Original Date: 11/03/1996
Revision Date: 01/18/2007

The Manufacturing Skills Campus operates as the training arm of Oak Ridge Centers for Manufacturing Technology (ORCMT). Drawing upon its rich resource of craft skills and knowledge, the Skills Campus provides intense hands- on and performance-based manufacturing training courses for government, industry, and academia.

Craft skills training, an important and powerful tool, has contributed to the successful manufacturing operations at Oak Ridge since the 1960s. Specialized skills and knowledge have helped employees develop and maintain Oak Ridge’s highly-technical and unique manufacturing equipment, facilities, and techniques. By the late 1980s and early 1990s, however, changing workloads and job markets created new requirements for the manufacturing field. These requirements included increasing the number of skilled employees in manufacturing, providing cross-training for employees, and furnishing additional training for transitioned employees.

In 1993, ORCMT set up the Manufacturing Skills Campus to address the changing workloads and new requirements. First, internal and external surveys identified the manufacturing training needs of government and industry employees. Based on these results, training courses and experienced instructors were developed. The training incorporates the knowledge and experience gained through decades of experience on numerous precision manufacturing projects performed at the Oak Ridge Y-12 Plant. Drawing upon Y-12’s core competencies, the training courses offer advanced hands-on precision machining, manufacturing techniques, materials technology, metrology, quality assurance, energy conscious manufacturing, and environmentally conscious manufacturing to its students. Each course, structured in a modular format, can be tailored to match the needs of the customer. The Manufacturing Skills Campus has partnered with government, industry, and academia through its Mobile Manufacturing Learning Center for high school students, Manufacturing Awareness Academies for teachers and students, and Train-the-Trainer program for instructors. The Skills Campus also delivers national broadcasts on industry-relevant topics via remote broadcasts, and a virtual training model which eliminates traditional cost and schedule barriers.

Unlike most educational institutions, the Manufacturing Skills Campus recognizes and addresses the educational gaps that are unique to the manufacturing community. These gaps exist in classroom and on-the-job training (e.g., most educational institutions typically do not offer training in the use of manufacturing equipment). To date, more than 4,500 students from government, industry, and academia have participated in ORCMT’s training programs. Students have rated the overall quality of the training programs and its instructors as a 5.0 on a scale of 1.0 to 5.0.

For more information see the Point of Contact for this survey.