Useful Info on the Web
By Cindy Macdonald
While apprenticesearch.com (1) will fail to help most readers find an apprentice immediately due to its membership limitations, there's good information for everyone buried in the site. I found a repo...
While apprenticesearch.com (1) will fail to help most readers find an apprentice immediately due to its membership limitations, there’s good information for everyone buried in the site. I found a report on how to retain apprentices, based on interviews with apprentices, and offering strategies for employers. There’s information on government incentive programs for apprentices and employers. There are self-assessment tools for students and detailed job descriptions for a broad range of skilled trades. The job description for moldmaking is a little off target about where moldmaking apprentices might find work, but that’s a minor detail on what is generally a good, information-rich site.
It fails as a job matching site because of its geographic focus. Only companies in the Peel-Halton-Dufferin and Hamilton regions of Ontario can register to access the inventory of apprentices and post job offerings. The site is a joint project of Human Resources Development Canada and the Halton Industry Education Council.
From the report “Apprentice Retention in the Skilled Trades”, here are the 10 key retention factors: appreciation, liking co-workers, loyalty, communication, pride, responsibility, safety, financial support, access to training, work/life balance. The report was released by the Industry-Education Council of Hamilton. To download the full report, there’s a more direct path through skilledtrades.ca (2).
2. www.skilledtrades.ca/assets/forum/st_completereport.pdf
How much can you save?
Van Dorn Demag suggests that a Power Miser adjustable speed drive used on an injection molding machine will result in immediate and long-term cost savings due to reduced energy costs. It has set up a “Miser Meter” calculation program on its Molder Action Network Web site (3) to help molders determine the potential savings from installing a Power Miser drive.
3. www.molderactionnetwork.com
E-business not big business yet
Data from Ticona about its e-business initiatives indicate that most plastic buyers are still only ready to use the Internet for product and technical information (see chart). About half expect to be using it to track and place orders within the next year, but the more lofty goals of integrating the supply chain, monitoring inventory, and accessing customer’s systems are a few years away. On-line auctions are the least needed feature of e-business, according to Ticona customers.
The data were presented at a pre-K press conference.
Internet usage: What Ticona customers say about their needs
Still struggling with Metric measurements?
I tried a few conversion calculators last week when I was confronted with how to convert kW to horsepower. The most comprehensive and easiest to use was a Russian/English site called convert-me.com (4).
