I entered the 2007 Professional Welders Competition!

The contest took place during the AWS/FabTech welding show in Chicago this November, and was geared towards certified welders – seriously, check out the spec’d out procedure and you’ll see what I mean.

With some good prizes ($5,000 for first, $2500 second, and $500 for third) I couldn’t pass up the opportunity. Besides, I had a good time talking with the facilitators, the AWS Indiana Section put together a fantastic operation with everything needed to laydown some metal! I would like to comment on their choice of stick electrode holders – they were the basic “open jaw” type. Take it from me, if you do any Stick (SMAW) welding you need to step up to the Bernard ShortStub electrode holder. It is much more comfortable to hold, and the mechanical gripping power of the screw type rod holder allows you to have much better control of the weld puddle and even lets you bend the rod to better adapt to different angles etc.

As I said they gave you everything except time–You got 5 minutes and they weren’t kidding. As soon as I completed my last pass, they stepped into the booth and said time is up — stop now and they took my test coupon! It was a great experience and although I hadn’t done any Stick welding (SMAW) for many years I managed to laydown some good looking beads within the called out bead profiles etc.

It was good time and brought back memories of my early welding school classes at Pasadena City College. Best of all I got a cool 2007 Professional Welders Competition T-shirt! Thanks Guys. . .

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EDITOR’S NOTE: The AWS announced the top 12 competitors, out of 188 professional welders from all parts of the United States, and Canada! Read the official announcement, American Welding Society Announces 2007 Professional Welders Competition Award Winners (.pdf)

At the AWS/FabTech show I had the opportunity to attend the Executive Forum Breakfast, featuring Michael P. Collins, author of Saving American Manufacturing.

Collins discussed “The Chinese Threat” reminding us that they are not invincible… Remember in the 1980’s we were all learning Japanese, and training on Kaizen and other Japanese manufacturing principals? Then the Japanese manufacturers had trouble, and the U.S. once again became a world market leader.

In his presentation and his book, Collins cites good U.S. manufacturing innovators. However he warned of the upcoming labor shortage — that is happening now and the coming shortage when the majority of the Baby Boom generation retires. Good manufacturing jobs need to be filled from shop floor welders and fabricators to managers, and engineers. Sound familiar?

He suggested that U.S. manufacturers need to change their focus and look outward. We have been focusing on internal process improvement, lowering costs as a way to improve profitability. The successful companies he outlined have shifted to a marketing approach. They market to everyone – and have opened up non-traditional channels around the globe.

What Collins didn’t mention was that recent studies show that Baby Boomers are staying healthier, and staying in the game, retiring later than workers in previous generations. According to an AARP survey, about 79 percent of baby boomers don’t plan to stop working at age 65.

Maybe the impending labor shortage is not as bad as many predict. And maybe recruitment needs to be part of you marketing plan.

Everything you do should be focused on looking for new customers and looking for new workers with better skill sets. That’s my thoughts what are yours?

Many of us read the 2006 Wall Street Journal article, “Where Have All the Welders Gone, As Manufacturing and Repair Boom?” it certainly made the rounds at all the online forums and blogs and got everyone talking.

At the FabTech/AWS show the subject for the Leadership Summit was Addressing the Shortage of Skilled Labor in U.S. Manufacturing. The panel included representatives from the Department of Labor, the Workforce Development Office for the City of Chicago, and Director of Manufacturing for Caterpillar.

They called on everyone in the metal working business to become more active in spreading the word about metalworking and the opportunities it can provide for young people to earn a ”family wage” – that’s important there are a lot of jobs that pay a living wage, but you can’t raise a family on that.

The upshot was that many of these good paying manufacturing jobs are becoming harder and harder to fill because of the lack of skilled labor. The local high schools, trade schools and colleges don’t refer kids to these types of jobs as they did in the past. Many of the apprentice programs go largely unfunded as our current administration places no emphasis on manufacturing.

All the speakers pointed to many agencies where manufacturers can get the skilled labor they need to build a competitive company. They encouraged companies to reach out to their local trade schools and high schools by hosting open houses and other events to make educators, counselors and students aware of the good paying jobs.

At Arc-Zone, we’ve already made one step towards raising awareness in our own community. You may recall we are working with Cal State San Marcos on a couple of projects. I can tell you that not only were the students surprised to learn about the welding industry, so were the professors!

Going forward, we’ll be profiling different skilled labor jobs on this blog in the upcoming months… what will you do?

well you know the rest. While Jim Watson is at the AWS / Fabtech trade show in Chicago we’ve been busy here at Arc-Zone.com launching a new webstore.

We’ll be making an official announcement in the next day or so, and we’re still making some modifications, but it is working, it is secure, and it looks pretty good. We’re so excited– the new store will make it easier for us to bring new, innovative products online more quickly.

If you stop by the Arc-Zone.com store, let us know what’s working and even what’s not working… continual improvement only happens when we know what needs to improve!

Arc-Zone’s own Joe Welder, aka Jim Watson, is on his way to Chicago for the Fabtech/AWS (American Welding Society) Trade Show.

Jim didn’t have much time before he left to write about the show, but he did shoot me an email and asked me to post it:

For the longest time the AWS (American Welding Society) staged their own stand alone welding trade show in April of each year and it rotated primarily around the cities in the midwest.

With the continued acquisition of many small specialty manufacturers, the show’s attendance diminished and lost its luster. Recently the AWS and Fabtech shows merged to combine one big metal working extravaganza!

If your like me and love to see all the good stuff this is the palce to be!
Plan on it this weekend in Chicago!

See you there!
–Jim

There’s an impressive list of exhibitors at the show, and some great welding seminars and other programs, including the 2007 PROFESSIONAL WELDERS COMPETITION where you could win $2,500.

Expect a full report and maybe even some information and pics of some great innovative products from Jim when he gets back.