Cultivating Growth Through Training Grants
When Greg Sexton took over MCS Laser Services in Westford five years ago, he introduced something new to the company — employee training.
“The way this company is going to grow and become more competitive is through developing the employees,” he said.
MCS is one of seven Central Massachusetts companies to receive a state Workforce Training Grant in the latest round of awards, announced earlier this month. Altogether, 28 companies received more than $2 million from the fund, which is financed by Massachusetts employers. The companies receiving the money must pledge to create new jobs, something many employers say they expect will be made possible by the increased business they expect to gain through the new training.
MCS, which does cutting, welding and other laser work for a variety of industries, received $61,200 to train 32 employees, and the company has promised to create four new jobs. Sexton said the funds will help the company adopt lean production techniques and build a training program in which trade school students and young workers will learn from experienced mentors. He said the average tenure among his employees is nine years, and they typically pick up much of their skills on the job.
“People don't take classes in this,” he said. “What we do is develop our own people. We do have trouble finding skilled laser operators.”
Focus On Specialized Skills
Kristan Coffey, a human resources generalist at Alden Research Laboratory in Holden, said the engineering company is also using its award to give employees specialized skills. She said even highly skilled engineers may not be completely familiar with the specialized software the firm uses. Alden also tries to help entry-level workers advance within the company.
“The nice thing here is you can start out as a technician and work your way up,” she said.
Coffey said that besides building technical skills, the company will spend a significant part of its $119,700 grant on leadership and team-building training to ready workers to take on managerial roles. She said the money from the training fund encourages companies like Alden to make training a priority, even though everyone sometimes feels too busy to take on one more thing.
Steris Isomedix Inc. in Northborough is using its $47,000 to train 40 workers on the perennial manufacturing subject of lean production. Plant manager Jody Dean said the company has used lean techniques in the past, and it's using the grant to make sure all its locations can get up to speed.
Dean said it's something Steris's clients, mainly larger medical device companies, are demanding. He said the big guys typically have lean engineers on their payrolls, and they want suppliers like Steris to be able to speak their language when it comes to getting orders filled efficiently.
“We simply are a much smaller outlet,” Dean said. “It does help us respond to their requests.”
Adapting Lean Methods
For Stellar Industries Corp. in Millbury, a $32,640 award is the second Workforce Training Fund grant in recent years. President Ronald Visser said the company used the previous grant for lean training.
“It hurt us the first couple years,” he said. “I think as we were learning the program, we became less efficient.”
Visser said it was hard to adapt lean methods because Stellar is a custom manufacturer that constantly changes its physical setup, adding steps to the assembly line and moving machines and parts in and out to handle different products. Eventually, though, the company developed its own way of implementing lean concepts — for example, improving the facility's layout so fewer things had to be moved for each new job and cleaning up the production line so workers could easily find tools. One key, Visser said, was having a fresh set of eyes on a manufacturing process that had developed organically over decades.
“Over the years you develop your own way of working,” he said. “Before you know it, you have about 1,000 Band-Aids on each of your processes.”
Stellar is using its new grant to get an ISO certification, something that should help it win more jobs. The universal certification means individual customers, like Lockheed Martin, or Raytheon don't have to send their own inspectors before buying from the company.
Lentros Engineering in Ashland is also using its grant to seek a universal certification to help it get defense work. The company does work for Raytheon; President Peter Lentros said the training will help it qualify to work on more sensitive projects.
Lentros said the company has already received training through Raytheon on subjects like lean manufacturing and Six Sigma.
“I think it changes your thinking,” he said. “Every time you do something you think, 'Is that the best way to do it?'”
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