A national skill standard for packaging technicians?

Do we need a national skill standard for packaging machinery technicians? There is a growing chorus of people who think that we do. Other industries have skill standards, accredited certificate programs and accredited educational programs at the high school, community college and university levels. But to my knowledge, no such standard exists in the USA for packaging machinery technicians.

A group of workforce and economic development officials, packagers, machinery manufacturers, technology providers, and educators have begun serious discussions about how to leverage existing bodies of knowledge into a fast-track process to create such a standard. It's not that the requisite training and education isn't being provided, although somewhat sparsely. But, it's that no one has gone through the rigorous process of creating a skilll standard from this body of knowledge.

A skill standard would enable schools to create curriculum to an agreed upon minimum set of skills and knowledge. Students could be granted a credential that would indicate their level of achievement and that would be transportable around the country. Employers wouldn't have to guess about a prospective employee's capabilities. It sounds like a good thing.

What do you think? Do we need a standard? At what level should it be: conventional machinery and conventional trades; or mechatronic machinery and multi-skilled? Should it equate to a couple of hundred hours of training, or to 2 or 4 semesters of college? Should there be a series of certificates beginning with machine operators and move up a career ladder? Should it be technical only or include soft skills? Does such a standard exist in other countries? Who should sponsor and maintain such a standard? Do you have experience or resources that you could contribute to the effort?

Let me hear from you on this important topic! I'll see that you comments get to the appropriate parties.

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Comments We need to get the employers more involved in the content of the curriculum. The job targets for training can be too broad and miss the basic skills in favor of more advanced skills. Soft skill training needs should be addressed as a standard. The last time we looked at a standard with education and employers for packaging, the top two things were Common Sense and Value of time. If we had standards, we could stop thinking we are behind the rest of the world. Posted by: kevin lipsky on February 5, 2008 Keith, I am in favor of a skill standard. There should be enough basic mechanical, electrical, pneumatic, and controls troubleshooting to provide a basis for testing. I also support soft skills as an integral part of the course. Technical skills are useless if communication and teamwork aren't there. I could potentially contribute experience to the effort. I have almost years experience in food & pharma maintenance and engineering. Posted by: Troy Herr on February 21, 2008 Post a comment (If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.) Name: Email Address: URL: Remember personal info? Comments: (you may use HTML tags for style) Type the word 'packaging' (required):