June 07, 2006
Impact of EMD Workforce Part 3
President, SUCCESS by DESIGN
There have been media reports about the impending workforce crisis. How is this crisis affecting the electrical motor diagnostics industry? How serious is the impact? What can be done about it?
At the present time, there are a number of companies that have already developed special systems for remote alarm and PdM data collection. A number of newer technologies include the ability to transfer information via WiFi and Bluetooth wireless technologies. Variations of these systems collect data from transducers, such as vibration, temperature and others, and move the data to data analysis and database systems.
The data is then reviewed by ‘expert’ systems, developing neural networks, individual experts, etc.
Now, lets consider what is happening with the expertise related to the aging workforce using the predictive maintenance technologies that are being relied upon for new condition-based testing philosophies such as reliability centered maintenance, lean maintenance, etc. On average, it takes up to one year to learn a technology and three to five years of use to become proficient. A growing number of the existing technicians are falling into the over 45 year category and there is a trend towards retirement, including early retirement.
With the reduction in apprenticeship programs within many companies, and the trend not to provide on-the-job training and mentoring. In many cases, retirees are allowed to retire before a company replaces them and considers only basic technology training satisfactory, or drops the program. In reality, this ‘crisis’ can be an opportunity.
… To be continued …
