Truline Industries, a Chesterland, Ohio-based manufacturer of machine parts and bearings for the aerospace industry, trains its employees at its own facility using Tooling University, a provider of online manufacturing training.

Truline rarely hires highly skilled machinists and designers. Most of the time, like an increasing number of manufacturers today, it has to develop its own specialists. For that reason, electronic learning through Tooling U has become a centerpiece of its training program.

While online education is hardly a new concept, Tooling U offers 500 courses that zero in on machining, manufacturing, welding, quality inspection and related areas. Many of those classes are also offered in Spanish or simplified Chinese. They are entirely interactive and move at the learning rate of its users.

"We tend to hire people who need the technical training, so we're using Tooling U to provide them the fundamental theory of machining, which is the foundation of everything we do here," says Stuart Watson, vice president at Truline Industries. "If I have an educated employee who knows the science behind the machining, then I'm going to have a better employee."

Tooling U offers 500 online courses in machining, manufacturing, welding, and quality inspection.

Truline provides Tooling U services to each of its 60 employees in-house, during the work day, fully paid. The education is cultivated toward each individual's level of experience -- whether that be in mill or lathe training, geometric dimensioning and tolerancing (GD&T), or blueprint reading.

Truline recently purchased eight Haas Super Mini Mills and three Haas VF2 mills and used Tooling U to transition Truline's operators to the new machinery. With lifelike graphics that show an exact replication of the control panel, the instruction program allows students to train on the machines without the danger of damaging the equipment.

That learning can be applied at the introductory level, refreshing old skills, or refining advanced experience to a higher proficiency.

When Tooling U is tasked with training a group of operators on a machine, the students must first undergo an intensive assessment, exposing what they know and what they don't.

View article on one page