Quality Stamping and Machining
“With Chris and Emily, it was about two weeks from the first tool path that they ever made to the point where they could work on their own and start pumping out jobs.”
Introduction
Quality Stamping and Machining provides stamping, complex sheet metal forming, deep draw, Hydro-press, machining, and assembly. We specialize in precision sheetmetal parts and three, four and five axis machined parts. Quality Stamping and Machining has built a reputation on providing high quality precision parts and assemblies on schedule at a fair price.
Quality Stamping & Machining, located in Sumner, Washington, specializes in precision sheet‑metal fabrication and multi‑axis machining. Their core expertise includes:
- Metal stamping and form‑work using deep‑draw, hydro‑press, progressive, and tool‑and‑die forming techniques
- High‑precision machining, including 3-, 4-, and 5‑axis CNC work for complex components
- Sheet‑metal assembly and secondary operations, including bending, punching, and assembly of finished parts
They serve industries such as aerospace, manufacturing, and defense, and are known for delivering precision stamped and machined assemblies on schedule and at competitive pricing.
The Challenge
Hiring and retaining CNC programmers with Mastercam experience is a critical component of operating a machine shop. Mastercam is the most widely used programming software in the world and programmers with the right skills and experience enjoy great employment opportunities and compensation. So how do some of the largest and most successful job shops recruit, grow, and retain talent in this competitive job market? We sat down with John Bettencourt, CNC Department Programming Manager at Quality Stamping in Sumner, WA to learn more about how they have consistently hired excellent young programmers without luring them away from other companies or getting into bidding wars on qualified graduates. We also talked to some of their newest hires to learn more about their perspective and understand what impact this process has had on their lives.
When hiring a Mastercam programmer, it may seem obvious that the first two qualifications should be “knows how to use Mastercam” and “understands machining.” For companies who are new to Mastercam, or are very small, this is true, but there are very few available candidates who fit that short job description and it can be difficult to verify these skills. According to Bettencourt, the description of a “perfect programmer” should include many traits: strong computer skills, machining experience, Mastercam experience, a positive attitude, self-starting, good communication skills, a strong work ethic, as well as a willingness to learn and teach others. Short of finding that perfect person, nearly all new hires will require some training before they are ready. Teaching a core skill to a partially qualified candidate could require a lengthy and costly onboarding process.
To successfully hire programmers requires an understanding of what can and cannot be taught, knowing where to look for the perfect candidate, how to identify them in a crowd of prospects, and establishing the right support system to help them succeed. Owner Chuck Girtz understands this challenge and has built a process and a culture where employees are given the opportunity and the space to grow into a role that suits their individual skills and quickly provide value to the company.
The Solution
Finding the right candidate
An ideal prospective employee should have the desire to be in your industry and in that role, the personality and interpersonal skills to work well with others, and the professional skills to understand and perform the work. Finding a candidate with all three traits is extremely difficult, therefore, emphasis is placed on desire and personality traits over professional skills when selecting candidates.
To find candidates excited about manufacturing, Quality Stamping turned to the Aerospace Joint Apprenticeship Committee (AJAC) program for aspiring apprentices. AJAC is a partnership between the state of Washington and private companies to train the next generation of tradespeople. Anyone who signs up for AJAC is ready to take on a challenge in manufacturing, making it a great place to recruit employees for many different roles within the company. These individuals will take courses to learn the fundamentals of their trade and routinely tour and work at employer facilities to learn more about manufacturing as well as seeing it in action. Instead of simply participating and waiting for program graduates to apply after they complete the curriculum, Quality Stamping will actively recruit participants by observing them on tours and during internships. If you consistently show up, are excited to learn, ask great questions, work hard, express a curiosity about the process, demonstrate strong computer skills, or possess a special knack for the role, you are very likely to get noticed. Participants can often work, attend classes, and gain college credits all at the same time.
Prospective hires are rotated through several different roles and departments within the company in order to cross-train and determine areas of excellence. In a usual scenario, if 5 people are rotated through the programming department, only 1 or 2 will be selected to stay there based on their work. A CNC router is one of the easier machines to program, but it still requires great attention to detail and is a perfect place to identify recruits that have a knack for machining and programming. Individuals who can quickly learn to operate a router are given the opportunity to learn more about machining and program more complex parts. At this point in the process, the company has identified someone with the desire, work ethic, and basic skills needed to be a great programmer.The burden now shifts from finding them, to teaching them to be a great Mastercam programmer.
