Have you heard the news? Industrial maintenance technicians are in short supply. As industry continues to grow and new technologies transform the factory floor, industrial employers find themselves needing more highly skilled maintenance technicians than ever before.

Unfortunately, the number of new highly skilled maintenance technicians isn’t keeping up with demand. A skills gap exists that results in thousands upon thousands of positions going unfilled every year. And the effect on productivity and efficiency cannot be overstated.

Maintenance is Critical

Why is this such a big deal? It’s because of how important industrial maintenance is to the success of modern businesses. In an article for Manufacturing Automation, Steve Krar urges manufacturers to move from a reactive maintenance mindset (“fail and fix”) to a proactive maintenance mindset (“predict and prevent”), because “maintenance may be considered the heath care of our manufacturing machines and equipment.”

Proper maintenance improves machine efficiency and safety. Preventative maintenance extends the lifespan of critical machines and keeps them running at peak efficiency. It also ensures machinery is running properly and safely, minimizing the risk of injuries to workers or damage to other equipment.

Focusing on maintenance also saves time and money. Being proactive allows technicians to plan routine maintenance, which always takes less time and money than emergency repairs. Krar notes that “the actual cost for a breakdown [is] between four to fifteen times the [cost of routine] maintenance.”

Wanted: Troubleshooting Skills

Employers looking for maintenance technicians with the proper set of skills would do well to focus on one key competency: troubleshooting. Maintenance technicians that can quickly and accurately identify a problem and fashion a solution are worth their weight in gold.

Becoming an expert troubleshooter is not an easy task, however. Today’s industrial facilities are comprised of a wide variety of advanced technologies, requiring maintenance technicians to be a sort of “jack of all trades.”

Indeed, today’s technicians must have a working understanding of a vast number of components across a wide swath of disciplines, including electrical, electronics, pneumatics, hydraulics, HVACR, mechanical, process control, instrumentation, and more.

Not only must they be familiar with many different types of components, including all manner of switches, buttons, relays, valves, pumps, compressors, drives, instruments, and gauges, but they also must know these things inside and out.

In fact, one might say a good troubleshooter needs X-ray vision. Many, if not most, problems can’t be diagnosed from what’s observable on the surface. The problem often lies within, and that’s where specialized knowledge comes in handy.

For example, in writing about electronic component troubleshooting, author Mark Persons writes in a Radio World article: “Guessing is a bad troubleshooting technique. It’s best to visualize what the circuit should be doing and determine likely reasons it is not performing as expected…Electronic components can look perfectly good on the outside and be bad on the inside.”

But how do you teach maintenance technicians X-ray vision? While true X-ray vision is just wishful thinking, it is possible to train maintenance technicians to fully understand the components they work with most frequently—both inside and out.

Cutaways Teach Key Troubleshooting Skills

If you want to ensure your maintenance technicians have the skills to effectively troubleshoot the industrial components they work with frequently, DAC Worldwide’s wide variety of industrial cutaways provide valuable training in the internal configuration of hundreds of popular industrial components.

DAC Worldwide believes that successful training must match real-world conditions as much as possible. Its line of industrial cutaways are real-world industrial components that have been restored, cut away, and refinished using durable urethane coatings. Each of these industrial components has been professionally sectioned to expose each device’s primary components.

On many of DAC Worldwide’s cutaways, functionality has been retained and a hand wheel provided to demonstrate low speed manual operation. Each cutaway is mounted on a modular, heavy-gauge steel baseplate and support assembly. For industrial training relevance, common models by well-known manufacturers are chosen.

For example, DAC Worldwide’s valve cutaways use actual industrial valves that have been carefully sectioned and color-coded to expose and showcase the complete internal configuration of the valve. Seal features and hardware locations are retained, allowing for “hands-on” training in maintenance.

DAC Worldwide offers more than 200 cutaway training tools across a wide variety of industrial disciplines, including electrical; electronics; fluid power; heat transfer and steam; HVACR; mechanical drives; oil production; process control and instrumentation; and pumps, compressors, and valves. Visit DAC Worldwide online to learn more about its selection of industrial cutaways and other training tools!