IACMI-led partnership working with Tennessee Tech University
The goal is to strengthen and diversify the U.S. metal manufacturing workforce, focusing on casting, forging, and plate rolling.
A partnership with The Metallurgical Engineering Trades Apprenticeship & Learning (METAL) program, led by IACMI – The Composites Institute®, is helping Tennessee Tech University’s Department of Manufacturing and Engineering Technology build the future of American metalworking and manufacturing one metal pour at a time.
The university recently completed its first week-long metal casting bootcamp as part of its workforce development partnership with METAL, an industry-driven initiative to strengthen and diversify the U.S. metal manufacturing workforce, focusing on casting, forging, and plate rolling. It’s funded by the Department of Defense’s Industrial Base Analysis and Sustainment Program.
Fifteen participants – including Tennessee Tech students and a University of Tennessee at Chattanooga professor – received intensive training is casting, forging, design and quality inspection processes.
“This is about workforce development. We’re giving participants hands-on experience in high-demand fields, and the certification of completion they earn at the conclusion of the bootcamp is a credential they can be proud to put on their resumes,” said Ismail Fidan, Professor of Manufacturing and Engineering Technology at Tennessee Tech and Principal Investigator for the contract.
That certification of completion is from the Metallurgical Engineering Trades Apprenticeship and Learning (METAL), and it demonstrates that each participant has gained both technical knowledge and practical skills, qualities employers in advanced manufacturing are actively seeking.
The bootcamp kicked off with a demonstration by the participants using a “foundry in a box” setup for high schoolers attending a campus engineering summer camp.
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