Given that plastics are not covered in mainstream education, they’re a mystery to most people outside the plastics industry. So it’s not surprising when new workers come onto a company’s production floor knowing little or nothing about polymeric materials. Proper training then becomes the key to long-term success. But that’s easier said than done.

When you consider all the things employees need to learn in order to make a good plastic product, providing even adequate training may seem like a difficult task. To learn more about the challenges today’s companies are facing, Plastics Engineering asked three experts well-versed in educating plastics workers and professionals about the current challenges and future needs of the industry for training a young workforce:

• Craig T. Paulson is president of Paulson Training Programs, Inc., a company he co-founded in 1977 along with his father, plastics industry pioneer Donald C. Paulson. Paulson Training provides a broad range of in-plant interactive training courses, world-wide e-learning solutions, and expert-led seminars to help plastics industry professionals compete on a global scale.
• Hank White is the director of the Plastics Innovation & Resource Center and serves as adjunct faculty at Pennsylvania College of Technology. White has extensive background in plastics and elastomer R&D management and manufacturing processes.
• David Hoffman is the senior instructor/education development manager for Beaumont Technologies, Inc. He’s also worked as a part and mold designer, process engineer, and engineering manager.

Plastics Engineering: What are plastics processors telling you about the skill limitations of current/potential workers these days?

Paulson: Workers who are currently employed have the basic skills the company needs to get product out the door. But most companies don’t have enough of these people. Second and third shifts suffer as a result. Prospective employees very often have no plastics background and sometimes even no manufacturing background. We are seeing more and more companies implement in-house training programs, because they are realizing that the skilled-labor shortage isn’t going away any time soon and they need a first-class workforce to compete. 

White: There is often a significant skills gap between graduate plastics engineers and entry-level workers who have been trained to operate the machines. Machine operators are often chosen for employment based upon their mechanical abilities and work ethic demonstrated by a documented work history. Often, these employees lack an understanding of the basic plastics materials behavior and process efficiency parameters which can result in maintaining
optimum product quality and manufacturing process efficiency.

Hoffman: Companies are realizing that education needs to go beyond process training. Processing is only one piece of the injection molding puzzle. People involved in this industry, regardless of their job title and function, need to have a solid understanding of plastic materials, processing, part design, and mold design. Those four key areas interact in a very complex manner.

Not everything can be, nor should be, solved by a process change. Having a deeper understanding of the interaction of those areas will allow someone to develop a critical thought process that will help them troubleshoot, solve, and prevent problems from occurring... whether in the part or mold design phases, or material selection and processing phases.

Closing the Skills Gap

PE: What skills are untrained plastics workers weakest in/lack the most?

Hoffman: Our evaluation tests indicate math is one area where some skills are lacking, followed second by a lack of a good understanding of plastic materials. But this really depends on the person’s background and current job function. If their background is engineering, then the math comes easier to those folks, but they may struggle in other areas such as processing and materials.

Paulson: Basic math and science skills are definitely lacking across the board. For employees who have plastics industry experience, they typically don’t understand the “why” behind what they are doing. This severely limits problem-solving ability. I spoke with a processor just today who told me that many of his employees are pretty good at setting up and running their machines, but the training programs from Paulson have opened up a whole new world of understanding for them. This is creating enthusiasm within the ranks and a desire for more training. A classic win-win.

White: Untrained plastics workers would likely be weakest in skills associated with the technical aspects of molding and the overall understanding of plant operations, beginning with the fundamental principles of molding, extrusion, or appropriate plastics processes. Also, understanding plastics, production monitoring, quality, and safety are likely areas that would benefit from additional training.

PE: What plastics concepts typically are the hardest for these workers to understand/learn?

White: Understanding the general nature and properties of plastics and understanding process technology, including the economic impact of making rejects, blocking cavities, and cycle-time variation. Also, how to effectively troubleshoot using scientific and systematic approaches, as well as understanding the cause and effect relationships between the machine, process, mold, and material. Another aspect is how and why polymer behavior is influenced either by the manufacturing process, downstream processes like heat sealing, etc., or environmental conditions.

