Cobot welding, welding automation, and collaborative robots are transforming skilled trades careers amid a major welder shortage.

Host Andrew Brown talks with Sam Noland of ITW Miller Welding Automation about how cobot welding empowers Tradespeople across Carpentry, HVAC, Electricians, Plumbers, Millwrights, and Construction. They explore training, ROI, and how automation is elevating—not replacing—the Skilled Trades Industry.

Whether you're a Contractor, Industry Expert, or student exploring Trades Careers, this episode uncovers how collaborative robots bridge technology and Craftsmanship, fueling the next generation of Problem-solving and Creativity in the Trades Industry.

IN THIS EPISODE:

• (00:00) — What cobot welding is and why it’s reshaping Skilled Trades Careers.
• (06:12) — How collaborative robots extend the careers of veteran welders and reduce fatigue.
• (12:45) — The welder shortage: how automation and trade-school reform create opportunity.
• (19:30) — Real-world welding automation ROI and cost breakdown for small shop owners.
• (27:05) — Partnering with Toolfetch, Contractors, and Industry Experts for training and Education.
• (33:50) — Future of Skilled Trades: how Automation, Craftsmanship, and Advocacy intersect.

Key Takeaways:

1. Cobot welding and welding automation expand—not eliminate—jobs by enhancing Craftsmanship and efficiency in Skilled Trades.
2. Collaborative robots speed up production while keeping quality high, addressing the growing welder shortage.
3. Skilled trades careers in HVAC, Carpentry, Electricians, Plumbers, and Millwrights are evolving to include robotics and automation skills.
4. Partnerships with Toolfetch, Industry Experts, and the Skilled Trades Advisory Council are critical to advancing Education, Problem-solving, and Creativity in the Trades Industry.

About the Guest:

Sam Noland is an Advanced Process Specialist at ITW Miller Welding Automation, where he leads initiatives in cobot welding and welding automation integration for global manufacturing clients. A champion for Tradespeople and Skilled Trades Education, Sam helps shops leverage collaborative robots to boost quality, efficiency, and career longevity. His work embodies the next evolution of Craftsmanship—where technology meets human skill.

Keywords:

Cobot Welding, Welding Automation, Collaborative Robots, Welder Shortage, Skilled Trades Careers, Skilled Trades, Trades Industry, Tradespeople, Contractors, Industry Experts, Skilled Trades Advisory Council, Toolfetch, Carpentry, HVAC, Electricians, Plumbers, Millwrights, Construction, Craftsmanship, Problem-solving, Creativity, Education, Advocacy, Andrew Brown, Sam Noland

Resource Links:

LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sam-noland-66285262/

Because one of the cool things, and we've seen this at a lot of plants that

have a lot of robots, now they have more high skilled labor than they did before.

Because not only do they need people to be able to program and tend the

robots, they need people to repair 'em, to be able to program them with good

welds, not just program them to run the path, but kinda make the welds right.

You gotta have people to follow up on quality.

'cause now you got a lot more parts coming out.

You need a lot more quality.

People who know what a good weld is.

You kind of have to upskill everybody.

Hi, I'm Andrew Brown.

You're listening to the Lost Art of the Skilled Trades Podcast, a show that

shines the spotlight on careers in the skilled trades that are high paying,

honorable, rewarding, and fulfilling.

The trades are the backbone of the economy that keep us running, and without

them, our world would cease to exist.

Today we have a special guest, Sam Noland, advanced Process Specialist

at ITW Miller Welding Automation.

Welcome to the she Sam.

Thank you so much for having me.

I'm super excited to be here.

Same here.

This is a very timely conversation because I am going to be speaking

at the Welding summit down in Texas for the American Welding Society.

That's gonna be awesome.

Super excited to be there.

My talk is about attracting, retaining, and inspiring the

next generation of welders.

But there's one issue, and I'm sure you know this, finding

the next generation of welders, finding the next generation, right?

So I just wanna throw out a statistic to you, which we probably know by heart.

The welding workforce data.com tells us we need about 320,000 welders.

By 2029, what do we do in a sense?

How is automation helping the skilled trades in welding?

On the Miller side, we actually help in two different ways.

So one of the ways is I'm kind of getting up there.

I'm in that midlife kind of stage, and I'm getting the point where, you

know, I'm needing cheaters to weld.

I can't pig worth anything 'cause I'm not steady anymore.

I don't wanna be bent over, hunched over.

I got back problems now.

So there's the one phase of I can now weld longer.

My physical limitations of getting older are not in the way of that.

My skills haven't diminished.

I still know what a good weld is.

I still don't know how to make it.

I just can't do it routinely for 8, 10, 12 hour shifts anymore.

