In 1871, the first professional baseball game was played in Fort Wayne, Indiana. And today, almost 141 years later, Indiana is proving to be more than just a great place to hold baseball games, it has become a welcoming host to the manufacturing industry.

In 2003, Brian Emerick narrowed the focus of his Columbia City, Indiana based manufacturing plant to concentrate on the medical device industry after business in other segments had slowed down. Today, Mr. Emerick says it was the greatest move he ever made for his privately owned company, Micropulse Inc. Now, Micropulse has upwards of 200 employees and operates out of a 100,000 square foot manufacturing plant in Columbia City, Indiana, just 30 minutes outside of Warsaw where medical device manufacturing moguls such as Biomet, Symmetry Medical and Zimmer are headquartered. Fortunately, Columbia City is far enough from the Warsaw that is has no trouble finding qualified help. Emerick says, “There’s a rich manufacturing heritage in the area. It’s a very stable climate”. Micropulse has experienced steady expansion since it started and with the help of Whitley County and the state of Indiana it’s been able to further its business even more. In 2007, Micropulse was given tax cuts and matching funds to help add 47,000 square feet to their manufacturing facility in Columbia City.

While Warsaw has proven to be the orthopedic device manufacturing capital of the world, Northeast Indiana is in close second. With Fort Wayne at its center, the 10 county region is home to over 60 medical device companies that employ almost 2,000 workers. The areas proximity to Warsaw is also a major factor. In fact, it was a major selling point to Iotron Industries Canada Inc., a manufacturer that uses electron-beam radiation technology to sterilize agricultural products and medical devices. Iotron, which is based out of Vancouver, is currently finishing up a $15.3 million project that will build a new 54,000 square foot facility near Columbia County which is due to start production in 2012.

Not too far from Iotron, Fort Wayne Metals, which already has six facilities in Northeast Indiana, is expanding their production capabilities even more with a $12.9 million expansion project that hopes to create approximately 68 jobs by 2014. The metal manufacturer produces fine-grade wire used in medical tools.

While the medical device manufacturing industry is booming in the region, Northeast Indiana’s largest money makers continue to be industries such as transportation equipment, metals and plastics and rubber. General Motors is the region’s biggest industry employer and just recently announced in October that they will invest almost $275 million in its Fort Wayne plant in order to develop its next generation pickup truck.

Government officials in the region have made it a top priority to make sure the 335,000 industrial employees in the region continue to be properly prepared and placed for their work in the manufacturing field. With this effort in mind, there is a $20 million grant in the works, named the Talent Initiative, which plans to improve the industrial skill sets of the areas labor force. The Talent Initiative, which is being funded by a philanthropic foundation based in Indianapolis, will attempt to retrain adult workers for manufacturing jobs that are evolving due to changing technologies, expand engineering programs at Indiana-Purdue Fort Wayne and start New Tech high schools that utilize project based learning models in an effort to keep the youth interested in the manufacturing industry.

While government intervention is a great way to amp up industrial training, ultimately the responsibility is left to manufacturing employers to ensure their workforce is properly trained with the right industrial skill sets. At ITC Learning we offer superior industrial training that is offered through a variety of mediums, each of which enables trainees to educate themselves on the basic and advanced industrial skills sets necessary in the manufacturing industry. Contact ITC Learning today to find out how you can get stared.

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Last week General Motors announced they will start manufacturing the Chevrolet Equinox at its plant in Tennessee. They also plan to start producing additional midsized cars there in the near future. The $244 million investment is expected to create almost 1,900 jobs at the former Saturn plant located just outside of Nashville. To get the ball rolling, General Motors will initially invest $61 million and plans to generate nearly 700 jobs to begin producing the Equinox by July of 2012. The remaining $183 million will be invested to manufacture 2015 models of unnamed midsized vehicles and create another 1,200 jobs. GM officials would not say more in an attempt to keep their competition on their toes. The upcoming move will allow General Motors to react to the growing demand for a greater variety of models.

