NIMS Introduces New Standards for Job Training

NIMS has announced a new suite of Smart Standards for various job roles in various sectors of manufacturing. According to NIMS, these standards are a starting point for any employer or educator developing or evaluating training in these disciplines. Specifically, the new standards are categorized under the disciplines of Industry 4.0, industrial maintenance technology, dimensional measurements, additive manufacturing, machining and metalforming.

Smart Standards are part of NIMS Smart Training Solutions, a framework for modernizing training to keep up with the pace of emerging technologies and building solid connections between employers and educators. They are “smart” because while all of the duties that comprise a given role are written, mapped and agreed upon by industry experts, each employer and educational institution can build their own job roles with any combination of duties, depending on their specific needs. For example, employers can select from a repository based on how the company assigns duties. Regardless of how employers build job roles, they are standardized because standardization is at the duty level, not the role.

“That’s the benefit of the Smart Standards framework,” says Montez King, executive director of NIMS. “It is flexible, modular and the standards can be dynamically updated as industries change. No longer is occupational training dictated by someone in government or a small group of industry people deciding what someone must do or know to be aligned to industry standards. We’ve standardized the duties themselves so that an employer can create customized roles and a training program based on the company’s actual workplace activities.”

NIMS is offering the free Interactive Standards Viewer currently, and there is also a subscription version that enables employers and educational institutions to quickly customize roles. According to NIMS, several additional modules will be rolled out over the next several months.