I have read some of the previous posts and here is some thoughts I had on why welding training faces so many challenges. One thing that has to be considered in all this though is the true demand, as opposed to our perceived demand, for highly competent "Professional Welders", as opposed to the large demand for cheaper labor who can perform incidental or simple repetitive welding "well enough". Anyhow...
1. Demand / Wages for good welders. It takes an extreme amount of high quality and expensive training to make a first class welder. While everyone would like to employ a first class welder, the percentage of work that actually requires one, and therefore offers the wages required to get and keep one, are relatively speaking, few.
Men who have the ability, desire, and self-discipline to become a master level welder are evidently even fewer. Employers who want a skilled and credentialed professional to perform physically demanding work, frequently with a significant discomfort level and/or hazardous work environment and/or with poor equipment, for 18 or 20 bucks an hour (or less), just seems laughable sometimes.
2. Academic model for Community Colleges. Much welding training is performed at Community Colleges. Many (if not most) CC curiculums are developed within the framework of the established academic model. This frequently means courses and financial aid are directed at completion of a two year degree.
Unfortunately the hours allowed in a two year degree program are regularly inadequate. In Washington an AA is limited to 120 quarter credits. 18 are general ed. With the typical 1 hour lecture or 2 hours of lab equal to 1 credit, this results in the rough equivalent of 32 weeks of fulltime (40 hour per week) training in a vocational discipline.
Some states or schools are much worse. In California I attended a program that allowed about 60 semesters units for the degree. A full academic year (30 units or so - something like that) was dedicated to GE. The hours available for skill building was rediculously small.
The academic model simply provides inadequate time for thorough skill and knowledge developement in a vocational discipline - particularly one requiring the developement of hand/eye coordination.
These types of issues are unlikely to change without industry involvement / pressure directed at the educational system.
3. Background of incoming students. The vocational training that students receive in junior high and high school (if the programs still exist) is commonly minimal. Many of these shop classes are 50 minutes long or so. Some of that is consumed during set up and clean up. In addition, the class sizes are commonly large.
It is the norm for grown men coming into a college welding program to not be able to add, subract, multiply, divide, or otherwise work with feet, inches, and fractions - much less perfrom simple geometry or right angle trig with these units. A frightening number also grew up without ever owning a decent set of tools, or perhaps none at all.
Simple task that involve threaded fasteners, like changing a gun liner or stinger, are not something that an instructor can count on the students to be able to figure out on their own. Slightly more complex tasks like shiming shear blades, changing saw blades, and making machinery adjustments can end up rather expensive when parts get ruined.
Much of the limited training time available must be dedicated to covering what seems to be simple tasks.
4. Quality of instructors. There are some real good ones, but there are many that don't have both good teaching and good technical skills.
How many programs are run by instructors who can demonstrate how to perform code quality welding with all common processes, on steel sheet, plate, and pipe, in all positions? How about with aluminum and stainless? Ceramic backing? Using a purge or backing gas? Air Arc? Hand beveling with a torch? ........? How many of those instructors who can't will stay after work practicing until they can? How many can explain arc dynamics? How many throroughly understand and can explain every knob, switch, and setting on every machine in their shop?
How many of the technical experts have the social and leadership skills to motivate their students, get along well with their colleagues, and work well within an educational beauracracy? And the organizational skills to manage a shop, keep equipment maintained, forecast and justify supplies and equipment, dispose of the same, advise students, help place students, recruit, make industry contacts, maintain curriculum, etc.?
Top quality instructors cannot be expected without reasonable compensation available for those with the skills above. And students can't be taught what their instructor doesn't know.
5. Demand for students. Success of a training program is commonly measured by enrollements and completion rate. The fact that few people in society actually have the mechanical and mathematical aptitude, as well as the personality traits necessary to become a top hand, is often overlooked. Many of the few who do have the desired traits will become engineers, management, or something else besides welders.
