Fanuc America offers CNC training for schools

Fanuc America Corp. introduced the Fanuc Certified Education CNC Training program for schools in North America in June. The program is designed for students to graduate with the knowledge and real-world skills to be immediately productive at running a CNC mill or lathe.

Program manger Dean Steadman says this offering addresses the need in manufacturing for skilled CNC operators and programmers on Fanuc CNC equipment, one of the industry’s most popular choices of controls with the largest installed customer base.

“With all of the production increases going on in the woodworking industry, there’s a shortage of CNC operators who are qualified to run those machines. We want to offer this program to as many educational institutions as possible and that includes all high schools, community colleges and universities that want to adopt it. We are partnering with those schools so their students are ready to go right out of the gate,” Steadman says.

The program ensures that students learn the skills the industry demands from Fanuc-certified instructors, using a Fanuc-approved curriculum on Fanuc CNC equipment. The comprehensive curriculum teaches the critical aspects of CNC machine setup, operation and programming. Student certification requires passing both an academic and practical skills test.

Students in the program will first write, edit and proof programs using 3-D solid-model animation in NCGuide software running on a PC. Using a USB memory stick, they then transfer the part program from NCGuide to the CNC on the machine either in the classroom and/or a workshop and then perform setup and testing.

“A lot of schools have CNC programs in place and this program can complement the ones they already run. Perhaps they are already using machines by different manufacturers, but this helps them with Fanuc machinery. Fanuc has the largest installed base of CNC machinery in the country. It makes sense that they should be trained on this because this is what they could be using in the real world,” Steadman adds.

Contact: Fanuc America Corp. Tel: 888-326-8287. www.fanucamerica.com

This article originally appeared in the August 2014 issue.