. Every company should evaluate their current procedures to incorporate specific rules pertaining to the coronavirus situation. These could involve procedures such as a flowchart on how each level of illness is handled, or policies in place for employees to know that their job is still secure if they need to call off due to illness. The Americans with Disabilities Act, or ADA, provides additional guidelines about the amount of information that should be provided to the employer, as well as the rights of the employee’s health privacy as it could be related to a disability.

According to Mayer Brown in the March 09, 2020 article, Coronavirus: 10 Steps US Employers Should Take to Maintain a Safe Workplace in the Face of a Public Health Emergency, employers should also “be mindful of the interplay between sick leave laws and policies, the FMLA, ADA, HIPAA and Workers’ Compensation.”

Some of the suggested actions include policies and guidelines for:

  • Teleworking and video conferencing
  • Length of time for staying at home until symptom free
  • Flexible, non-punitive leave to care for sick family members

More information can be found in the Ohio Department of Health’s Amended Director’s Stay at Home Order, or review similar information from your state or province.

4) Training for New Policies

A program and schedule for training employees on new guidelines should be in place. Many new rules could be overwhelming and confusing, and it may be required to determine whether all employees received the correct information.

Training should be instituted on topics such as:

  • COVID-19 exposure, who is at risk and how – what interactions or tasks increase exposure
  • Safe distancing practices both at the workplace, and outside the workplace
  • What to do in case of illness, and questions and answers regarding individual concerns
  • New policies for PPE, cleaning surfaces, and other topics

Training should be implemented in a manner that maintains safe distancing, such as with:

  • Live or Recorded Video conferencing, using tools such as Zoom or Microsoft Teams
  • On-Line Training Courses, such as THORS eLearning Solutions COVID-19 Video and Assessment

For best assurance of the receipt of the training, it is recommended that the training include some or all of the following opportunities:

  • Access to someone to ask questions and receive answers
  • Self-assessment prior to and after the training, to determine comprehension
  • Access to the training remotely, at any time of the day, and as many times as necessary for understanding
5) Assess & Track Employee's Compliance

It may be necessary to assess and track the employee’s compliance within the company. This can involve creating a compliancy assessment and implementing record keeping and tracking to ascertain whether employees have understood the new measures to follow.

An assessment tool, such as MAGNI, would be useful in order to remove the uncertainty from compliancy analysis. With MAGNI, an organization can customize their own compliancy solution by creating their own assessment with questions that reflect the standards the employees must follow.

Here’s how MAGNI works:

1- Each company determines the subject matter they wish to inform or train their own workforce on.

2- The company then follows the instructions in MAGNI’s assessment tool to create the questions for their assessment. These questions should reflect the points that are most important for the employees to know, and for the company to know if the employees understood.

3- The administrative access allows the company to see who has taken the assessment and what their score was. The tracking of score improvement during re-takes, as well as timely re-assessments to meet compliancy rules can be scheduled.

With this list of the five main plans to prepare employees for returning to work after the COVID-19 order, as well as tools and resources available, THORS eLearning Solutions and MAGNI hope to empower organizations to minimize the impact of the changes due to COVID-19 on businesses and communities, and increase the awareness and safety of everyone.

We want to hear from you!

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Uncategorized

7QCs: An Introduction to the Seven Basic Tools of Quality Control

Quality control. Of course it is important. When producing parts or products, the ability to monitor, troubleshoot, and adjust manufacturing processes is necessary for companies to remain efficient and competitive. If products are to be made consistently to a required standard, the methods of manufacturing must be measurable, adjustable, and repeatable.

In order to achieve these standards, logical, data driven approaches to finding acceptable solutions can be used, such as the 7QC tools, or the Seven Basic Tools of Quality Control. The 7QC tools are statistical tools that help individuals, organizations, and businesses resolve quality issues for products and processes. They are called basic tools because they are suitable for people with little formal training in statistics and because they can be used to solve the vast majority of quality-related issues.

7QC tools include:

Check Sheets

Check sheets are used to collect data in order to understand the qualitative and quantitative variables that can affect a process. When recording data on a check sheet, check marks or tally marks are used to indicate the amount of what is being collected, which helps in understanding the progress, defect patterns, and even causes for defects.