So there's that phase of it.

The other phase of it is I know a lot of the kids going into the trade

school that I know, they don't wanna get dirty, they don't wanna be hot.

They can get the same pay at an Amazon warehouse with air conditioning for

what they could get for being a welder.

And so attracting people to the trades in a way that's comfortable

for them, especially techie people who wanna play with the gadgets, giving

them a gadget saying, here you go.

Here's the cool thing that helps a lot.

The gamification side, which, um, some people don't realize in the trades

where you can go in and you can learn the tech, you know, kids today, and I'm

thinking about my own kids who are eight and and 11 and they use the iPad, right?

So if they can be in that world where it's technology based, there is an interest.

I wanna go back to a couple points you said about welders who are getting older.

So about 40% are retiring over the next five or 10 years and about.

47.5% of welders are between the ages of 25 and 45.

And a lot of people will say, especially the younger generation,

I don't wanna weld because you know I'm gonna be in these uncomfortable

positions and my back's gonna hurt.

Just exactly what you said, but your skills haven't diminished.

Is there life after sort of like being in the field and where do you go from there?

I'm actually going back into the field, but I'm going back in the field on cobots.

Life after the field can take a couple of different routes.

I mean, a traditional one that I was going towards for a while that a lot

of my friends are going towards who weld in the field or weld in bigger

shops, is going towards that training, towards that supervisory role.

There's only so many of those in a company, and so then you kind of get

pigeonholed off to the side is like a specialty welder, complex parts,

which is the harder tasks to do.

And that's one of the cool things automation can do 'cause it can add

that ability to do standard parts, regular welds, stuff you've already

been working on without having to get into, like you said, crawling inside

the tank and being the guy inside.

Send one of the younger guys who can leave themselves between all the

uprights in there, I'll stay on the outside and weld on all these brackets.

So those things.

I want to go back to automation for a quick second because I'm just thinking

if I've been in a shop, let's say I've been there for 25 years, right?

I'm on the slightly older side, and now the owner is thinking, okay,

they wanna bring in cobalt welders.

I'm a little concerned about my job and I know you're gonna go with this.

I'm very curious if you're getting that type of reaction from the

older generation out there.

We get that a whole lot on the big robots like the big cells.

'cause they're meant to pump out like five times the rate, three

to five times the rate of a person With the cobots, not quite as much.

And I think a lot of that has to do is it's much more like

the tools we're familiar with.

So like part of the design, I've been working on this product since I was a

tech here at Miller when it was in design.

And part of it is like I'm adjusting it the same way I did some of my sub systems.

Or my jet lines, or my BOGOs, I am familiar with, you know, tuning

with a little joystick up top, leaning down and getting my face

up in the arc while it's going.

That's all stuff you can't do on the big robots, so being able to

get your hands on it and tune it to be my weld versus whatever some

computery system says it should be, or perfect everything and settings

are different and I can make it mine.

That's kind of been very helpful.

And one of the big things that I do, and I emphasize into everybody who's looking

at, you know, their companies talking about it, be on the team to go look at

'em, to test them, to give your sign off.

This is a tool, like I said, it's Spago and Subar.

All the stuff we're used to mechanically working next to.

It's just another tool like that, and if you can get in front of it, get familiar

with it, then you get to be the guy who plays with it for, you know, 10,

15, 20 minutes to get a program going and then sits there and goes, boop.

Then your beautiful welds come off all day long with your signature all over 'em.

For the people who don't know, 'cause some people who are listeners

don't know what a cobot welder is.

Can you explain what a cobot welder is?

Yeah, so cobots are what we call collaborative robot.

So it's a type of robotic arm that's designed to work alongside a person.

So I can be.

Follow it along with my face down there watching it.

I can be moving parts on and off the table, adding clips while it's welding.

Another section, maybe I'm doing some of the welds that the robot

can't reach while it's still working.

So it's like having an extra guy on your table working with you.

It's got a lot of safety built in to be very sensitive to collisions.

Moves at a very slow speed.

Lots of time to get outta the way they're made.

To just be right there with you, working alongside you so you can, you know.

Keep an eye on them, know that they're doing what they're supposed

to do and keep your production kind of moving throughout your day.

So it's not meant to actually replace, it will amplify, at least

do some of the work that maybe is more monotonous, the everyday stuff

that maybe that you have a talented welder, they can work on something

else versus this, you know, slightly.

I don't wanna say lower end, but it's more that day to day everyday stuff that

maybe it's just a lot of monotonous work.

Yeah.

I used to do custom windows.

It was security windows, so metal bars and like a thin metal frame.

I love doing the bars 'cause I had to do the layout.

