By Liz Stevens, writer, Plastics Decorating
The US manufacturing industry continues to face workforce recruitment challenges. Colleges and universities are helping to address the shortage by offering plastics decorating-oriented subject matter in their plastics and polymer programs. What are institutions offering, and what might they need from industry partners to support their programs to better fill the industry’s needs? Plastics Decorating surveyed universities in the Upper Midwest, on the East Coast and on the West Coast to get insight into the plastics decorating education available.
Ferris State University
Ferris State University, www.ferris.edu, is a four-year public institution in Big Rapids, Michigan. Larry Langell, associate professor, Plastics and Rubber Department, answered questions about the university’s Plastics Engineering Technology (PET) program and its coursework in plastics decorating.
What does your institution offer in plastics decorating-oriented education?
PLTS 411, Plastics Decorating & Assembly, is a required four-credit course that students take in their senior year. It has three hours of lecture weekly and a three-hour lab. About half of the content is decorating related. We expose students to most of the decorating operations that they might encounter in the industry, including pad printing, hot stamping, painting, plating, laser marking, and corona and flame treatment.
How many students enroll each year in programs with a plastics decorating-oriented component?
The PET program started in the 1960s as a two-year Associate of Applied Science (AAS) degree. In the 80s it was expanded to include a four-year Bachelor of Science (BS) degree. Enrollment has varied, from 50 to 200 students. Like other plastics programs, our enrollment dropped during the COVID-19 pandemic. We now have 70 students enrolled in the program.
Once they have finished their education, how quickly are students getting hired?
Almost all students are employed immediately upon graduation. The program has 100% placement, with many students accepting jobs well prior to graduation. We could easily place two to three times more graduates.
What practical experience is required as part of your programs? Internships?
Students receive hands-on education with lab work, elective course projects and internships. Most courses within our major have a lab component of two to six hours per week. We have a plastics processing lab, a rubber processing lab, a decorating lab, an assembly lab, a tooling lab and two QC labs. All graduates spend extensive time running lab equipment. We offer an elective course in which students use problem solving in decorating and assembly to create a sculpture in collaboration with Ferris State’s professor/artist Robert Barnum. Students also complete a paid internship in the AAS and BS degree programs. Many find jobs in the industry for their third summer. Companies commonly use internships as developmental programs, offering full time positions to interns on graduation.
How is your institution partnering with the manufacturing community in your area?
The most local concentration of manufacturing is in Grand Rapids, about 45-minutes south of Ferris State. Companies there are excellent resources for jobs and field trips. In addition to touring molding facilities and seeing decorating equipment in operation, students have toured large scale paint and electroplating lines.
What additional support do you wish you had for your programs, especially for the decorating aspects?
We can always use donations of consumables like plastic sheets, paint, pad printing ink and cliches, and adhesives. We are lucky to have companies willing to help with equipment needs. John Kaverman of Innovative Marking Systems donated a TOSH exposure unit this year, allowing us to expand pad printing coverage. Students get experience making polymer cliches for use in lab experiments.
How is your institution promoting these programs?
Most promotion is done at the program level, including visiting high schools and hosting high school career days. Career days involve bussing in 50-120 students from central Michigan high schools. The kids participate in three rotations – a presentation with hands-on experiments, activities in the plastics lab and rubber lab activities. This is one of our best recruiting mechanisms. The university also is adding a College of Engineering Technology-specific recruiter to increase exposure for the plastics program.
What do you think should/could be done to get more students to enroll?
The challenge is twofold. First, students and parents need to know that plastics is one of the nation’s largest industries, with a great need for new, young engineers. Few know about this or that Ferris has a PET program. Employers often are surprised to learn that we may only have 10 BS graduates in a particular semester. Everyone in the industry needs to spread the word that this is a viable career path. Second, we need to combat the negative exposure that plastics gets in the media. We like to tell students, “Be the solution.” Our graduates are first-line responders who will create more environmentally friendly materials, new recycling methods, better scrap reduction techniques and lighter product designs. Students need to hear that working in the industry is a great way to make a difference.
UMass Lowell
The University of Massachusetts-Lowell, www.uml.edu, is a four-year public institution in Lowell, Massachusetts. Plastics Decorating talked with Amy Peterson, associate professor and associate chair for Master’s Studies, about the university’s Plastics Engineering programs.
What does your institution offer in plastics decorating-oriented education?
Undergraduate-level courses address assembly, welding, decorating within the context of recyclability, and other secondary processes. We also offer graduate-level technical electives in coatings, adhesives and adhesion, and coloration.
How many students enroll each year in programs with a plastics decorating-oriented component?
A typical undergraduate class size now is around 30. Master of Science (MS) in Plastics Engineering enrollments are typically around 70-80, and graduate certificate enrollments are typically around 25-35.
Once they have finished their education, how quickly are students getting hired?
Our students are very employable. If they are not already working, our students have jobs lined up upon graduation or are pursuing advanced degrees. A recent survey of students who earned a Bachelor of Science in Plastics Engineering in 2022 showed that 67% were working in the industry and 31% were continuing their education.
What practical experience is required as part of your programs? Internships?
