Where Are Your Hands?

Mark Albert’s monthly column in Modern Machine Shop magazine is always an interesting read; his recent column, “The hands, the hands” especially.

Mark’s hands are getting older (so are mine, so are yours). Hopefully, experience allows us to replace some of the lost dexterity more knowledge.

That’s fine for us but what about manufacturers? A constant question I hear is, “Do you know where I can find a good technician?” Sadly, they are getting harder to find. As the old hands age out of the work force, we are not seeing enough new ones coming in.

Increasing automation has been a fact of life for years and this means increasingly complex machines. That means less emphasis on the hands and more on the knowledge. Long gone are the days when a mechanic could fix almost anything with a Crescent wrench, a hammer and duct tape. Now the technician needs to understand programming, electronics for drives and controls, sensors and sophisticated pneumatics as well as the mechanical and electrical components.

Where do we find these people? It sometimes feels like our school systems focus on preparing students for college or unskilled jobs with not much in between. Where are the shop classes that used to be required in most high schools? There is only so much that can be taught in 50 minutes a day but it gave students a chance to get some hands on experience with tools.

Many of us found out that we liked that. After school we would tear apart cars, motorcycles, lawnmowers or anything we could get our hands on. Some of us took that knowledge and built careers on it.

Apprenticeship programs used to be more common in a wider range of industries. There are still some but they have dwindled dramatically in the past 50 years.

Where do we find the people, especially at entry level, who are willing to learn what it takes to be a first rate technician? And when they are willing, where do they go to learn?

These hands are getting old. Where will the new ones come from?