I had to cut 'em to size.

I had to figure all that out myself.

But then you do the frame outside parts and it's like, ugh, okay.

These tiny little eight inch weld weird positions where it's like they could

have thrown those frames on a robot.

We're on a cobot all day, and I could have done the cool, fun part and it still

would've come out looking just as good.

And so for things like that, we have one right now that I'm lucky to have interns

because this part is like five feet by 10 feet and they program half of it and

then spin it program the other half.

I'm like, I don't wanna be the one crawling on top of that.

Trying to get in the very middle and hand welding on my knees,

like I can't do that anymore.

So I got my interns program at once and then we spin it, put the next

one in, spin it, put the next one in.

And all I have to do is there's a couple of little clips that can't quite reach

and a couple braces you gotta add after.

So I get to confirm quality, add my little pieces, sign off and I'm done.

So if I am shop owner, at what point do I say.

I'm not necessarily finding welders out there because I'm in competition

with other shops as well, and it could be a couple dollars here and there.

Now I'm considering automation.

What does a starting sort of price point and what point does

a shop owner, especially a small business owner, say this is a good

investment and what's that return on investment after a handful of years?

I will give the warning, kind of like everything.

People will sell you whatever they can.

The one thing I do tell people to watch out for you can get cobots as

low as 50, 60 K, but those are gonna come with like hand welder on 'em.

You're not gonna have a lot of controls.

There's usually no support.

Just be careful when you're pricing those out to make sure you're

getting everything you need.

Training, service, support, it's coming fully loaded, that kind of stuff.

When you get to those systems, they tend to run somewhere around.

80 to 110,000 depending on all the gidgets and doodads and

all that stuff that's on there.

But those will come really complete, ready to go.

Couple of small things to get it set up initially, and

then you're off and running.

So I usually recommend to go with those, not just 'cause they're mine, but because

I also used to sell in service in my past life and I hated dealing with the cheap

ones 'cause they never ran very well.

And typically ROIs, that's one of the things that we work really hard on.

Before we sell a system, when we're recommending them, one of the things

we offer is like send us parts.

We'll do some weld outs that we can get a dead on ROI.

I've done some as low as four months payback, and we've got some that are

standard year to two year payback window.

It really depends on what your goal is.

If your goal is John Smith, my lead guy in the lab's getting ready to

retire, I need to download his weld library into something before he goes.

So I'm gonna have him on the system till he retires.

Programming everything.

So I have beautiful John welds.

Even once he leaves me.

Then your payback might be a little longer 'cause you're really just one for one.

When you start doing what we talked about where it's welding, while I'm welding and

I'm basically two arcs by myself, that's when you start to see those faster ROIs.

And we've had a couple where the parts take two and a half hours

for the people to manually weld it because it's a giant circle.

So they're going, you know, 12 to 18 inches, stop and spin, clean the ends.

Next one for tie-in.

The robot does it all at once in one pass, so it takes less than

30 minutes, including setup.

And so they're getting ROIs like just a couple months, being able to turn

things around faster, get more orders, get more stuff through the shop.

Their guys are funny.

Every person now has a stool in their booth.

They didn't used to have stools, but every welder now has a stool so he

can sit down while it's programming and running and stuff like that while

he's, you know, doing any cleanup, part prep or anything like that.

Comfy.

The technology has probably come a long way, and even probably in the last handful

of years from when it first came out.

An owner brings something like that in, and obviously there's a learning

curve here, but the person who's gonna be training on that, what is sort of

the timeframe someone can get up and running, and what is the knowledge base

you need to know on the welding side?

You still need to know the fundamentals, right?

You can't just have somebody who doesn't know anything about

welding kind of operate that.

Definitely.

One of the things I always tell people for the fundamentals is

have somebody who knows what their good weld is for your plant.

And I say that specifically, 'cause sometimes the way I would do a weld

might not be the way you'd do it.

And so my quality going, yeah, that looks beautiful.

You might be like, uh, no.

Get somebody who knows what the quality's gonna look like.

Torch angles.

People don't realize how important torch shingles are.

Because we do it automatically and the robot has no clue.

So I had my interns doing a vertical up and they're like all over

the place with their gun angle.

And I'm like, guys, no, the robot wants this and this.

And as you get higher, drop to that and it's just, you gotta have somebody kind of

knows that part of it, or could at least get there, you know, make a weld and go,

Ooh, need a little bit less angle here.

Training wise though, that's the big thing on cobots compared to big robots.

So a traditional robot, you'll have one.

To two, sometimes three or four weeks of training to get all of

the features and that's going somewhere and getting trained.

Typically for cobots, ours is on a QR code where you could self-train if you wanted

to or you know, we can send somebody in.