In Idaho things are less definite but hopes are just as high. Zonda USA, a Chinese manufacturer of electric buses plans to move its U.S. office to Boise, Idaho in the next year and eventually start producing its electric buses in the southwestern Idaho region. Although the Chinese corporation has refrained from announcing when and where a manufacturing plant would be built or just how many jobs the plant opening could create, local Idaho government officials are optimistic of the move but are also realistic in that nothing is definite yet and the process may take some time. At its Chinese plant, Zonda USA, a branch of Zhongda Industrial Group in the United States, can produce nearly 15,000 buses in a year with a workforce of about 6,900 employees. Zhonga decided on Idaho due to the fact that the region is located relatively close to Pacific Ocean shipping ports and conveys a business-friendly outlook. Elected Idaho officials realize the project is only in the beginning stages of becoming a full-fledged move to their region but that has not stopped them from growing eager about the possibility. Nampa, Idaho Mayor, Tom Dale, said, “They’re a prominent company in China, and the technology with these electric buses seems to be leading edge.” Only time will tell what will become of this project, but the hope is that it will boost the local economy and create thousands of U.S. manufacturing jobs.

With the possibility of new manufacturing plants opening in the near future, plant managers need to be sure employees are trained and educated to their full potential. ITC learning is dedicated to providing full motion courseware, CD-ROM courses and online courseware that focus on essential industrial

With the economy seemingly inching towards recovery, manufacturing managers seem to be more confident in posting more job positions. However, as we discussed previously, filling these positions with skilled workers has proven to be a difficult task. Many prospective hires are in fact hard working individuals eager to work. But often they lacked the essential skills necessary to work effectively and efficiently in a plant. So, how can manufacturers ensure their new hires are properly trained and suited for the position?

More than often new hires have had some form of manufacturing experience, but their skills may not be specific to the job you hired them for. Industrial training is a sure way to know your employees are trained for the job they do every day. By implementing the industrial skills training necessary for your employees to perform their jobs well, you’ll discover you can mold the perfect employee. Instead of waiting around for someone else to produce the knowledgeable employee you’re searching for take the opportunity to create the worker your company needs. In 2009 it was reported that employers spent approximately $126 billion on employee training and development. Numbers like this prove that developing the skills of industrial employees is something worth investing in.

Through the use of online industrial training, like ITC Learning’s, you present your plant with the opportunity to tailor online courseware and develop homegrown talent and avoid having to wait around for the right employee to find you. Industrial skills training programs that utilize SCORM based software and full motion video courseware provide trainees with the critical knowledge and functions of their jobs that they would likely have not learned through conventional training on the plant floor. When new hires are trained solely on the floor, trainers often skip steps because they’ve run through the process so often they simply forget to relay every detail. However, in online manufacturing training trainees are taught processes and methods step by step so that nothing is left out. Online industrial training also allows employees to understand how the machines they work with operate and why processes are done a certain way so they can properly troubleshoot any situation that may arise without having to ask someone else for assistance.

Ultimately, industrial training is an effective way to properly train your workers for the job they were hired to do. With ITC Learning’s online courseware you can track the progress of your employees and tailor each course to suit your plant’s specific needs. Contact us today to learn more.

The Association for Manufacturing Excellence has been a driving force behind the Rebirth of Manufacturing Jobs initiative. The project hopes to stimulate the manufacturing job market by reaching out to policy makers locally and nationally. The goal of the program is to get executives and government officials motivated to join and develop efforts to increase awareness of the green movement and manufacturing’s goal in it. It also aims to unite nearby businesses into groups, also called consortia. The objective of the consortia is to increase productivity and solve problems linked to regulations, access to resources and lack of a well trained work force. The end result will hopefully revitalize the industry’s business and increase the demand for skilled industrial workers. However, the government will need to take a stand for this initiative to be successful. By building awareness first and eventually a framework and infrastructure, policy makers will allow consortiums to create a network of productive and environmentally conscious manufacturers.

Over the years manufacturing jobs have rarely been hard to fill. However, with budget cuts and downsizing as a result of the recession taking a toll on the industry, reports show that nearly 32% of manufacturers found it difficult to fill jobs due to lack of skill and improper training. While there are plenty of workers with experience, many lack extensive training that can become a determining factor in the selection process.

ITC Learning is dedicated to training and retraining industrial employees. Our interactive courseware and easy to use management software are ideal for any business. As the economy inches towards recovery, well trained workers will become an important commodity to all manufacturers. Adequate training and advanced skill sets will make workers more marketable in the job market and more likely to land a job in the industry.