Check Sheets

Control Charts

Control charts are graphs used to represent process performance over time. Subgroups of data points are collected and compiled together within a short interval of time. The average of the data points within a subgroup is represented as a single dot in the control chart. The amount of variation that exists within a sample data set is the standard deviation, which is used to determine the control limits. When the subgroups exist beyond the control limits or exhibit specific patterns or trends, then the process is said to be “out-of-control.”

Control Charts

Fishbone Diagrams

Fishbone diagrams, also referred to as cause and effect diagrams, are a quality control brainstorming tool used to help identify the root cause or causes of an issue by looking at all possible variables.

When using these diagrams, a central issue or focal point, such as a defect or quality problem, is placed at the head of the “fish.” The “bones of the fish” serve as a way to visually organize all possible variables, or causes, that may have caused the central issue, and sort ideas into categories to investigate further.

Fishbone Diagrams

Histograms

Histograms are a type of bar graph used to represent the frequency distribution, or how often each different value in a set of data occurs. It is created by grouping the data you collect into “cells” or “bins.” The histogram is the most commonly used graph to assess process behavior and demonstrate if the data follow a normal distribution, or bell-shaped curve.

Histograms

Pareto Charts

Pareto charts are a combination of bar and line graphs that provide a visual representation of how often the various issues affecting a process are occurring. Pareto chart derives its name from the use of the Pareto Principle, which states “80% of the effect comes from 20% of the causes.” Using this chart, professionals can decide where to place priority and focus.

Pareto Charts

Scatter Diagrams

Scatter diagrams, also called scatter plots, are graphs used to visually represent the relationship between two variables in order to quickly identify the correlation between them.

This tool is used to determine the type of relationship that exists between the inputs to the process, or process characteristics, and the outputs from a process, or product characteristics.

Scatter Diagrams

Stratification

Stratification is a method of dividing data into subcategories and classifying data based on group, division, class, or levels that helps in deriving meaningful information to understand an existing problem.

Stratification

To learn more about these Seven Basic Tools of Quality Control, and to learn how to apply these tools to solving quality problems by viewing examples, check out the online 7QC courses in the THORS Academy Library, brought to you by THORS eLearning Solutions.

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Featured

Training Perspective: Looking Back to Look Ahead

Companies are constantly reviewing ways to reduce costs and keep positive margins. During times of economic recession, external pressures from competitors as well as internal pressures with shareholders can be mixed with concerns of shrinking revenue and volatile markets. As a result, employee training is commonly an area that receives budget cuts.

Looking back at the Great Recession of 2007-2009, companies can learn some valuable lessons that can be applied to the potential future state of the market. With the growing consensus from the IMF as well as Industry experts such as Harvard Professor of Economics Kenneth Rogoff that the current situation is developing into a global recession.  It may be surprising to find that continuous training is still valuable in today’s uncertain economy.

ROI Value

In 2013, researchers from the University of South Carolina studied 359 companies and the level of training done prior, during, and after the Great Recession. The researchers organized these companies into three groups based on the level of focus on training that they offered to their employees: high, medium, and low levels.

In the prior-recession studies, the researchers found that companies with a high level of focus on training created human capital, which is the knowledge, skills, and value of the workforce. Additionally, when compared to the other two groups, these companies had consistently higher levels of productivity and reduced turnover.

High Level of Focus on Training = Greater Human Capital

During the recession, companies with a high level of focus on training mitigated some of the losses from the recession better than the companies with a medium or low focus on training. 

The study attributed this to the creation of human capital: more efficient and productive workers.

The study in 2013 also looked at the recovery efforts of the companies after the recession. The researchers found that companies who kept their training efforts as a high level of focus during the recession rebounded faster compared to companies with a medium or low focus on training efforts. These high-focus companies returned to at least the pre-recession revenue and at times higher on average by 2009. In comparison, the companies with a low level of focus on training took, on average, two additional years to recover.

High level of Focus on Training = Faster Post-Recession Rebound

The researchers concluded with the study that a high level of focus on training and development might be one of the most valuable tools in recovering after an economic downturn.  

What Training Really Costs

In a recession, employees are concerned about their jobs. The University of South Carolina study agrees with a Deloitte & Touche study on “Employee training in difficult economic times.” When a company makes cuts to its training program, it sends “the message to its employees that it considers their professional development to be unimportant.”  This is an attributing factor to lower employee morale and lower productivity as well as increased turnover.