But typically I, when I go in and get somebody started, it's a half day to a

full day of actual hands-on training.

And usually that's a train the trainer scenario or spend a half day with

one guy, get him up and running.

Then I hang out for one more day while he trains a couple other people.

But if he runs into problem or has a question or he hits a question

that I didn't cover 'cause he didn't ask it, I'm there to back him up.

It's a really quick process and our system is designed around

welders and being simple.

I did a lot of the UX work on this one and a lot of it is down to what

would I wanna look at as a welder?

I don't really care.

I get into a lot of arguments with the software guys and you can kind of

tell welding products that have been designed by engineers but not welders.

You're digging into menus for stuff you need.

We're trying to get rid of all that.

So I wanna back step on my crater fill.

I go to the crater settings and I hit back step and I'm done.

Do you think that, you know this technology, if you're only saying

it's a half day or full day, but if you're, let's just say you're not

technically savvy, versus somebody who's a little bit younger comes in and just.

Intuitively just kind of know how to get around, uh, menus and things like that.

Is it a little bit easy to train somebody who's a little bit more technically

savvy versus someone who's just not savvy on the tech side, typically, the

tech savvy people are gonna go to that.

'cause we send everything ahead.

Here's the website, here's the training videos, here's the QR code.

Typically they will work ahead.

They'll get into the app and they'll play.

We have an app for our automation stuff.

They'll get into that app and they'll play with it.

They'll watch the videos.

They might look some stuff up online.

They come in with kind of an idea of what they're gonna be doing.

So they're usually pretty quick to get up and running.

'cause they do a lot of pre-work because it's a gadget.

It's a new whizzbang thing to go look up.

Man, I sound old when I say stuff like that.

And then the other side of that though is if they're not super welding

experienced, they run into problems of like, I don't know what this setting is.

Or I don't understand.

What does a dwell on a weave mean?

And so there's a lot of like teaching just the terminology that we use.

So we try to put a lot of help menus in the system where you can click the

question mark and it's got diagrams and descriptions and how tos, and we

try to put those in there for people who just, you're doing multipass,

you don't know what offset is.

Then let's teach you really quick what offset means.

Some of those things.

I mean, you need to know, you know the fundamentals.

You need to know some of the basics.

I'd like to know sort of the reaction to people who see that who've been in welding

for quite a while, that they say like, wow, I didn't know this was even possible.

Or the efficiency of it.

Are they blown away by it?

And also what are the limitations of what it can and can't do?

So I think people would really need to understand, can it weld out in the field

versus welding out in a, in a shop or.

I'm glad you asked those together.

'cause that was, that was where my answer was kind of going.

So yeah, for in the shop under roof, like this is a funky part.

Not enough of them for a robot, but can be automated.

We tend to get really good reactions like, oh God, thank you for this multipass.

I was worried I have to program every pass as an individual.

That would be awful.

That would take forever.

Like, no, no worries.

Touch sense.

Yay.

It's pretty straightforward.

I like that.

But yeah, then you get into, you know.

I need to do coped pipe, saddle joint in all positions and I can't

get the arm all the way around.

And so there are a lot of situations with, you know, big parts.

You may have to actually move the robot around.

You can use a mag base, hang it upside down on the gantry.

You put it on a mast and telescope it out.

It doesn't really matter.

As long as you can locate it in the same spot, you may have to move that

arm around where a welder, you're not thinking about all the times he walks

around something as he's working.

The other part is that outside, the big thing is always IP ratings and

not just now, it's not just like a welder, it's the welder feeder,

the arm, the controller dependent.

All of those have to be IP rated for where they're gonna be going.

And different arms have different ratings.

Next year we're gonna have all of ours at IP 67, which is woo-hoo.

Great.

'cause that can go basically anywhere, but check the arm IP ratings

before taking 'em out anywhere.

Crazy.

And the other part is just wait.

My small arm right now.

Once you put all the attachments and the fixtures and everything

on it, it's a two man lift.

If you add more stuff like a mag base, now it's beyond a two man lift.

So you gotta be careful once you start loading stuff on there.

Is it practical in the field?

Maybe yes, maybe no.

It depends on what you're doing.

And if you have a crane on standby constantly to be able to pick

the thing up and move it, great.

Awesome.

Go for it.

Lots of cases where that's not how, it's, how heavy is something like that?

The arm is about 60 pounds by itself.

But then when you add all the cables and attachments, we'd have a riser with a

safety light on it and all that stuff.

It comes out over 150 pounds.

And then you're like, great, now I gotta lift it.

Now we put lifting straps on it.

We have lifting points marked on it.