Paulson: We’ve found that chemistry and rheology are the things that unnecessarily scare people. It is necessary to have a basic understanding of these topics. As long as it is taught in plain language and immediately connected to the “why they need to know this” (i.e., understanding processing “from the plastics point of view”), it quickly becomes a non-issue. The other area that is weak is basic math skills. We teach employees the math they need to know in the context of the job they are expected to do (i.e. tell them up-front why they need these basic math skills).

Hoffman: The flow behavior inside a mold is typically hard for people to grasp, simply due to the fact that you can’t see it happen without the aid of simulation or special molds that are built to include the ability to record plastic flow in real time. Another area is the critical thinking needed to solve, or prevent, problems. This again is often attributed to a lack of knowledge in other areas besides processing. 

Problems… and Solutions

PE: What difficulties are plastics processors facing in getting workers trained? What are some solutions?

Hoffman: Some of the bigger obstacles seem to be the usual suspects: cost and time. There is no quick two-day or two-week fix for education. Education is a long process and requires discipline and commitment from the students themselves up through management, both in cost and time.

Paulson: Training employees is actually quite easy, once top management buys into the idea that the “new normal” in the plastics industry is having a robust in-plant training system that can produce a consistent supply of qualified workers. Companies that treat employee training the same as all the other systems that go into getting product out the door are the top 20% of our industry.

Measuring training ROI [return on investment] is a big issue for some companies. Training is looked on as having “soft” ROI (not easily measured). This is a misconception. Training ROI is easily measured, particularly when compared to measuring the ROI of the accounting department, for example, which has zero ROI.

White: There is a lack of on-site and/or on-line programs available for plastics workers that are cost effective and require minimal manufacturing disruptions. Manufacturing managers often are restricted by budget restraints and production quotas.

Penn College offers customized training programs at the facility. The Global Standards for Plastics Certification training program offered by Penn College is a possible solution which provides documentation of workers’ understanding of machine fundamentals, function and operations, plastics materials and handling, safety procedures, and other critical skill sets needed for efficient production.

Future Plastics Personnel

PE: Have you noticed any “attitudes” or points of view that young workers have about working in plastics?

Paulson: The single biggest problem our industry faces is that high school and college students simply are not aware of the tremendous opportunities plastics manufacturing offers. A newly degreed plastics engineer will have his/her pick of job offers. At the high-school level, the problem is the same: zero visibility. Ironically, the next generation is surrounded by more plastic products than have ever existed, but they know nothing about how their toys and devices are made.

Paulson’s new partnership with SPE is aimed squarely at this problem [see this month’s “From SPE”].

PE: What should high schools/colleges be doing to better prepare future plastics workers/professionals for work in the plastics field?

White: At the high school level, guidance counselors and influential individuals should be educated regarding the benefits of a plastics career, including the average salaries paid to workers and the demand for employees. Often, perceptions discount the desirability of a manufacturing occupation. 

Penn College NOW [www.pct.edu/ k12/penncollegenow] is an example of a program that allows high school students to earn Penn College credits through dual enrollment. Plastics process and testing equipment is loaned to high schools or tech schools to conduct projects and demonstrate plastics processes.

Paulson: There needs to be more outreach programs to raise the visibility of plastics as a career. A “large” plastics engineering graduating class might have 30 engineers. Compare that to hundreds of graduating engineers in other fields from good engineering universities, and the issue becomes pretty clear. Kids aren’t choosing electrical or mechanical engineering over plastics engineering. They’re not even considering plastics engineering.

However, one note of optimism is that the plastics students we deal with are incredibly excited about their prospects. Paulson is dealing more and more with consortiums of education and industry who are partnering to train skilled workers in plastics-centric manufacturing areas.