With the potential of increased turnover due to the cuts in training, the costs associated with replacing those employees needs to be considered when compared to the costs of the training budget. Costs, “including interviewing, hiring, training, reduced productivity, lost opportunity costs, etc.” could amount to the following percentages: 

  • Entry-level employees, 30-50% of their annual salary
  • Mid-level employees, 150% of their annual salary
  • High-level employees, 400% of their annual salary

Training is commonly considered an unnecessary expense during a recession, but research suggests that recovery can occur more rapidly, and the return on investment of training can shine during these times.

Utilizing training through this time, especially on-line learning that focuses on the manufacturing industry, could help to improve your human capital and position your company for success in recovery.

We want to hear from you! Let’s discuss how THORS can be a resource in your training operations.

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Categories
Featured

Small Businesses: On the Road to Recovery

Update 4/27

The Small Business Administration, or SBA, has received additional funding of $300 billion through the Coronavirus Preparedness and Response Supplemental Appropriations Act and has restarted processing loan applications from small businesses, after a temporary hiatus. The loans are processed on a first come, first served basis. SBA is also accepting new applications for the Paycheck Protection Program beginning April 27 at 10:30 am EDT. The new interest rate for the Paycheck Protection Program is set at 1%.

Small businesses are emblems of American entrepreneurship, incubators of innovation, and contributors to community identity. Thriving small businesses are the vital signs of a healthy economy.

COVID-19 is sweeping across countries and shaking down well-established economic systems; small businesses have been hit the hardest. Public health measures, such as social distancing, curtail the spread of the novel coronavirus and restrict businesses in our communities. The symptoms of economic distress are manifested as partial and complete shutdown of these business operations.

Funding Opportunities

To offer economic relief to individuals, families, and businesses impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, the federal government in the United States passed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. The CARES Act provides the much-needed economic safety net for small businesses for business continuity. The funds earmarked to support small businesses is $349 billion; these funds are extended as Small Business Administration (SBA) loans. Small businesses can choose from the following financial products offered by the SBA.

Federal Funding Assistance Breakdown

The Economic Injury Disaster Advance Loan Program provides a quick respite for borrowers—the funds will be available within 36 hours. Up to $10,000 can be requested as a loan advance through this program.

In addition, there are tax credit programs that small businesses can take advantage of. States and counties have local funding assistance available for small businesses. Corporate firms are also offering grants to small businesses during this time. For example, Facebook COO, Sheryl Sandberg has announced a $40 million grant from Facebook for small businesses.

Looking Beyond

Though small businesses may be bruised and battered, they will bounce back with greater resiliency. Now is the time for diligent planning and preparation for a new and brighter future as we wait out this pandemic. Ensuring that your workforce is knowledgeable about COVID-19 and how to combat it will be a part of the blueprint for preparation. Today, eLearning is mainstream—consider employee enrichment programs through online learning opportunities. If you are a small business in the manufacturing sector affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, reach out to our team for learning and development opportunities for you and your employees.

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GD&T

Lack of GD&T Knowledge Can Impact Your Bidding Process

Read the first part of our GD&T Blog “3 Factors that Affect Understanding“

As a complex standard, geometric dimensioning and tolerancing (GD&T) can lead to reading and interpreting errors. Users who do not have the prerequisite print reading knowledge and ability to see in 2D and 3D space will have an increased difficulty in acquiring the necessary GD&T language fluency. As a result, potential disconnects can occur between the design, manufacture, and inspection of parts, all affecting a company’s bottom line.

Engineering drawing illustrating complex datum reference frames.

Engineering drawing illustrating complex datum reference frames.

One critical area in which a lack of GD&T knowledge can be detrimental to an organization is in the bidding process. Ways in which a limited understanding of GD&T can affect cost estimating includes the following:

Underbidding: Individuals involved in cost estimating who do not understand GD&T could potentially underbid as a result of their lack of knowledge. A limited level of GD&T fluency can cause individuals to undervalue the requirements necessary to make the part. As a result, the responsibility is now on the manufacturing team to make sure the part is manufactured correctly within cost, a task they may not be able to execute.

Overbidding: On the other hand, individuals involved in cost estimating who do not understand GD&T could also potentially overbid due to their lack of knowledge. In this situation, their limited language fluency may cause them to panic at the sight of the GD&T-related symbols, making them add cost. This additional cost arises from the belief that GD&T increases the time it takes to manufacture the part. As a result, the company could lose the bid for a product they could have manufactured. If they do win the bid, they may have made it easy on themselves to manufacture the part; however, they still may not realize how GD&T is going to help make the part more profitable.