You know, it's designed to be lifted, but you gotta have

something to do it at that point.

So what do you envision in, in the next handful of years?

And people keep talking about robots and people talking about Elon Musk, Oculus.

Yeah, the human robots, I'm only saying this because of the next

generation who wants to get in.

It's just evolving in a way that tech is here to help, not

to fully replace Absolutely.

Tech.

It's kind of one of those things, if you think about it, like

there's still phone centered jobs.

Even though we all have AI chatbots and AI phone answering things, there's

still people answering the phones.

We could have AI order taking at restaurants.

There's still people standing at the Windows.

Tech helps.

Sometimes it lowers the need for, we're talking about in welding, like my back

problems, my, I can't see anymore.

I'm all blind and stuff, but I can still make really good welds.

It helps with all of those things, but it's never gonna replace people

because one of the cool things, and we've seen this at a lot of plants

that have a lot of robots now.

They have more high skilled labor than they did before.

Because not only do they need people to be able to program and tend the robots,

they need people to repair 'em, to be able to program them with good welds,

not just program them to run the path, but you gotta make the welds, right?

You gotta have people to follow up on quality.

'cause now you got a lot more parts coming out.

You need a lot more quality people who know what a good weld is.

So you kind of have to upscale everybody once you have that stuff come in.

And that doesn't count the upstream and downstream because now you gotta paint

'em faster and you gotta make better parts to go into the robot to begin with.

So it kind of brings the whole shop up to where everybody gets to

make a little bit more, you know?

That makes sense.

And that kind of leads me into a case study of, I believe it's b and W trailer.

Tell us a little bit about why they want the automation route, and they

are, I'm not sure exactly where they're located, but I've heard they have about

four or 500 people working for them.

Why are they not seeing a talent shortage and they put in robotic automation?

Now you're being able to expand your skill base of what you're needing.

So now welders are kind of a narrow range of people, but when it's

part tenderers, when it's loaders, when it's fork truck operators.

You get to expand that out.

And one of the cool things that, I don't know if B and w, I don't think

B and w is doing it, but a couple places I know they'll bring in temp

labor for a trial period, basically.

And if they do good on the trial period, they'll hire 'em full-time.

And so it lets you kind of test out the labor pool in your area and say,

cool, 20% of these people do awesome.

They're hired on, we're gonna try again next year with this next round.

BMW's had a lot of success.

They did it right.

We always talk about crawl, walk runs.

Start with one.

Start on a simple part.

Start with something you know can be automated.

Get that one going.

Challenge yourself a little with something different, and then just keep expanding.

And parts of it is you have to have the right parts.

Some of it, you gotta have the right engineers.

I know a couple of places I've worked with where there parts could be amazingly

automated, but their engineering is still designed in the old way where ah, if it's

not right, the welder will just fix it.

Robots aren't smart enough.

They're real dumb.

With someone like BMW, how many, how many robots did they have?

Did they put into their own facility over the years?

Can't remember.

A couple dozen at least.

I wanna say they're closer to 50, but I'm not, it's not my product

and I don't remember anymore.

I have done work for them though in the lab, so I should know this number.

But yeah, they've got a couple dozen, easily a couple dozen, but they've

been getting them and they, it's not something where it happens overnight.

This is decade of work, getting this stuff in.

Each individual one gets its own ROI or couple, they get a couple

for a job, they get their own ROI.

And it just kind of builds as you go.

And then as you go, you're like, okay, well now I've got four robots.

I really don't wanna have Miller come in and do the service anymore.

I wanna have a maintenance guy on staff.

Okay, now you need a maintenance department.

And that maintenance guy's gonna start doing other stuff when

the robots don't need work.

And then you're gonna need more maintenance guys over time.

What they're doing is going to expand over time.

Beyond just the robots.

And that's one of the big things is it's welding.

Same, you know, power source is a power source.

A torch is a torch.

The same product of problems you see on a mig welder, the same type of

problems you're gonna see on the robot.

So my feeders gummed up because somebody didn't put the liner in right.

And now we're shaving metal all over it, and I gotta rebuild a feeder.

Now.

I like the example that they're investing in the technology and that.

They didn't just shrink their workforce, they increased their

workforce because it opened up more opportunity for other positions as well.

How does somebody learn?

Let's say I'm going through a trade school, welding trade school.

Are these individuals being taught about how cobalt welders work, or

is it not until they get into some organization where they're taught on site?

Are you seeing that at a trade school being taught or college program

or It's starting to expand out?

So three years ago.

I don't know many colleges, whether it's university or vo-tech,

anywhere that we're using cobots.

Now we've got high schools that are buying cobot systems to put in the high school as

part of the high school welding program.

