Customized High-Skill Occupation

Daniel Stocker, Team Leader at Measurement and Testing Technology at Freudenberg in Kufstein, explains the initiative this way: “At our site, the average seniority is thirteen years. Our long-time employees have continued to build up their skills over the years to meet growing requirements. But if they resign or retire, it’s hard for us to fill in the gap. The few applicants with the right training and practical experience are also being pursued by other companies.”

To come to stay

Stocker therefore came up with the idea of inventing a new skilled occupation: manufacturing metrology technician. The goal was to align the training closely to real-life practices at FST. And it was also supposed to provide skills for future technologies such as automation and Industry 4.0. Tanja Hofer, the trainee coach in Kufstein, brought Stocker’s proposal to the Vienna Chamber of Commerce. It surveyed various industrial companies, and they unanimously welcomed the notion of a new skilled occupation. Then everything went very quickly: Hofer and Stocker worked jointly with representatives of other companies and measurement labs to define the training content. The Chamber of Commerce fed it into guidelines and presented it to the ministry for approval.

The result: Since July 2020, Austria has had a new skilled occupation: manufacturing metrology technician. And in October, Freudenberg Sealing Technologies in Kufstein hired Cara Mia Pesta as the first trainee in the specialty – just one year after the idea first emerged. Stocker puts it this way. “Our hope was that the trainees would quickly build up their knowledge and add to our productivity – and the plan is working out with Cara Pesta.”

 

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This article originally appeared in ESSENTIAL, Freudenberg Sealing Technologies’ corporate magazine that covers, trends, industries and new ideas.