Howdy all,
I'm looking for some advice on finding out where my company can go to find good CNC machinists for the Oil & Gas industry, as well as the Aerospace industry. What advice do you have for a newbie?
Thanks!
Michelle
Howdy all,
I'm looking for some advice on finding out where my company can go to find good CNC machinists for the Oil & Gas industry, as well as the Aerospace industry. What advice do you have for a newbie?
Thanks!
Michelle
Where Are You Located
You need to grow your own. We put an apprenticeship program together and took the best employees that we had and trained them in house. Schools were of no use to us (High school or Jr College), the JC instructor told me he had no students that he could even recommend to me. That is how the future is looking. Pretty sad. After the apprentice program got started, everyone wanted in, until thety found out they needed to qualify first, as per the program standards. That meant proof of apptitude on the job, BEFORE consideration of allowing them into the program. They actually had to be able to do something in the shop. We had to teach and they had to learn and the company had to make money too.
You likely won't find any (decent) machinists out of work.
You'll have to steal them from other shops. The ones that want to be working are. Especially the good ones. There's almost always a demand for (talented) machinists, and most don't do temp agencies.
Unless they're just starting out, in which case they're not "good" machinists. Yet.
Machining is often considered an "art", and it takes time to be good at it.
As was suggested, you might consider telling your clients to look from within.
Matt
San Diego, Ca
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(Note: The opinions expressed in this post are my own and are not necessarily those of CNCzone and its management)
i need jobs programer for gibbs cam , master cam , campat . i live in garland , tx
Do you need machinists to work at the shop or is your shop willing to send prints/drawing/sketches via email then the shop (my shop) can make the parts? I say this because we can machine the parts or tooling with drawings.
i am wanted to relocate in america currently i am in edmonton alberta with experience on setup and operation of haas, tosnuc and heidanhein cnc mill
Michelle,
What part of houston?
chris
[email protected]
You're the "Sub out people?" Something you need to understand right away. CNC professionals for the most part are good enough they don't like folks leaching off the top. This may work well for menial labor and office work, but this isn't office work nor menial. The talent you're likely to get will be the floatsum of the trade. Not exactly a good thing for you to be leasing out to other companies if you want to maintain your credibility. If your leased out CNC worker makes a screw up and ruins $20k in the blink of an eye, how does that reflect on you? This is the nature of the beast. Good ones don't need "sub out people" and bad ones will kill ya.
What would be the salary for a person that can design in solids, design molds, make parts programs in Mastercam and work in the Machining Center.
Michelle, I have been an aerospace machinist for 14+ years. Your best bet is to take out an ad in places like Seattle, San Diego, a few Virginia locations or call some of the top companies and politely ask their HR department where they find their employees.
Hi Michelle,
I’m from Grand Rapids Michigan. I didn’t like the statement someone made of “all the good cnc people already have jobs” because, there are MANY unemployed Journeyman Machine Builders, Tool Makers, and cnc people, in the Grand Rapids Michigan Area, and in the whole state. Industrial jobs are leaving Michigan like Rats jumping off a burning ship! Many manufactures are closing or moving to Mexico. I would say in the last 5 years, Michigan has lost over half the industrial skilled trades jobs. There is a lot of industrial talent going to waist around here, like electrical engineers, and Tool Makers, now working at the Home Depot Hardware store, etc., that should be building and wiring up machinery.
Well then give me a call because I need real machinists for my shop in Seattle
Hi Michelle,
You're leaving a lot to the imagination. How much are you willing to pay, and where do you need us, and what kind of programming / designing do you want? I've been in Aerospace in all manner of design and CNC and once you get the experience that someone like me has, it's best for both the company and myself to work as a contractor. Most shops won't pay the money I want (or many experienced CNC machinists (and that means experience in both the engineering, design, programming, set-up, inspection) for full time, and even more so they don't need to. You can find dedicated employees that know CNC programming well or machining well, but they are in high demand and you will pay a premium to get them out of, what is probably, a comfortable job. If you want someone experienced in all aspects, chances are they are self employed or you're REALLY going to have to pay them high wages.
We have a low shop rate and do every thing from injection mold tooling to custom motor cycle rims, reverse enginered heads for a 1965 Cushmman, to cnc rapid prototype parts. Our rate it 45.00 per hour and we are in the U.S.A. We are not yet ISO 9000 certified but we will be soon. We are not huge so we pass the savings on to the customer. We are open 24-7, just not in a row (2 man shop). Send me an email, at least let me quote it to see if I charge enough.
Jetski (alias Tooling and Engineering Czar)
"I may not have the keys to success.. but I have learned to pick the locks"
MrWild my hat is off to you. Those are very good points. I know many places are always looking for do it all machinists and those kind will settle and find a home in the current environment. Too it is possible to hire from the trade schools of which there are a few very good ones like TSTC in Waco Texas. Those guys are sought after and they will not go to a sub out type outfit but a solid established company. (likely the one who subs to you maybe!) With a lot of effort you may be able to woo someone away from the entrenched job they currently enjoy if you pay them a lot of money and guarantee benefits and a great work environment where they are not stressed out to the max. Also what kind of capital assets actually make a big difference also because if one has these machines which you have and they are not as productive as other machines or if your tooling is substandard it just creates problems. Many do not like the unknown either. I think since you are a sub that what Capitol investment you have is not as good as who you may do the work for. Too during a downturn those customers who are giving you business will draw it on back to protect their skilled workers from flying the coop.
And yet when I told a youngster from Michigan who wanted advise about getting started in the machining industry in another thread (might even have been on another forum) that my advice was to find another line of work, I got reamed from several people including a guy from Michigan. I knew how hard you guys got hit up there with the failing auto industry. From what little I've read about Detroit, it might as well be in another country. My heart goes out to you guys.
It is true that good machinists are hard to find today.. Machinists in my area aren't all that well paid. But then most of the people I work with couldn't be called machinists much less good machinists. Company I work for has managed to hire 3 or 4 in the past 25 years. One didn't stick around very long. One we got because the owner of the shop 150 yards up the street retired and sold his business to a company that dismantled it and sold everything including the building. We got lucky. Not only is he a good programmer, but an excellent machinist. Believe it or not, I interviewed one guy who said he had been programming Okuma lathes for 2 years, but he didn't know that a drill was programmed with an X0 on a standard 2-axis lathe. You would think that even if he programmed using conversational programming he would know that much.