I'm sitting here looking at mine, where we were stick welding for four years

going, man, that would've been awesome.

And so we are starting to see an uptick in these in schools.

And one of the interesting things about cobots is that you can teach, really

doesn't matter what brand you have.

'cause what you can teach with it, because programming is so simplified is

the theory behind robotics in general.

So what you need to look for for tooling, what you need to look for,

for joint access, determining the right nozzle, all the stuff you have

to figure out on any robot, no matter the brand, no matter who sells it.

That stuff can all be taught on a cobot because the programming's minimal.

Compared to what you're doing there.

And then, yeah, you might go for Panasonic class if you buy one of our robots, but

you know how to program the robot, what your angles need to look like, how to get

the gun in, you know, approach points, retract points, you've already got that.

You're gonna go really fast through that class.

Learning the programming language, you said, you know, obviously the

training is, uh, relatively quick versus obviously an industrial robot, you have

to go either on site or you have to be trained versus you're doing it either.

Remotely, or you know, like you said, you're scanning the QR

code and you know, someone who's tech savvy can learn the system.

But if kids can start learning that ahead of time, they're more valuable in a sense.

Like if B and W is looking for individuals, but they've been taught

in trade school, they're more valuable in a sense that, well, yes, we can

teach them on site, but they've already learned a lot of the basics work.

You know, learning through a trade school on a cobalt welder.

Yeah, it's very helpful now and it's going to get even more helpful in

the future because it's one of those things that these aren't going away.

It's what are they gonna become?

Robotics is just gonna keep growing because, like you said, we're

not gonna find 300,000 welders.

We're just not.

They're not gonna show up.

So we have to find a way to augment that somehow.

And this is right now the best we have.

And so people coming out of trade schools, high schools, VO-tech

programs, the college engineering programs with these skills.

Maybe it's not the exact model that the company has, but saying, Hey, I

know how to program this and this.

I know how to do this offline software.

I know how to do this cad.

You're gonna be way up here, which means you get to ask for way up here.

Pay too, which is always nice.

Yes, you are more valuable.

I mean, welding workforce data says it's about 26 and change

is the medium wage per hour.

Some people argue against it, some people are like, yeah,

that's exactly on the money.

53, 50 $4,000 a year.

I guess depending upon what you do, something like this

would make you more valuable.

Understanding the tech side of it.

Why do you think, and I'm just curious in your take on this, why don't you

think more kids coming out of school or thinking about welding don't go into it?

What are a couple things off the top of your head that reason

why they're just not doing?

Is it pay?

Is it.

Some of it's just knowledge.

Like they don't know about the field.

They don't know what there is there coming outta high school at least.

I mean, I ended up going into engineering, worked as a welder

before going into engineering.

I went into engineering because I was like, oh, I wanna do more

with mechanical then just welding.

And then I ended up back in welding.

Anyways, it is much better here.

I came back.

But if you're not exposed at high school, you don't know.

And there's a lack of.

The trades really being presented at the high school level, even at community

colleges and tech schools, you almost have to, it feels like I should say it that

way because they're not all like that, but it feels like you almost have to ask

about the welding program, or you'll be directed over to what they're known for.

Program is, it's almost a knowledge gap, but then you get into these

trade schools and I mean, I've worked with a few and I love them to death.

I loved my instructors.

They're old.

Old and they're dirty and the equipment is old and some of it doesn't work right.

And for some reason they teach you stick welding even though nobody

in your city does stick welding.

But you spend half of your class doing stick and maybe a quarter

of it doing TIG when there's no sticker TIG jobs where you are.

And so it's just kind of a mixture.

Do you think that's certain areas or most trade schools just behind on that?

There are pockets that are more behind than others.

'cause there are definitely schools that are well ahead of that.

They do exactly what the industry in their area does, and some

of that's industry involvement.

If the school doesn't know what happens in their area, they're gonna

teach what they've always taught.

And updating that curriculum can be very difficult 'cause you have to get

new equipment, you gotta get all that.

If there's no grant money, you're not getting new equipment.

And so if they're not in touch and in tune with their local area.

I know some that I love the instructors to death.

I love the schools to death.

They're still teaching mostly stick and tig and a little bitty

bit of mig because it's easy.

So they toss it on at the end and it's like, but that's 90% of your area.

Aside from this little bit of maintenance work, everybody else is doing mig.

It's interesting, and I, I speak to a lot of people on social media.

I have.

Large, following on many different platforms, and I like to go on TikTok

Lock, and I like to go live and I like to speak to a lot of kids.

I remember I was speaking to this kid, Troy, and he came out of a welding school.

I'm not gonna mention the welding school, but he had said that, you

know, Andrew, I've been looking for a job for eight months.

