ZAMA VOCATIONAL TRAINING

2018-10-24

After 15 months of preparation, we are now approaching the launch of ZAMA’s vocational training program for Mechatronic Fitters together with the German Chamber of Commerce (AHK) of South China, three other German SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises), and Dongguan Technical College. Starting September 2015, we are planning for 15 ZAMA trainees to join the program, followed by similar-sized classes in the years to come.

Following our company’s philosophy of a never-ending quest for better precision, we have identified a strategic need for better tools. As the best tool makers worldwide produce tools only for themselves, offering us parts rather than technology, we need to improve our tool-making team to safeguard our core technologies of die casting and precision stamping through the next step of modernization. Aside from a substantial investment in machinery, we also need the experts to operate them proficiently and autonomously. To move on from 1/100 mm to 1/1000 mm requires well trained people, skilled not only in technology and machine operation but also in project management, 6S, and untainted quality thinking.

The unique German vocational training system, combining theoretic studies and intensive practical training, both at the college and at the company, produces the right experts for such a job. After three and a half years of challenging studies and exams, the trainees will resemble experienced workers, with theoretical background as an engineer and prepared to take overall responsibility for complete and complex projects, which they will be able to solve autonomously with minimumal instructions. In Germany, those graduates are traditionally very honored. (As we say, “A good craftsmen is worth gold.”) The best of them can reach salaries equivalent to engineers with master degrees, yet they still take pride in not working in the office but being the best of the best workers; wearing blue uniforms instead of white shirts and ties; and being used to thoroughly washing their hands at the end of every shift as their expertise is irrevocably connected with practical work, oily machines, and the bustling business of a production workshop.

At the same time, we agreed with the college to also offer part of this training to some of our existing tool-makers and equipment-makers in order to offer them the same opportunities as we offer the young students. In the long run, half of our tool-makers and equipment-makers should have passed training and tests of a vocational training or at least important parts thereof.

Together with the AHK and the German companies Eugster, Testo, and Giesecke, we are now finalizing the contracts with the college and are establishing a taylor-made curriculum with a help of an expert from the Senior Expert Service of the German Ministry of Economic Co-operation. The instructors of this vocation system will be two experienced trainers from the “Berufsbildungswerk Berlin-Brandenburg,” one of the biggest independent providers of vocational training in Germany, who also operates similar programs in Suzhou and Chongqing.

ZAMA President