Due to the success of the partnership Ranken formed with bioMerieux, the College established a new machining micro-enterprise last August, which began with the manufacturing of various parts for St. Louis-based Hunter Engineering. The cooperative has grown to include partnerships with other companies like Ehrhardt Tool and Machine, Triad Manufacturing and Kemco Aerospace. Like bioMerieux, Ranken students are hired and receive specialized workforce development training and education which results in an on-campus job as well as college credit. Unlike bioMerieux which is located in the Mary Ann Lee Technology Center, this new operation is based out of the Precision Machining department and is under the direct supervision of PMT instructor Ben Wohldmann. Both mico-enterprise partnerships fall under the Education and Manufacturing Cooperative department under the direction of Vince Holtmann.
Congratulations to PMT students Nicolas Goris, Jeremy Franklin and Ghregory Wellmaker who were the first to complete the 90 days of training and evaluation to become lean manufacturing machinists! In this position students are expected to ultimately take responsibility for ordering/receiving material, sawing, process design, programming, production runs, inventory control, quality control, and shipping of the product. "This really is a win-win situation," said Holtmann. "Our students get the opportunity to apply the skills they are learning in shop in a real world work environment, Ranken has the chance to partner with great local companies which help provide equipment and become potential employers for our students and the companies find a cost-effective solution for having parts made without having to send the work overseas." "We are really proud of the work our student workers are doing," said Wohldmann. "We are very strict about what goes out the door and they are meeting our high standards by ensuring only quality parts are shipped to our customers."
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