Training programs should not expand to meet the demand for enrollement. If quality of output is to be a priority, programs need to be kept small enough to allow culling out those who are not serious, or redirecting those who are unsuitable for the job, while still having enough customers waiting in reserve to replenish classes every quarter or semester to keep them full. If a program is underenrolled, the chance of being shut down is real, as we continue to see. If a program has been "built up," it can lead to a situation where poor students may be carried to keep an instructor from being layed off, or to keep the program from having its doors closed.
6. Welders don't have a trade union. I believe it was WW1 when congress determined that welding would not be a union trade, but rather be a tool of the union trades. I wonder what the training emphasis would be like if all welding normally conducted by the existing union trades was done by professionals out of a welders' union? Welding students would have a union to shoot for if they and the training program they attended did a really good job. Maybe this would be better, maybe not?
7. The title "Welder" has no well defined meaning. The term can cover an infinite range of workers from the high school kid running short circuit at the muffler shop, to the production dual-shield welder doing limited position work on heavy plate, the beam shop or general fabricator, a pipe fitter who goes out as a welder, the crack Boeing TIG specialist, to the guy repairing rust holes in the local waste company's dumpsters. This leads to misunderstanding when we try and discuss issues with training, wages, employment opportunities, etc.
Some kind of standardized ranking system for welders based on their skill and knowledge could be valuable. But without a uniform demand for it by those who pay welders' wages, or short of some kind of legal requirement, I think it highly unlikely it would ever go anywhere.
Obviously there are many more factors that come into play with training issues - the welder's image, manufacturing going overseas, complacent American industry, automation, and on and on.
Other opinions / thoughts on challenges facing welder training, how it could be improved, and how some of these issues could best be resolved?
You bring up many valid points, I'd like to touch on your 7th. I completely agree that a standardized ranking system would be a valuable tool for the industry as a whole. The AWS has such a system in place with its Entry Level Welding, Advanced welder and Expert welder training program. There are SENSE schools out there who meet the criteria set forth by AWS to maintain high training standards but I have to agree that not much of the industry has recognized the need for this type of standardization. I believe that this is changing, a few organizations buy into the theory that there is a need for training standards across the country.
I've taught overseas in a country which adopted this belief and directed that any state run program use the standards set forth by the government. Of course this works for smaller countries that are equivelant to our states in geographic size and population.
Our challenge is to bring the majority of our states into the same philosophy.
I can say that I see it starting with the NCCER (National Center for Construction Education and Research). If you haven't heard of them then email me and I'll give you more info. They are progressively being accepted by many states Educational Departments to replace old insufficient state competencies in all aspects of construction or vocational training. I've used their "national" curriculum for 3 years and can say that they gone as far as to revise their books to align their competency requirements with those of the AWS. This being done to develop a standardized training and ranking system that would be consistent across the country.
It's going to take concerned citizens like yourself within the welding community to take action on your beliefs.
I appreciate your comments and simply say lets keep talking about it, because if it's talked about enough it can become a reality.
My take is:
1) There are many folks working at wage rates well above those you describe. In the building trades $25-$30 plus benefits is more like it.
2) I'm not convinced that community colleges attract those desiring to be the first class welder you described above, they seem to me to appeal more to the hobby type welders. The most serious welding student is most likely to be found down at the U.A. apprenticeship school, or the Ironworkers or Millwrights or Boilermakers, ect. Of course I work in the construction world so my outlook is slanted that direction.
3) The dedicated apprentice from #2 above has already learned to do the appropriate math, and use of handtools before he gets to the welding course.
4) My experience with apprenticeship programs is that the quality of instructors is quite high. Many are working full time in the trade and either share their expertise in the evening, on weekends or between jobs. This puts real world experience in the classroom/shop.
6) Many jobs, especially smaller ones, only require welding part of the time, the rest of the workers time will be spent in other trade tasks. A "welders union" as you describe would be inefficient , a hand in a craft needs to know and understand that craft to some extent even if he spends most of his time welding.