Implementation
Teachable Skills & A Culture of Learning
There are several things you can do to make it easier to onboard new hires. Some of them are relatively simple, while others require constant intervention and long-term planning.
Investing in the right resources for your team shortens the learning curve and maximizes productivity. Mastercam is the most powerful and widely used CAM program in the world and is a perfect solution for Quality Stamping’s CNC programming needs. MLC CAD Systems provides excellent local training and support, giving users every possible opportunity to grow and overcome challenges. If you couple that with the right machining, computer hardware, support, and employees – you will have all the tools necessary to be successful. Manufacturing and technology are constantly evolving so Bettencourt gives a lot of the credit for their success to Girtz for listening and responding to their evolving needs and challenges to eliminate external sources of failure and frustration.
“A great mentor can have a huge impact on a person’s career trajectory, especially for a skill as unique as programming machines. A mentor is the best way to bring a new hire up to speed and acclimate them to the company processes. However, not everyone would make a great mentor. Patience, a willingness to share, and a deep understanding of the work are critical traits of a great mentor. Unfortunately, potential mentors are often among a company’s best individual performers, so they may be too busy to spend quality time with new hires and share their knowledge. A great mentor combined with the support of leadership to prioritize mentorship and learning is critical to the success of this approach. Bettencourt takes his role as a mentor seriously. He frequently checks in with new hires, sends them out to learn from other experts within the company, monitors their work for growth and mastery, evaluates their strengths, and most importantly spends a lot of time with each one. “I was sitting right next to them. And I would stay late with them too. I would put in maybe an extra four hours a day working with them, getting them all dialed in to what they had to do… just going over the steps many, many times just to get the repeatability down. And then sort of throw a bunch of curveballs at them.”
The overall process is not complicated, but the impact of company culture cannot be underestimated. A company that hires based on work ethic, curiosity, and a willingness to learn will create a productive environment for new hires. A healthy and supportive team will help new hires become productive extremely quickly. Missteps are opportunities to learn and improve. Today’s trainees naturally become tomorrow’s mentors and the cycle repeats.
Results
We wanted to know more about how successful this approach has been for the company and for new employees. What was the most difficult thing to teach and has it been profitable? How long did it take for these new hires to become productive and what was it like as an employee to go through this process?
“One of the biggest challenges” according to Bettencourt “was explaining to them exactly how a cut works, like a climb cut, or conventional cut. Teaching them why certain tool paths just don’t work for certain scenarios. For instance, when they’re running parts in the router, why it’s always important to have a little bit of an overlap on your preferred cuts, you notice you don’t get a small bump there. How important it is to ramp into the material and then have an arc and a lead-in to get a nice smooth transition. Those types of things are difficult to get across to somebody who’s never cut parts before.” To really drive home the details, Bettencourt has them create and run their own programs from a completely blank project “because they have to know what all those settings are, changes always have to be made based on the conditions”.
And what about ramp-up time? How long did it take new employees with zero Mastercam or machining experience to become productive? “With Chris [Landers] and Emily [Wetli], it was about two weeks from the first tool path that they ever made to the point where they could work on their own and start pumping out jobs.” Bettencourt said. Once they get the basics down, they could access standardized templates the team had specifically created and optimized for specific challenges. “We’re talking about building a template for cutting 718 inconel. You don’t need the guy who’s been doing it for 20 years. You just need the information from that build template. Now you can apply it to the software”
Two of the new programmers we spoke with, Chris Landers and Emily Wetli, appreciated the opportunity to gain actual shop experience in addition to the AJAC coursework. Emily said “being in the shop was more than I ever learned in the classroom” because the coursework simply can’t prepare you for actually doing the job the first time. Instead of pursuing a more typical high-school job, both recommend searching for local apprenticeship programs or contacting local manufacturing companies to get started. Chris sums it up nicely, “to be honest, I really had no idea I was even going to work at Quality Stamping or even be a programmer. I knew I wasn’t going to have a normal teenage job like at Safeway or McDonalds, and I’m sure glad I didn’t, because now I’m working a good job, getting paid well and am very happy with where I am.” They both expressed appreciation and are enjoying their new careers and the opportunities they bring.
