South Central Tennessee Workforce Alliance holds manufacturing camps at General Motors
High school students were exposed to careers in technology at General Motors’s “Go Tech” camps.
The South Central Tennessee Workforce Alliance held their last two “Go Tech” Advanced Manufacturing Academy camps this week at General Motors of Spring Hill. The all day two-day camp was designed to expose high school students to high tech jobs in advanced manufacturing while giving them the chance to work with local engineers and doing team-based simulations.
With the assistance and grants of LaunchTN, General Motors-Spring Hill Manufacturing and the partnership with Columbia State Community College, the students were able to register for this camp for free. The grant money was also used to fund five code camps, two robotics camps and three advanced manufacturing camps.
The first day of the camp consisted of touring the GM facility, meeting the senior staff and gaining insight to what is done in the facility. On the second day, the students worked in a low-tech environment to teach them the importance of standardized work. They worked in teams to assemble parts on a wooden car in four 15-minute segments.
“This shows why standardized work is so important,” Mike Gruhn, Paint Group Leader at GM said. “You have to know how to put parts on a car.”
The first round of the simulation was designed for the students to fail because the instructors gave little help and almost no training. The students then went through a second round after the instructors provided more training
“Each student had their own job to do,” Danny Adams, an Electromechanical and Mechatronics teacher at Spot Lowe Technology Center said. ”If they didn’t do their job right, it was going to affect the person in front of them and behind them, so they had to learn how to do it faster, safer and keeping up with their parts.”
“I want to be an electrical engineer,” Seroberto Moreno, a recent Marshall County High School graduate said. “I was very surprised by this facility because it’s so organized and clean and they’re alway enhancing their own technology. The main part is they always want good teamwork effort and good work ethic.”
For students looking to work at GM, Gruhn says punctuality and the willingness and want to do something is important.
“If you want to work here and you show that when you first get here, you’ll do very well,” Gruhn said.
For more information on GM, visit their website.
Featured image and video by Kaitlin Flippo
Edited by Taylor Owens