7) Of course the term welder covers a wide range of skill and ability, so do the terms teacher, cook, Mom, equipment operator, cowboy, painter and on and on. To impose another government bureaucracy on buisness, this one to try and classify the many types of folks termed "welders" will only further handicap those seeking to employ that welder dude. When the job requires a certain set of abilities, those involved in the industry do an excellent good job of testing welders to the appropriate standard.
regards,
JTMcC.
JTMcC -
You have some good points, and also demonstrate the point I was trying to make in #7. Welder is not a defined term. Boilermakers are boilermakers, Ironworkers are ironworkers, etc. The title "Welder" really seems to fall outside of the union trades - ie someone who fabricates and may be expected to perform diverse welding operations fulltime.
I am familiar with the scale for the unions as I was a Union Ironworker myself. But as I said, relatively speaking, code or other strictly inspected and high paying work does not make up the majority of electrode deposited every day.
You are right that CCs attract a broad spectrum of students. I would say most students have absolutely no concept about what union construction is, how to get in, or even what "Ironworker", "Pipefitter", "Boilermaker", etc are, much less what they do. When asked why the enrolled, many "just heard welders get well paid." Many of the better students like this get directed towards the unions once at the CCs.
If a school has a hobby curiculum, and some certainly do, they will attract hobbyist. Schools with well thought out industrial bias are not attractive to hobbyist. Few show up, and if they do they will not stay after learing they really won't be allowed to build their little projects. So it depends greatly on the program director at the school.
My take on apprenticeship training is it is generally very good given the goals of the training - ie to make a "Boilermaker" or whatever. The fact that safety, applicable math, and applicable tool use is covered well is great. Having someone at the hall that can demonstrate the application of code quality welds is wonderful. A good apprenticeship can build a First Class Pipe Fitter. But at the same time I don't think the training generally builds what I would call a "First Class Welder." This not because the particular skills gained may be less than excellent, but because of the narrow scope of the skills.
I haven't met many Pipefitters that where too proficient welding aluminum, using an E71T-8, or running an air arc. Or Ironworkers that could handle an openroot TIG 5G, work stainless, or compute tube bends. Or many of either who thoroughly understood the controls on a variety of powersources ("that dial belongs on the second biggest scratch mark"), consumable selection, or a whole host of other pretty basic welding knowledge. Is that bad? No, it isn't required to accomplish the specific jobs they perform, but this wouldn't fit my idea of what a "Welder" should know or be able to do.
I don't know how many hours every local dedicates to welding, but if I recall correctly ours did a couple nights per week for either a quarter or semester. I feel that with motivated students with reasonable aptitude 1,200 hours should be considered an absolute minimum training block for welding. And that 2,000 hours would be much more appropriate for real proficiency.
While I do think it likely that a Welder's Union could result in more skilled and knowledgable "Welders" on a job, I agree that the logistics of it would be very cumbersome and probably not practical given the way things have already been established.
To clarify, I did not advocated government intervention - I feel less government is generally better government. Simply said that without it I doubt the idea could every go anywhere.
Although I doubt obligatory standarized tierd credentialling for Doctors, Nurses, Lawyers, etc. has either lowered the demand for their services or harmed their pay rates.
There are "appropriate standards" in welder testing that could be improved. Probably the item with the most room for improvement would be the D1.1 structural steel unlimited thickness plate test. This test doesn't come close to measuring the skills required for the work it is supposed to qualify a welder to perform. The FEMA 353 recommended test is much better with its single bevel, thicker plate, and rathole restriction. Although I think even this test would be greatly improved if backgouging and backwelding where required on a second joint configured to mimick an upper beam flange. A single bevel Chinese vertical wouldn't hurt either. I saw a job where a test like this could have saved a contractor 10s of thousands of dollars if not significantly more in rework. Of course a contractor could take the initiative to not rely solely on the AWS test if they wished.
Anyhow, these are obviously very complicated issues and lots of differing perspectives from various professionals should be expected.
Thanks for the input.
Rod
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