In the bidding process, both underbidding and overbidding have their own ramifications. Whether a bid is won but undervalued or lost where there could have been profit, both realities affect a company’s bottom line profitability. It is in these crucial situations where having a full comprehension of GD&T helps organizations and individuals have the greatest potential for success.

Kavita Krishnamurthy is an ASQ certified Six Sigma Black Belt with over 15 years of experience in the field of process improvement, manufacturing engineering, and quality management in the automotive and gear industries. She is also the subject matter expert of our GD&T Fundamentals course.

See Our GD&T Fundamentals Course
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Uncategorized

Is your issue a skills gap or a knowledge gap?

You may have received a call to action to address the skills gap, which might feel making a bridge across the Grand Canyon with a few sticks and some string. The overarching term, “skills gap,” encompasses a variety of workplace topography with very different types of solutions. Perhaps, because of its large scale “skills gap” doesn’t come close to identifying the specific scope or the needs of your organization. The problem may lie in defining what the problem really is.

How do you define a skills gap?

There are a variety of reasons for the rift between matching people with available jobs. 

The Technology Gap

Robotics, artificial intelligence, and other advanced technologies may pose one of two types of concerns. Either your facility is expanding toward the future and your people have skill shortages, or your facility is crawling toward these endeavors and you can’t keep your people from being lured away.

“The types of skills that employees need to possess are rapidly evolving, and it seems increasingly difficult for the workforce to keep pace.

If your facility has embraced AI and robotics in the workplace, educational bridges for these gaps may already be started. If this technology is still in a galaxy far, far away, perhaps first laying a foundational understanding of the basics the technology is addressing is a timelier approach for your current workers.

The Perception Gap

Misconceptions of what a career in your industry involves could be adding to your labor shortage. “It’s these misperceptions that exacerbate the skills shortage we’re facing, as young people, their parents and guidance counselors don’t see manufacturing as a viable career path.” 

Get onboard with an organization that is tackling the manufacturing myth for the workforce of tomorrow or start your own. Host a manufacturing day with a local school or community college and find ways to get employees involved. A group of like-minded change-makers can more readily organize and propose a paradigm shift, even if it is just within your facility or town.

The Knowledge Gap

Aging and subsequent generation identity are important issues in the world of manufacturing. Knowledge and experience are leaving and may not be handed off. A new generation of workers grew up with a very different landscape of tools and methods of learning. In training, these new learners may struggle with a mentor approach that can be sporadic in conveying information.

How do you make strides across the knowledge gap?

Laying a strong foundation of training in the basics for your industry can be an important supporting tool for bridging the gap. If the chasm you are facing is related to the preparation of various levels of experience, THORS courses can help.

The first thing taught is terminology. “From there, we build an understanding of the process and then cover how to apply the knowledge,” Kumar says.

Kumar says, “many training programs focus on teaching how to do something, but the “what” and “why” are crucial to understanding an entire process.” The understanding of the foundation allows for more creative problem-solving.

Skills Gap, Knowledge Gap

Once workers understand the terminology outside of their immediate responsibilities and department, they can have more effective conversations and collaboration with coworkers—“because now they understand what’s going on upstream and downstream from what they do,” Kumar says.

Perhaps by addressing the specific and relevant gap being faced, building a bridge across the skills gap can feel less like a daunting canyon and more like a manageable span over a narrow gulley.

We want to hear from you! Let’s discuss how THORS can aid in identifying and being a resource in your training operations.

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Categories
Course Highlight GD&T

GD&T: 3 Factors that Affect Understanding

Geometric dimensioning and tolerancing (GD&T) is a complicated and complex standard that can lead to reading and interpreting errors. On drawings, GD&T is used as a point of reference in order to easily and effectively manufacture products that meet the fit, form, and function requirements of the part.

Due to the complex nature of the standard, GD&T can be incredibly difficult for users to understand and interpret, potentially leading to a disconnect between the design, manufacture, and inspection of parts.

DATUM Reference Frame GD&T

Render of a datum reference frame fully constraining a part in all degrees of freedom.

