What was the best professional training? 1

[MEchase]

Hey everyone,

I am fortunate enough to work in an organization that values training and continued education. Management has asked us to identify additional training that is not in our usual line-up. I am in the U.S. and work with mechanical, electrical, and structural engineers along with project managers. Our work rarely has us interact in-depth with thermal or fluid systems, however that should not restrict feedback.

I have a few questions. What was the best training that you've taken for your job? What training left you wishing you could find more training or seminars of similar quality to that one? It could be online or at the training site. Obviously Continued Education Credis / Professional Development Hours would be a nice bonus, but they are not a requirement for this question.

What professional training took it to another level by being informative, engaging, and entertaining?

Also, sorry if this topic is in the wrong sub-forum.

Thanks!

 

[GregLocock]

I found some of the Matlab 3 day classroom courses quite good. The Matlab and Simulink MOOCs I've tried are very good. MIT's MOOCs are usually interesting.

Cheers

Greg Locock


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[MEchase]

To add information to the original post, I compare every training I take to a welding design seminar that I attended in 2011. My organization has been sending new ME's and SE's there for a long time. I am particularly interested in finding a fasteners course/seminar that I find comparable. I'm happy to provide the name, but I didn't want this post to be misconstrued as me endorsing any particular company.

Outside of general feedback, if anyone is aware of a diesel engine (particularly generator set) training I would be most appreciative. Not necessarily how to work of them, but more big picture. General information, function, restrictions, application, environment, specifying for contract, etc.

 

[AidanMc]

It's pretty niche stuff but if you're in the Nadcap world, I think their eQualearn courses are excellent value. I learn new stuff any time I go to one and I encourage anyone who's involved to try out some of their trainings.

 

[MEchase]

Nice. A lot of work we review was done in MathCAD, but there are definitely a few people that would prefer to move to Matlab and have gone out of their way to get it installed on their computers. I think part of the hesitation to switch is lack of familiarity.

 

[GregLocock]

I picked up matlab as I went along. My code is frankly disgusting. It would be great to actually pick up a good programming style from the get-go.

Another great course I did was on Systems engineering, and we did one on Taguchi style Design of Experiments.

Cheers

Greg Locock


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[MEchase]

Are all of the eQualearn courses specifically geared to aerospace or have you had some that are generic enough to be applied across industries? My industry is not aerospace, but reading the brief description of some of the courses definitely sound like they would be extremely useful to us.

 

[AidanMc]

MEchase,
Mostly they're directly tied to the aerospace industry and the Nadcap compliance specifically in there but they do have a fantastic course on Root Cause and Corrective Action. I really like the deep dive mentality that goes into their course. I think it's really easy to cop out too early on this kind of stuff and then you end up with a band-aid not a real solution.

 

[CWB1]

I've always found the best training to be internal to the large corporations, the thought of external training usually brings a silent groan of boredom as the material tends to be only the mile-high basics. Typically I recommend junior engineers either spend a few years job-hopping between a variety of smaller businesses or find a large corporation that will let them hop between various facilities. I did the later, hopping from optimization of foundry and weldment design to various mechanical systems design to analytical FEA & CFD roles. Being in a niche does get rather boring after a few years when you finally master the material, but quite honestly, a week or six training doesn't really teach much of anything. If you want to be competent at weldment design, you need to spend a few years in a weld shop designing weldments. If you want to be decent at designing castings, spend a few years in a foundry, etc, etc.

Externally, one of the few classes I've taken and recommend is the ETI GD&T series. Past employers have all either outsourced this training to them or used their texts and they're an excellent primer on GD&T, stacks, etc.

 

[dgallup]

Two of the classes that have been the most useful to me and that have broad application are GD&T and FMEA. The most interesting have been finite element analysis for electro magnetics and fluid dynamics. I took a class in plastics welding that was pretty useful too.

I really should learn more about laser welding since I've been designing laser welded assemblies for 35 years.

Edit
When I started my first job out of college in a diesel engine development lab, they had me spend 4 weeks with the mechanics measuring parts, building engines and tearing them down and measuring wear. That was extremely useful as my previous engine experience was mostly with 2 stroke motorcycle and 4 stroke lawnmower engines. Don't think I had ever seen the guts of a big diesel first hand before. Never needed steel toed shoes before either. Lots of lessons learned.

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The Help for this program was created in Windows Help format, which depends on a feature that isn't included in this version of Windows.

 

[TheTick]

Spend a few weeks in the factory or field making, assembling, installing, and fixing things.

 

[MEchase]

Thanks for all of the feedback so far!

I agree that hands-on is one of the best ways to learn and working a stint in a particular field or job function is the only way to become an expert, but I do not believe that lessens the value of training, external or otherwise. I can't imagine anyone taking a course in any subject and believing that they are experts at the end of the final day. There is, however, useful information to be obtained that one can use to improve their work and organization.