So management at your facility has agreed to pay a CMM trainer to come on-site and conduct some much-needed training. If we just stop there (with the training is scheduled) you’re almost certain to be disappointed down the road. For CMM training to be effective, and wind up being worth the $ your facility is spending on it, it mush be mapped out, much Captain Jack Sparrow plots of course for his ship – The Black Pearl. In short, if you fail to plan, you’d better plan to fail.

Okay, so where to start? I’d begin with the end in mind. Let’s walk through a common scenario. A facility has a new CMM, for our discussion we’ll say it’s a DCC CMM and until now, the facility has only used a manual machine. If I were contacted to be your trainer and was planning 2 days of training at your facility I’d ask you a question.
“Do you want me to train your operators about different steps needed to write some very basic programs, or do you want me (during the training) to write a part program for one of your parts? “

You are probably going to opt for the second. Now you’ve already failed to realize that you’re expecting the 3rd floor to be constructed before we built the basement. Learning to use a certain CMM or CMM software is like learning a new “toolbox” of features, downdrops, movements, constructions, etc. Before you can begin creating something with all these tools, you must learn what each tool can and can’t do. So often as a trainer I’ll hear my contact at the facility say something along the lines of “well, can we just ahead and do this?” And as the trainer I’m thinking – “well, if you could, then why haven’t you yet?” I know – because you don’t know how, that’s why you called me and when I suggest how to get from point A to point B, you want to take a short-cut. What I know (that you don’t) is the short-cut will eventually get you lost, and then someone at your facility will feel that your trainer (me) didn’t provide adequate training. Your CMM trainer knows more than you do, that’s why you called him, so listen to him when he says you can’t build the 3rd floor before the basement.

I recommend during the planning phase of your training, you send your trainer digital pictures or part drawings of what you’d like your operators to eventually need to measure and let the trainer explain what “foundation” you’ll need before the training on “constructing the 3rd floor” begins. Sometimes a facility’s eyes have really been opened to this. I’ve had facilities realize this is not a concept that “just anybody” will grasp in 2 days and they realize it’s a better bang for their buck if the training is specialized for one or two people who will most likely be your “star players” on your CMM. We should talk about that in a little more detail.

I have seen this so often – management is paying $2500 for 2 days of CMM training and some whiz-kid at the facility comes up with the bright idea of “getting as many people as we can in the training”… not smart at all. When you have people of different knowledge levels attending the same CMM training, your trainer is in a ‘try and please all and he with please none” situation. The training goes on for about 15 minutes and then the rookies start asking questions. When the trainer tries to answer them, their lack of knowledge is often exposed more when they don’t understand the answer and just ask another question. While the rookies waste more and more of the ($150 per hour) time, the experience operators, who are actually prepared to accept a challenge and learn, are rolling their eyes because the training is covering CMM concepts they’ve already understood for months or even years. Wow, getting all these people in the training is really getting the most of our $ hasn’t it? – NO !

You may, believe it or not, have a CMM operators at training that, for a variety of personalities reasons, like to play “try and stump the trainer” in front of his colleagues. This can be very frustrating for the CMM trainer as well as the other people sitting in for the training. I’ve had 45 minutes debates about why a company’s DCC software calculates using different steps (to get to the same destination) than their manual CMM’s software. All of these hurdles take time away from the nuts and bolts of what the training should accomplish.

My suggestion is very simple. You should decide in advance that you’re only going to have your best CMM “troopers” attend the training, and obtain as much bang for your company’s buck that their brains will absorb. After the training is finished you can develop a plan to have those operators train “the masses” whenever it fits your schedule. If this concept doesn’t sit well with your management team and they still want as many people attending the training as possible, then I strongly suggest appointing someone to sit in (or stop in periodically) and make sure the training moves along. When you see your training is getting delayed in a discussion that winds up going nowhere, you can step up and say (to your operator) “Okay Bob, we need to move this training along and maybe get back to that at the end of the day.”  (Translation – site down and shut up, you’re holding up the entire class). Trust me, your trainer will thank you later.

I realize these are not easy choices to make. One involves politely telling management that they don’t know (what they don’t know) about maximizing the benefit of CMM training. The other choice involves telling one of your operators, that they have no tact, and don’t realize it. But hey, it involves a CMM – nobody said it would be easy.

Richard Clark is a Metrologist, CMM programmer, and CMM trainer from Indiana. Feel free to e-mail him at cmm_rockstar@yahoo.com