[night owl]

Hi Guys,
So you think MACHINING is a dying trade? How many PROFICIENT machinery repairmen do you actually know? I know maybe 3 or 4 that are PROFICIENT, out of about 60 that are in our department. And out of that 60, probably 50 or more are within 20 years of retirement age. And NONE of the young guys show any indication that they are willing to put any effort into anything, except maybe staring at their cel phones.
I shudder to think what's going to happen 20 years from now when the last few "maintenance men" retire.
Rotsa ruck Yankees!

[Al_The_Man]

I think there has always been a dearth of people fully conversant in the field of Industrial Electrical/Electronics, the shortage and the lack of emphasis on teaching highly skilled Technicians that filled the gap between Journeyman and Engineer was noted back in the 70's in Europe by Siemens, who at that time created teaching labs, just for their own World wide equipment maintenance.
Also it takes a special breed to look after the modern Industrial CNC's, as the skills needed cross a few disciplines, Electrical, Electronic, Mechanical, Hydraulic for a few.
Also there may be a tendency for the industry to follow the same path that happened in the Domestic Electronics area, where there was also a scarcity of good technicians.
Systems became more modular, and throw away components made it easier to supply service personnel that became board changers, rather than diagnosticians.
I know from my own experience in the area I am in, skilled personnel are not being replaced to keep up with the growing demand.
One up side if you are in this category, you can virtually write your own ticket!
Al.

[brian257]

It is sad, but we are loosing good techs in all fields. I have worked in marine electronics for a long time and finding good techs has always been very challenging, but I do know good techs that make over six figures and will always have a job.

[underthetire]

What I see going away quickly are the old fitters. Try finding someone that can scrape and know machine metrology. We have 2 at work that are among the best, one is retiring in 6 months.

[FanFan]

Hello, There seems to be a lot of trades that aren't seeing the younger people entering. There are probably a lot of reasons. Lack of interest, lack of exposure and also a lack of entry level openings into the trades. I was wondering how other trades people would define proficient. I looked the term up on the internet and the word skillful was used. So is person who is proficent may not be an expert, right? What I see is that many of the better repair people are a Jack of all trade and perhaps a master of one. Sometimes some of those people will specialize in certain aspects of the trade. Specializing normally in mechanics or Electronics/electricals. What do you all think? FanFan

[Al_The_Man]

One of the problems is there is no 'defined' skill for many people working in the technical area as applied to, say CNC problem solving.
Most I know of have an Electrical or Electronic background, or both, and the rest is acquired knowledge, One associate I know that just retired, had both the above and also self learned the art of relining ways with Moglice or Turcite.
The is an example to of a desire to go further than the discipline you are trained in.
This is most likely the key.
Al.

[underthetire]

I will say, when I was hiring someone, I looked for machinist with mechanical background that wanted out of machining. Reason was, they already knew metrology, just maybe didn't know it yet, and they knew what the machine was supposed to do.