All of our degree programs include required laboratory courses, providing valuable hands-on experience that includes exposure to plastics decorating processes. We currently do not include assembling or decorating in our lab courses due to the materials and molds that have been used recently. Our BS and MS programs have optional co-op programs where students can apply what they learn in classes to real-world challenges in a paid work environment. Nearly 100% of the undergraduate students participate in at least one co-op experience. Many students continue working at their co-op employers after their co-op ends, working part-time during the school year or returning as full-time employees after graduation.
How is your institution partnering with the manufacturing community in your area?
We have many types of partnerships with local manufacturers, thanks in part to our alumni at these companies. Partnerships include equipment donation, sponsoring research, collaborating on externally funded (i.e., government) research, hiring our students for co-ops, giving lectures to the department, and more. And UMass Lowell students and faculty regularly attend and present at the Adhesion Society Annual Meeting.
What additional support do you wish you had for your programs, especially for the decorating aspects?
One challenge in growing our hands-on decorating offerings is that we are regularly changing molds and procedures, which complicates efforts to successfully incorporate subsequent processes. To grow our decorating and assembly offerings, we would likely need to develop a separate technical elective.
How is your institution promoting these programs?
Our admissions offices organize regular open houses (including virtual ones for graduate programs) and webinars. A lot of our program promotion is through word of mouth – we offer the oldest and largest ABET-accredited plastics engineering program in the US, so our alumni do a lot of work by promoting us actively through conversations and passively through their successes.
What do you think should/could be done to get more students to enroll?
At the graduate level, we already have increased our online options to allow working professionals and those who don’t live nearby to complete our graduate certificates and MS. Our graduate certificates can be completed online. As of this year, we also have an online pathway for our Master of Science in Plastics Engineering. To ensure that students graduate with critical hands-on experience, the online MS includes a two-week on-campus residency during which students are full-time in our labs. Specific to plastics decorating and assembly, there is a lack of awareness of the interesting challenges in this field, such as the push for greater sustainability. Also, students often do not appreciate the importance of decorating, such as labeling, for safety as well as aesthetics. Appreciation for decorating’s impact and stimulating challenges leads to more interest.
Western Washington University
Western Washington University, Bellingham, Washington, www.wwu.edu, is a four-year public institution. Nicole Larson, professor and program director, answered questions about the university’s Polymer Materials Engineering (PME) program and coursework in plastics decorating.
What does your institution offer in plastics decorating-oriented education?
In the first class that students take as PME majors (sophomore year), they learn about decoration methods that can be utilized for thermoplastic and/or composite parts, including pad printing, screen printing, hot stamping, painting, powder coating and plating.
In their junior year, students take an injection molding class that includes numerous discussions about how color is incorporated into injection molded parts. This covers solid pigment and feeding of liquid colorant directly into the feed throat, and we discuss the injection molding parameters that ensure adequate mixing of pigment into the neat thermoplastic. Students also learn about other decorating methods that can be incorporated into the injection molding process, including film insert molding, back injection molding and co-injection molding.
In their senior year, students learn about the manufacturing processes that create custom compounds for decorating, including the use of feeders to convey materials into a twin screw or single screw extruder to make pelletized extrudate.
How many students enroll each year in programs with a plastics decorating-oriented component?
Although we do not have a specific decorating option, up to 24 students graduate from the program each year.
Once they have finished their education, how quickly are students getting hired?
Most of our students are employed before they leave school in the spring.
What practical experience is required as part of your programs? Internships?
While we do not require internships, most students participate in at least one. Our program is hands-on in nature and students complete a substantial industry-relevant laboratory in every class following admission into the program. Students are well versed in injection molding, extrusion, composites manufacturing techniques, thermoforming, compression molding, compounding new materials, and material characterization and testing. They also complete an industry-sponsored capstone project that includes a substantial laboratory component.
How is your institution partnering with the manufacturing community in your area?
Almost every project that we do with students is industry-sponsored. We strive to serve the needs of our regional manufacturing industries and partner with them extensively. Examples of projects and companies can be seen from this year’s list of capstone projects, which includes Ocean Plastics Research – mechanical recycling and characterization of ocean plastic ABS; Solvay – confidential – resin formulation; Boeing – prepreg shrinkage; Boeing – development of recycling process of 3D printed TPU; MateriaX – die cutting mycelium; Convergent Manufacturing Technologies – advanced thermoplastics composites characterization for manufacturing simulation; and Mallinda – vitrimer processing, characterization and recycling.
What additional support do you wish you had for your programs, especially for the decorating aspects?
We do not have any decorating equipment. We used to have a hot stamper, but it was very old and moved on. It would be amazing to have some so that we could further this aspect of the curriculum.
How is your institution promoting these programs?
As faculty, we promote our program to community colleges, host lab tours and events for perspective students, and talk with everyone that we can. We hope to make short videos to put on our website to promote the degree program.
What do you think should/could be done to get more students to enroll?
We need to get the word out about our program! It’s extremely hands-on and our students have exceptionally high placement rates into industry (and grad school – about 20% choose that path). It is a comprehensive polymer and composites curriculum with an enormous number of industry projects that is focused on the future.