I've come outta school, I've sent out 120 resumes.

You talk about the shortages all the time, but I can't find a job.

I have some skill, and he's got the soft skills, but he cannot find work.

Why is it that companies are saying, you know, almost screaming

from the rooftops, we need people.

But then again, kids are saying, well, I can't get a job.

Some of these places are asking for three to five years of experience,

but I don't have any experience.

So how do I get in?

I'm not a hundred percent sure the area I came from.

So I'm actually a, don't have the accent much anymore.

But I'm actually from, uh, the Memphis areas where I was working as

a welder, graduated college and was selling welding supplies down there.

You walk in anywhere, there's welder wanted signs all over the industrial

parks, and you basically walk in, you pass your drug test and your background

test and you're good, but you're probably gonna start at 10 bucks an hour unless you

have the three to five years experience.

So I'm wondering if it's something where, and I'm leaning towards this

being the case, it's potential that employers, they're losing their 30

year, 25 year experienced welders and they need to replace them fast.

They don't have time to get someone new up to speed.

So what they're wanting is somebody who already really knows how to weld that they

could literally just throw on the line and say, here's the quality we're looking for.

Go.

You can't get the experience unless you get the work.

It may be regional.

Like I said, down south, you walk through any industrial park, there's

welders wanted signs, and I've seen people walk in the door and they

hand them an app and say, do this.

Here's the background check sheet, fill it out.

It's fast, just quick, and they need somebody.

Right away.

Well, it's interesting you said that.

You know, there are people who are leaving 20, 30 years and

they're looking for someone.

Sometimes that's difficult.

That person who has that knowledge base, they can work, you know, at a

larger company with better benefits, you know, and a pension or something

like that, versus them trying to look at someone who is yes, will need

a little bit more work like Troy.

But they're almost kind of like discounting them and say, well, you just

don't have the experience of, sorry.

It's discouraging to those individuals, and it's not just Troy.

There's a lot of those stories out there that is such a hard nut to crack.

And I think part of it is, again, my region, very welder starved, but very

low pay for welders to start out.

And so a lot of people leave the region to go elsewhere where they

can make more money once they get a couple years of experience.

I wonder if it's, and I don't know where Troy has looked, so

I don't know a hundred percent.

One of the things I do know is larger companies who are big name brands,

multiple site locations, tend to have a training program because their

shops are designed to get the fresh out of school guys, bring them in,

trade 'em up to their own standards, and a lot of times they like that

because there's no bad habits yet.

You can break any little bit of habit that somebody already has.

You're not training them away from however they learned for 10 years.

Then they can teach 'em exactly what they want and kick 'em onto the lines.

That's the only recommendation I can give because I do work with a lot

of places that have these training programs, and they're fantastic for

getting people in, trained up on the floor and productive as fast as possible.

Typically, that'll be something where it's a staggered pay where you get a

certain rate while you're a trainee, if you're a fab guy or setup guy,

versus once you're out of school, you've graduated and you can go in.

And some of these programs, are you referring to some type of apprenticeship

of some sort, or is it just a program that, for instance, you know, B and

w trailer, if they have a workforce development sort of strategy where, like

you said, they don't have bad habits yet?

I like that because.

If you've been around for 15 years, like maybe you're set in your ways, you know,

you picked up a couple things that maybe that company doesn't want sort of in their

culture, but somebody who's fresh outta school, like a Troy wouldn't have that.

I don't wanna say chip on the shoulder, but they doesn't have that as of yet

and can mold them a little bit easier.

I am a great example of that 'cause I learned stick welding so much.

Even when I'm doing a mig, I can't run a stringer straight.

I always have a little bit of a weave.

I can't get that out of there.

It's how my body was designed to weld.

Apparently it's never going away.

So if you want a perfectly smooth bead, I will never be your welder.

I just won't.

But you get the guys outta school and they're so fresh and you can

teach 'em anything and it's awesome.

But yeah, the companies that have a training program, a development

program, sometimes they do call them apprentices or junior welders.

I can't remember the other term I heard, but they have another title form as

they work their way through whatever program they have at their companies.

Sometimes you have to move.

I know there's a couple of tech schools down south that are

specific to oil and gas, where they kick out really awesome welders.

The expectation is you're gonna go to the Gulf, you're gonna go to Canada,

or you're gonna go to the Northwest.

There's not really any jobs in that pocket, but there's a lot of

people needing skills and work.

So they offer a service.

They give you a list of companies and they kind of kick

you out to go apply to places.

Some people won't move.

And I, I've heard that before.

You know where they say, well, I can't move.

