Posted on 02/26/2017 6:22:35 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
When BTD employee, Derrick Cariveau extends a hand to introduce himself mid-shift, his palms are a little dirty, and he talks a little louder to make sure his voice carries over the noise of welding robots.
The faint smell of welding smoke and coolant is detectable in the air—it's a shop where work gets done, but it's far from the sweatshop some may think when they hear "manufacturing."
Safety is always put first, and the reality is that with robots breaking into—and reshaping—the manufacturing industry, a lot of the heavy lifting is being taken care of by robotic hands rather than human ones.
However, adding robots doesn't mean BTD needs less employees. In fact, the manufacturing industry is hurting for workers due to a worker shortage sweeping the nation with the retirement of the Baby Boomers. The Detroit Lakes area is feeling that shortage not just at BTD, but at various manufacturing businesses around town.
Despite help from robotics, the industry is reliant on skilled, human hands. At BTD they still hand-weld low-volume assemblies—and they seem to always be struggling to fill those welding positions among others.
"Give me a good person, I'll put them to work," said James Vogt, director of operations at BTD, adding that he loves "bringing in these young people that love to fritz with technology."
Like Cariveau, for example, who has been with BTD for the last 8 and a half years after getting into the business through the school-to-work program at the Detroit Lakes High School.
"I started as pretty much a goat boy I called it," Cariveau said, recalling doing tasks like sweeping the floors, wiping off the machines, and laying down floor tape because he wasn't 18, the age he needed to be to work the machines.
But Cariveau stuck with it, moving up to a "parts chipper" position, sanding off weld splatter and, now he's the robot assembly lead, overseeing a team of about eight guys.
The "growing within the company" Cariveau did isn't uncommon for BTD men and women either. In fact, Vogt held a number of different positions within the company, starting as an operator on "the floor" before becoming the director of operations.
Over his 24 years at BTD, Vogt has worked with weldments, and moved into robotics before getting into "the planning side" of the business.
"It was a really fun way to learn the entire business," he said, adding that he was able to move into an executive position from there.
"You get a different look at the business as you do that, branching out with the business," he said.
For Vogt, it has always been about having a "career" rather than "just a job," and continuing to stay interested in that career.
"There's two things I always kept in sight: 1) be a successful person within the team--that's the first hurdle...then, 2) can I stay interested enough throughout this journey," he said.
And the best way he knew how to stay interested (and successful) was to keep learning.
"Forty percent of my time served has probably been spent training," he said, proudly pointing to a plaque he recently received for completing a leadership training. "You don't stop growing until you choose to stop learning."
As far as continuing to learn, manufacturing is the racket to be in, Vogt says—and Cariveau agrees.
"I actually love my job," Cariveau said. "It's like a new challenge every day."
But newcomers shouldn't be intimidated. BTD is willing to train newbies—if only to teach them all the acronyms. Also, Cariveau says the basics are pretty easy to catch onto with SWI's (Standard Work Instructions) on a computer at every station to show step-by-step how to do each weld.
"As long as you know the process at BTD, you should be able to work in any department," he said.
Not to mention, with a team leader like Cariveau, the crew is kept pretty well up to speed.
"I like to get here about a half hour before my guys and get them all up to speed. Then, after about 15 minutes I like to make a round and make sure everyone's having a good start up...(keep them) as happy as you can keep 'em," he smiled.
“I’m seriously thinking about learning CNC machining.”
That thought has hit me also. If the HPA goes through, there is going to be good money building firearm suppressors, at least until the market saturates.
At this point, I am just a hack machinist running 70+ year old machines.
“Are there really that many people who cannot pass a drug test? “
Back when the Barnett Shale was really going strong, a guy asked me if I wanted to drive a truck. He said that out of 25 or so people interviewed, he was lucky to find one who passed the drug, driving record, and would show up.
With the Navy that President Trump is going to build, many thousands of welders will be needed.
The HR mafia has the mentality that there is no four year degree involved in welding, therefore welders are stupid and worthless. WHAT! Try that reasoning with someone qualified for various grades of stainless, Hastelloy, Inconel, Incalloy, Alloy 20, and even titanium. That’s the stuff found in a refinery.
I World Strohm and Brown and Sharpes back in the day. Used some ancient Milwaukee lathes to make tooling.
Speeds and feeds...
L
This whole Medical Marijuana thing will have to be addressed by PDJT and Sessions IMHO to get our GDP numbers up. It is not just trucking, a like industry gnome of mine told me of troubles getting support personnel and borrowing one from 1/2 way across the country because a large number had flunked the pee test. At some point (sadly), I expect a lawsuit to challenge the pee test and negate it and hopefully we have a few new "Supremes" because if it gets fast tracked up by the 9th Circus, safety of our daily live would be in question IMHO.
For those of us with a bit of snow on the roof, and sometimes being told we are too old don't even apply, the fact that we would show up, be reliable, and be able to pass the pee test is everything IMHO. And if the Trump Economy kicks in like I think it will, HR departments might have to rethink the get-um in young and cheap and burn them out mentality, especially when that pool is inoculated with full time or occasional stoners...
Too many people go to college, waste their time, money and energy getting educated beyond their intelligence level. Too bad many of them cannot humble themselves to skilled labor.
I’ve been in IT about 15 or so and at times I would do a lot of what the on-site machinist does. Every so often I pick up a little from him.
If I had a few G’s free, I’d take the tech college crash course on CNC or welding.
There was a speaker at company function who was addressing the pending layoffs/retirement wave.
He was a carpenter up until his early 50s then the family business went under IIRC. The guy went to law school and passed the bar.
“Speeds and feeds...”
There is an app for that...
Oil companies require pre-employment screening and random drug testing.
Did it in the early '70s and loved it. Then joined the AF and as technology evolved, got into IT...the nice thing about CNC is that if you have any mechanical aptitude at all, you can be trained form next to zero to being productive in pretty short order - if you work the machines. Programming isn't that tough either - only limited speed/feed/direction combos so if the tables are accurate, a fine finished product is a sure thing. Of course, we had a programmer that bore the moniker of "Crash Craddock" as he often had trouble visualizing things and was wont to have a tool block return to home by going through a chuck or piece - was always interesting trying out one of his programs for the first time.
Programming might get boring but would be an easy way to earn a living and some of us just enjoy turning out physical products to fine specs.
My cousin went into manufacturing. His friends thought it was beneath them, but he loves it. He is 25 and he owns a house and he went to a votech school instead of a regular high school...
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