To better comprehend why GD&T is such a difficult concept, the following are common factors that can limit one’s understanding and interpretation of GD&T:

Prerequisite knowledge:

GD&T is an advanced-level concept that assumes the user has a full understanding of the rules, conventions, symbols, and associated terminology of print reading. Users who have not mastered the basic concepts found on a drawing are woefully unprepared to understand the complexity and technical intricacies of GD&T.

Language fluency

In its simplest form, GD&T is a language comprised of symbols used on prints that offer an enhanced version of a drawing in order to clearly convey the design intent for the part. Thus, as a language, there are levels of fluency a user must acquire. Until a user is fully fluent in the language of GD&T, much like a native speaker in their mother tongue, they will not fully comprehend the dynamics and relationships between the part’s features expressed on a print.

2D vs. 3D perspective

In addition to the prerequisite knowledge and levels of language fluency, a user must be able to mentally conceptualize the relationships expressed on a drawing between the features of a part. Individuals who are not familiar with print reading and how a two-dimensional drawing translates to a three-dimensional part will find GD&T incredibly difficult to navigate and elusive to grasp.

Due to the limitations imposed by the standard on the understanding and interpretation of GD&T, the following crucial areas in an organization could be affected:

  • Bidding process
  • Prototyping process
  • Product quality

Bottom-line profitability can be drastically affected by issues in any one of these critical areas. However, organizations and individuals who dedicate themselves to mastering the basics of print reading, developing their GD&T language fluency, and shaping their 2D/3D perspective have the greatest potential for understanding this fundamental industry concept.

Kavita Krishnamurthy is an ASQ certified Six Sigma Black Belt with over 15 years of experience in the field of process improvement, manufacturing engineering, and quality management in the automotive and gear industries. She is also the subject matter expert of our GD&T Fundamentals course.

See our GD&T Fundamentals Course
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Castings

Green Sand: A Classic Casting Recipe

Casting Chronicles

The history of humanity is defined by man’s relationship with the material world. Man’s ability to make tools from metals has changed our historical trajectory.

A copper frog from Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) dating back to 3200 BCE is the oldest known casting. Farm tools made of cast iron were used in China in 600 BCE. In the Middle Ages, metal casting was widely used for making bells and artillery. Fast forward to the nineteenth century, iron and steel manufacturing underpinned the industrial revolution.

According to recent estimates published by the American Foundry Society (AFS), most people in the United States are rarely more than ten feet away from a metal casting: metal castings continue to permeate our lives in the Age of Plastic. Metal castings are indispensable to our engineering feats—automobiles, aerospace, construction equipment, machinery, house-hold appliances, medical devices, hardware, water industry, and other infrastructure. This year, in the United States, sales of metal castings will generate thirty-three billion dollars in revenue.

Casting: A Kaleidoscopic View

A casting is a metal part made by pouring molten metal into a mold, allowing it to solidify, and extracting the final casting. Metal castings are predominantly produced in sand molds. Sand molds are expendable, or single-use, molds that are destroyed after retrieving the casting.

Green sand is the most used molding medium; green sand is moist foundry-grade sand. Interestingly, green sand is not green in color.

Green sand molds are made from three ingredients—sand, water, and clay binders. The molds are fabricated by compressing the sand mixture around the pattern. Ferrous metals including various types of iron and steel are primarily cast in green sand molds. Non-ferrous metals, such as aluminum, copper, bronze, magnesium, and zinc, can also be cast in green sand molds.

What makes casting in green sand molds a timeless technology?

  • Versatile:  green sand can be molded to produce complex castings with extensive gating systems.
  • Tougher:  green sand withstands high temperature; the molds retain their shape when the molten metal is poured
  • Greener: casting with green sand is a sustainable process; the sand is recovered and reprocessed after every casting cycle and the metal scraps are recycled in an endless loop.
  • Leaner: the abundance of sand makes the process cost-effective.
Green Sand

Sand casting is constantly evolving, the new wave in the field is 3D printing smart sand molds. Additive manufacturing or 3D printing of sand molds is in its infancy and promises great potential. By all indications, sand casting is here to stay!

Casting (De)coded

A sound casting begins with a flawless mold. Green sand mold production is a world of contrasts—Simple, yet sophisticated; Mundane, yet masterful.

At THORS eLearning Solutions, we create courses that encapsulate the rich lifetime experience of our experts and provide valuable insights on mold making and producing quality castings. We offer a suite of high-quality casting courses presented in a visually rich, interactive, and engaging fashion. THORS is a trusted training resource to maximize the potential of your workforce.

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