New Century Careers (NCC), a non-profit workforce development organization, has announced a new business solution, New Century Job Shop.
New Century Job Shop will assist manufacturers by producing parts from prototype to small batch production runs, all while creating revenue to supplement the cost of training more skilled workers for jobs in southwestern Pennsylvania.
Located at NCC's Training Innovation Center, located at 305 E. Carson Street in Pittsburgh's South Side neighborhood, New Century Job Shop was created to more effectively produce skilled workers, including tuition-free training and placement assistance, all in direct partnership with employers.
NCC already supports programming for pre-employment training/MANUFACTURING 2000 (M2K) and incumbent manufacturing workers and its employers/MANUFACTURING 2000 PLUS (M2K+) to advance economically through continuous workforce education and training.
"However, many capable trainees and graduates have pre-existing barriers that make it difficult to obtain work or sustain themselves in a prolonged job search," said Paul Anselmo, NCC President and CEO. "At the same time, through discussions with partnering employers and regional stakeholders, NCC began documenting an unmet regional need for the production of reasonably priced prototype and small batch runs of machined parts."
New Century Job Shop will help manufacturers by:
- Assisting SMEs by providing parts for prototype to small batch production runs, all while creating revenue to supplement NCC's cost of offering tuition-free training
- Creating a larger pool of well-trained technicians with some marketable experience for manufacturers to hire for entry-level skilled positions
- Providing controlled work experiences for M2K trainees.
"We are excited about bringing new real-world experiences to our trainees, while also supporting our long-standing relationships with local manufacturers," said Neil Ashbaugh, NCC Director of Services. "The model is already working. Several projects completed during the pilot period have produced solutions for local manufacturers."
Working with Innovation Works and a start-up in one of their entrepreneur cohorts, looking to source metal components for a new consumer product, NCC staff, trainees and instructors developed and provided consultation for "Design for Manufacturability" (DFM). This allowed the start-up to conduct critical testing and design alterations to meet quality and delivery needs. NCC trainees used NSS Job Shop equipment-a CNC lathe, CNC mill and a 5-axis machining center-and developed all programs, workholding and tooling solutions to successfully produce the prototype components.
New Century Job Shop now provides a local source to sharpen and produce cutting blades for a Pittsburgh-based medical device manufacturer for use in its manufacturing process. NCC trainees and instructors reverse-engineered the cutting blades, designed a precision fixture to hold the cutting blades and produced six sets of customer specified blades. The company will now use the job shop for repeat orders. NCC trainees used engineering design software, precision surface grinding equipment and precision tolerance measuring to ensure the blades were sharp and could withstand the thousands of cuts that each blade will make during the life of this consumable product.
"This partnership will contribute to the economic health of our region by creatively addressing the manufacturing skills gap and meeting today's manufacturing needs to deliver precision products," Anselmo said.
For more information contact:
New Century Careers
305 East Carson Street
Pittsburgh, PA 15219
412-258-6620
info@ncsquared.com
www.ncsquared.com