Photo courtesy of Toyota Material Handling, FORVIA Faurecia, and students explore career options at Manufacturing Day sponsored by Lindal and Cummins, Inc.
Local employers and educational institutions have teamed up to host a two-day event to raise awareness about opportunities in modern manufacturing.
Manufacturing Industry (MFG) Day is celebrated on the first Friday of October each year across North America. The event is held over two days in Columbus. One day for families and the general public, and the next day for high school students to learn more about how local manufacturing companies operate and gain unique hands-on experience.
The MFG Day open house will be held Thursday from 5:00 PM to 8:00 PM at Toyota Material Handling (TMH)’s T+Rex facility located at 6125 Inwood Drive.
Attendees will be able to attend demonstrations from Ivy Tech and Purdue Polytechnic Institute as well as sponsoring companies including Cummins, Enkei, Phobia, Lindal Group, Service My Restaurants and Toyota Material Handling. Registration is free and can be done at mfgdaycolumbusin.com.
Ivy Tech Community College will offer demonstrations in additive manufacturing, robotics, welding, drone flight operations, and advanced manufacturing machinery. Ivy Tech also organized a virtual reality module for career exploration.
The second event on Friday will be held at Toyota Material Handling from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., and will feature students from six different high schools. Students from Columbus North, Columbus East, Hauser, Scottsburg, Center Grove, and Indiana Digital Learning Schools will take tours of Cummins Midrange Engine Plant (CMEP), Cummins South, Toyota Material Handling, and Lindal Group.
According to the Columbus Manufacturing Day website, “Attendees will have the opportunity to see what actually happens on many manufacturing sites.” “This is not your grandparents’ manufacturing business.”
Artificial intelligence, 3D printing, augmented reality and virtual reality will all be on display.
BCSC C4 Director Gene Hack said 120 to 130 C4 students will participate in the event, which will provide students with valuable experience.
“They enjoy looking at different aspects. Sometimes it’s a (manufacturing) trade, but other times it’s just skills or opportunities going on that they hadn’t thought of. You don’t know what you don’t know. “So just touching on a few things gives them an opportunity to think differently about what their future looks like.”
What all involved want to dispel is the public misconception that manufacturing is “low-skilled, dirty, dangerous, and dark,” Huck said.
“(Manufacturing) is not the industrial revolution scenario that many people have in mind,” Huck said. “…It requires a high level of skill.”
Mr Huck praised the other partners involved, including local employers involved in organizing the event.
“It’s really driven by our partners, and that’s the good thing about it. We’re part of the planning team, but our manufacturer partners are the driving force behind everything,” Huck said. “…We provide several opportunities and discussions about what activities the students will do during their stay, and the students host the entire event.”
As for how C4 students’ MFG Day experience compares to classroom learning, Huck said, “Some things really connect.”
For example, C4 Automation and Robotics students are currently learning the fundamentals of programmable logic controllers (PLCs), which are used to control industrial equipment based on custom programming. Huck says that in the manufacturing world, “almost everything is run by PLCs,” so the C4 experience provides students with a useful foundation.
“We are doing more generalization and skill building, and then depending on which company the student chooses to go to, they will learn those specifics,” he said.
I like to think of hacks like driving a car.
“For example, you’re going to learn to drive a Chevrolet, but you also know how to drive a Ford, you know how to drive a Prius, you know how to drive a Cadillac,” Huck said. I did. “Now that you understand the basics, all you have to do is learn about that particular car or model.”
