business backgrounder | employment & workplace
inside the trailer
Stepping inside the mobile training unit is like walking into
a long, narrow and extremely well-lit science classroom. A
bank of computer monitors lines each side of the trailer,
each with a desk chair tethered in front to keep from rolling
away during transit. The computers that go with the monitors are secured beneath little desk tops that jut out from
the side walls at 45-degree angles.
The really specialized equipment is in the front and
back — the 3D prototype machine, a coordinate measuring
machine, a portable CMM and a Haas Control Simulator to
name a few.
Mike Fitzpatrick, a manufacturing instructor, calls the
mobile training unit a “complete integrated factory.”
“Start at the front and train your people to create
solid models using Solid-Works and Mastercam X5,
then test the code on the HAAS CNC simulators,” he
said in a release describing the unit. “Then the worker
makes the part on the prototype printer and inspects
it in the back of the unit using the universal language
PC-DMIS software.”
If any of those acronyms make sense to you, then you
might want to schedule a visit from the mobile training
unit. Then again, if they don’t make sense, you might be a
prospective student.
In any case, the Aerospace Joint Apprenticeship Committee has the equipment and the
staff to help Washington’s current
and future aerospace workforce
Aerospace Joint
receive the training they need.
Apprenticeship Committee:
“I’m excited to get out there,”
www.ajactraining.org
said Terry Hegel, a former high
school metal shop teacher who
AJAC Mobile Training Unit:
bit.ly/ajacmtu
is the instructor for the mobile
training unit.
winter 2012 53