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GBI Cincinnati Partners With St. Clair College To Open Ford Centre For Excellence In Manufacturing
Providing industry with a skilled and motivated workforce is a difficult challenge for institutions of higher education. Technology changes constantly, as do the needs of manufacturers.
St. Clair College in Windsor, Ontario has met that challenge head on by developing community partnerships to help strengthen the quality of it educational programs. The result of one such partnership is The Ford Centre for Excellence in Manufacturing (Ford CEM) at the College.St. Clair College offers two and three-year diploma programs in manufacturing technology and skilled trades, along with a comprehensive list of programs in such disciplines as business, hospitality/tourism, health sciences, international business, human services, media communications, and general arts and science.
The Ford CEM is a $32.6 million advanced learning center, which opened in September 2003 . The 100,000 square foot facility provides modern machine shops, mould, tool and die, engineering and CAD labs, and an applied research facility. The project is a joint partnership effort of a number of manufacturers such as Ford Motor Company, Daimler/Chrysler, Cincinnati Machine and others, and the Ontario Government SuperBuild Growth Fund.
In 1998, the Canadian Tooling Manufacturers’ Association identified a trend that indicated that by 2005 there would be a shortage of some 3,500 skilled workers in the automotive manufacturing industry created by retirements alone. Combine that with the anticipated steady growth in the industry in Canada and there is a forecast shortage of skilled technicians in this area, said Ann Hetherington, Director of Marketing at St. Clair College. ?Our goal is to provide those skilled people through our advanced manufacturing curriculum at the Ford CEM.The Ford CEM will accommodate 1,300 new students and will deliver training in metal cutting, mechanical technology, millwright, industrial automation, and plastics engineering technology to name a few.
There are 10 individual programs, said Daniel White, Technical Advisor for the Ford CEM. We also have our, 4 year first degree offering , a Bachelor of Applied Technology in Industrial Management. Graduates from the program will be equipped for positions in the original equipment automotive industry, as well as in the tier one, two and three supplier base.
Partnering With IndustryA key part of the program is the partnership agreement with GBI Cincinnati. Through the partnership agreement with St. Clair College, GBI will provide the school with an initial machine tool installation, startup assistance and on-going technical support for the life of the program. The value of the entire package is valued at approximately $900,000.
Initial machine tool installation to be provided by GBI Cincinnati includes six V-CNC 500 Vertical Machining Centers with Fanuc 21i controls and Value Added Package, three Arrow 500 Vertical Machining Centers with Fanuc 18i controls, and two Hawk 150 turning centers with Fanuc 21i controls, all manufactured by Cincinnati Machine.
On-going technical support will include seminars on small batch processing, high speed machining, die and mold production, four and five axis machining with rotary tables, five axis machine processing, lean manufacturing, six sigma, and enterprise systems and networking. Terms of the agreement include a machine tool migration strategy provision that provides the school with continuing equipment upgrades over the next four years.
All of us at GBI Cincinnati are proud to be a major partner in this modern learning facility, said Kevin Bevan, President of GBI. With the cooperation of our employees, suppliers and customers we will provide the Ford CEM at St. Clair College with a continuing series of seminars to help keep faculty and students current on advanced machining techniques and processes. We’re also arranging student tours at the facilities of some of our selected customers, he said.
Staying On The Cutting Edge
The migration aspect of the partnership arrangement is a critical to the success of the whole program. In the second year of the program, the school has the option of removing one V-CNC and adding an Arrow 750 Series 2 VMC with Fanuc 18i controls, a 4th axis rotary table and a 12.5 K spindle. The third year option includes removing a V-CNC and adding an Arrow 750 or 1000 with 18i controls, 4th and 5th axis rotary tables, 12.5 K spindle and an upgrade to 18i simulator. The fourth year option includes removing a V-CNC and adding one FTV 640-1200 with NURBS and a high-speed spindle, one of the more advanced machines available.
We’ve been teaching mostly three-axis machining for 15-20 years, said Bob Martyniuk, Professor of CNC/CAD/CAM. The migration portion of the agreement will allow us to move to four and five-axis machining. Many companies in this industry aren’t using five-axis machining yet. We have an opportunity at this school to be ahead of industry needs and to be able to provide the graduates they need for the future, he said.Another aspect of the partnership agreement with GBI Cincinnati is the contact it has generated with other equipment suppliers. For example, Fanuc has put six 21i simulators in our CAM room. Renishaw is going to let us try a digitizing unit for six months and then provide one at discount to us. GBI has also helped us locate quality milling vices that we needed for the program, said Martyniuk.
I believe we had 23 proposals to supply CNC equipment, White said. GBI Cincinnati understood what it means to be linked with an educational facility and wanted to form a relationship that was more substantial that just the sale of equipment, he said. The school needs a CNC machining equipment supplier that is going to support us for the long term. We believe we’ve found that supplier in GBI Cincinnati.
Part of the partnership agreement includes GBI Cincinnati’s sponsorship of a BattleBot design contest for engineering students with two $1,500 scholarships awarded to those students with the best designs.
There is a lot of interest in battling robots among young people now, Martyniuk said. This design contest is a good example of combining learning with popular subjects, and we believe it will bring a tremendous amount of attention to our program.
Is the partnering the new approach to developing strong academic programs that reach out to student and industry needs That approach is working well at St. Clair College.
In the end it goes back to our students and giving the college the ability to graduate high caliber students, students with skills, critical thinkers who can go out into industry and really contribute to a company’s bottom line, White said.