And sometimes there are people not just welding and other trades, they

go where the work is, where the money is and some people have to be a

little bit more adaptable to go where the jobs are, where the money is.

But not everybody can pick up and go, which is tough.

Yeah, it's hard.

We had to pick up and go in the middle of COVID and we made it, but it was hard.

Is there anything else that we didn't cover about cobalt welding

or anything that you wanted to go over we didn't touch upon?

I think one of the big things I always like to emphasize is co-opt

welding, robot welding, all of it.

It's not for everything.

It's not for every company, it's not for every job.

There's gonna be places where it works great and places where it doesn't.

And one of the things I'll say, whether it's to the welders, to the

weld engineers, to owners, whoever is, look at your partner, the

distributor you're working with, whoever you're gonna buy the system from.

Look at your partner and make sure you talk with them about

your concerns and what you need.

Just 'cause something makes a pretty weld might not make your ROI.

So make sure that you really have those discussions of, here's my

goal and if I can't make this goal, I can't buy this system.

Don't feel pressured to get something because the worst thing in the

world is to spend 80 to a hundred grand and have it be a door stop.

We had that happen in my region down south a while.

Back in the nineties, somebody went around, sold a bunch of robots.

They ended up not working, and it was just a mess.

And that set us back in a lot of places two decades before they

would even look at automation again because it was such a bad experience.

Nobody wants to be the person who signed the check for that problem.

So always talk to your partner.

If your partner's not open with that kind of information, check somewhere else.

'cause that should be stuff that you can easily talk back and forth with.

Same with any questions on training service.

Like there's should be nothing off limits when you're looking at

this kind of long-term investment.

If you would ask about it for a car, then ask about it for the robot.

Get a good understanding of what you're getting out of it, the value,

and if it's right from my organization

now the tools of the trade.

This has been an amazing conversation, but before we lead the studio,

what is your, one of your special tools of the trade advice?

And you touched upon it here a little bit, but the advice you can give

shop owners if they want to consider.

Cobots for their shop.

I heard this conversation with Sam and I'm like, where do I start tomorrow?

Talk to your distributor.

Ask them to see a system, whether it's in your shop.

Go somewhere and see it.

Maybe they have someone else's shop you can go to visit.

Go see one.

Get your hands on it.

Get your welder's hands on it.

Don't just bring your engineer or a shop foreman who's never

gonna actually strike an arc.

Bring the people who do the work.

Get their feedback and trust it.

Trust the feedback of the welders.

'cause they're gonna know what's gonna work.

I've never lived in Missouri, but I'm a show me state kind of person.

Like I wanna see it, do my stuff and do that.

Follow your gut when it comes to that stuff to make sure you're gonna get what

you're paying for out of these systems.

That's great advice.

So talk to a distributor, obviously see it and have your welder look at it.

The ones that are doing the work, the foreman.

Obviously you want the person who's actually doing the hands-on work, see what

the return on investment would be after a certain amount of obviously years and

whatever system you decide to go with.

I think that's great advice because people know that it's out there,

but some people just don't know.

I just don't unsure, like how much does it cost and I wanna see this thing in action.

If people wanna find out more information about the Miller brand

or they wanna review social or see videos, where do people go out there?

Miller welds.com.

W-E-L-D-S, plural.

That's our website.

If you Google Miller copilot, it brings up a ton of pages about our different

systems and everything like that.

We actually have a button in the system.

So if you don't have a distributor that you talk to about this

kind of level, there's some contact us forms on the website.

You can put in your information.

I have a wonderful lady who works in my customer support system that will

call you and she'll have a great chat and she's fantastic and I love her.

And then of course, you can check us out on LinkedIn.

Instagram, all that stuff.

Miller Electric and yeah, we are kind of all over with that.

And then YouTube, of course, Miller Electric, Miller Weld, that's us.

If anybody's going to the Fabtech show next month, are you gonna be there?

And everything will be on display at the show.

I'm gonna be working the booth, so I'll be there basically the whole time.

I'm hoping to get lunch breaks, but we'll see how great the show is.

This year I'm gonna have 1, 2, 3, 4 co-pilots and a robot.

All different kinds of stuff happening.

Mag base, all kinds of cool stuff.

So yeah, if you wanna come even just chat about cobots, I'll

be hanging out the whole time.

So looking forward to it too.

I hope people come and visit.

Great.

'cause I am going to the show.

I'm also speaking out there and doing my podcast.

I will stop by and get some content from the booth as well.

I'm looking forward to it.

Sam, thank you so much for being on the show today.

Thank you for having me.

I really appreciate it.

Thank you to our listeners.

If your company wants to connect with the next generation of tradespeople

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I run a trades media company built to spotlight this industry and

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