The cooperative ventures help employers train potential and existing employees and provide workers with valuable new skills. The companies pay employees while they attend classes, sometimes on-site, during regular work shifts. Seventeen newly trained machinists have already graduated from the program. The Partnership has also given a grant to MSC-ST and a consortium of 12 businesses in southeastern Minnesota to provide training in industrial automation. The labor shortage has forced many industries to automate tasks, but skilled workers are still required to operate the new technology.
Equipment varies from industry to industry, but the underlying principles are the same.
MSC-ST will use the Partnership grant to create a new AAS degree in Industrial Automation to educate workers in these principles. Interior innovations O Sullivan, Winchester, Va., has received General Motors North American Appearance Engineering and Materials Laboratory s limited approval for its vacuum thermoformable TPO topskin formulation. The material meets the requirements of the GM2736M Class II, Types A, B and C specification for interior-trim materials. Additionally, O Sullivan, along with Visteon Automotive Systems of Utica, Mich., has introduced a new instrument panel and instrument panel coverstock design for the D-186 Ford Taurus and Mercury Sable program cars. Moves and expansions Arlon, Santa Ana, Calif., has announced that its Adhesives and Films Division acquired the assets of the Signtech materials business located in San Antonio.