The Industrial Maintenance Training Center (IMTC) of PA provides training in the skills necessary to perform industrial maintenance tasks in today’s world class manufacturing operations. The IMTC is a program of the Mid-Atlantic Mechatronics Partnership and is funded through fees paid by employers and state and federal grants obtained through the Workforce Investment Boards of Lancaster and Berks counties.

Training: Anytime... Anywhere

Training is provided by a combination of on-line e-learning and hands-on labs using real industrial equipment. New students are enrolled each week and students proceed at a pace agreed to by themselves and their employer. Course work, that is available via e-learning, may be completed at any time and from any place where a high speed internet connection is available to the student. Laboratory time may be scheduled at the student’s convenience Monday through Saturday, morning, afternoon or evening. This method of scheduling and delivery provides the ultimate in flexibility for working maintenance technicians who often find it difficult to schedule themselves for conventional training classes.

Students may enroll in one of two complete multi-disciplinary certificate programs (AM/IST-1 or AM/IST-2), discipline-specific courses, or short topical classes that have been designed by adult education experts based upon requirements established by leading manufacturers. All completed coursework may be applied toward college credit. Students may also obtain credit for existing skills and knowledge through a testing program that eliminates the need of repeating coursework in topics already mastered. Employers may also use this testing program as a yardstick to gauge the skills of employees who are entering the program. Finally, for employers with special needs, customized training programs may be developed.

This synthesis that comprises automation evolved in an unprecedented, cooperative effort on the part of government, industry and academia to build control systems for the aerospace projects of the 1960s and 1970s. Then industry rapidly adopted automation in petroleum refineries, chemical plants, paper mills, water treatment facilities and the like. Automation systems soon became an essential-and largely invisible-part of society's industrial infrastructure.

But with principles expressed in terms of the calculus or Fourier transforms and practices learned empirically in specialized environments, a coherent treatment of automation was never adequately incorporated into high school, technical school and undergraduate university curricula. The broad foundations necessary for continuity were not developed. And now, the people who developed the conceptual synthesis, as well as those who kept the systems operational, are retiring or have already done so."  Keith Campbell points out that "this is an article that shows that mechatronics and automation are closely related careers".  To see the entire article, click here.

Arlington, VA: This week, the Packaging Machinery Manufacturers Institute (PMMI) announced that its skill standards for mechatronics have been included in the Competency Model Clearinghouse of the U.S. Department of Labor (US DOL). See the model by clicking here. 

In its role as information broker, the Employment and Training Administration of US DOL developed the Competency Model Clearinghouse, a Web site that provides information about and access to industry competency models, tools to build competency models and career ladders/lattices, and a database of competency-based resources.

Mechatronics is the synergistic application of mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, control engineering, and computer science to make useful products. It is a skill and knowledge set used by mechatronics engineering technicians to assure that the automation which drives modern manufacturing delivers its potential for higher productivity and output. Packaging is a multi-billion dollar a year industry which is at the heart of the production of consumer products such as food, pharmaceuticals, beverages, and other industries.

PMMI worked closely with the Mid-Atlantic Mechatronics Advisory Committee, the Center of Excellence in Packaging Operation, and the Industrial Maintenance Training Center of Pennsylvania to enumerate the standards and implement a corresponding curriculum with the cooperation of more than 35 companies in Berks and Lancaster County in southeastern Pennsylvania. This close collaboration of companies in the packaging industry uses a 350-hour non-credit training course which articulates to an Associates degree in Mechatronics Engineering Technology at Reading Area Community College (see page 4) to keep a pipeline of skilled workers flowing for its local manufacturers.

A number of other schools from Minnesota, Wisconsin, and North Carolina contributed to the development of the skill standards.

With the development of a Competency Model and the impending introduction of certified skill standards, PMMI hopes that curriculum developers around the country will develop more training and that schools around the country will adopt these standards to provide more training for this important career path.

Target businesses this year are science, technology, engineering and math.

To provide a tour and host teachers for one hour (or more) contact Andrew Garner by phone at (717) 735-0333 or email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it