The state of Queretaro is a vortex where several key industries converge for the economic development of the country, such as automotive, aerospace, biotechnology, agribusiness, household appliances, food and medicine, which require highly qualified personnel in both technical-scientific capabilities and soft skills, i.e. administrative and leadership skills. To meet these needs, the Instituto Queretano de Herramentales (IQH) was created in 2016, which, together with the Cluster Plásticos Querétaro, has made it a priority to develop professionals for companies in these sectors, and to promote the constant generation of skilled labor.
Its goal is the specialized training of human capital through three dimensions: one, the training itself, with a multidisciplinary team that includes expert engineers as well as professionals in administrative and leadership areas; two, the recruitment and channeling of talent to companies that require specific profiles for their industrial plants; and third, to exercise a pedagogical role through preparatory education with technical and practical programs that allow participants to acquire competencies in the real world of work.
In Querétaro alone, the plastic injection, thermoforming, rotomolding and injection and blow molding sector is one of the largest contributors to the state economy in terms of jobs: around 100,000. "Molding is perhaps the most important industry in the state, if we consider the assemblers, development centers of the productive sectors that are here, because all of them are composed of something plastic", says Miguel Ángel Aguirre Hernández, director of the Cluster Plásticos and member of the Board of the Mexican Association of Mold and Die Manufacturing.
Therefore, IQH's vocation is clearly identified with engineering, development and research in plastics, molds and dies. Aguirre explains that "our goal is to have the right people to manufacture products that come 100% from petroleum-derived materials such as polyethylene, polystyrene, ABS, etc., focused both on manufacturing and the implementation of processes in the metal-mechanical sector, in terms of mold making, tooling, injection processes, blow molding, extrusion, as well as production".
The executive confirms that the Institute specializes in the development of people who can not only design a mold, but also generate or manufacture that mold under different processes (injection-blow, blow-injection, thermoforming, etc.), but "we not only train engineers in electrical, operational and machine engineering, but also designers who have ideas that can be translated into mathematics to turn them into a mold".
Therein lies its other flank, that of soft skills. Miguel Ángel Aguirre – an industrial administrator, specializing in commerce and finance – highlights here the role of the director of Business Projects at the IQH, Carolina Sedano, who has designed training programs to develop leadership, "with a profile that is not only engineering but human, that teaches how to lead groups, something very important in any plant, and experts in administration that focus on those leaders of leaders, that is, at managerial levels and middle management and also high management that already operate and manage a manufacturing plant".
With this process, the IQH adapts personnel for the operating plant and also for cell leaders, which is basic to operate certification programs for processes in specific industries such as the International Automotive Task Force (IATF), the one required by the American Sailing Association (ASA), and quality controls such as ISO 9000 or organizational environments such as NOM 035, among other standards.
A cluster of challenges
The sector where the IQH wants to have an impact is very relevant on a national scale. In molds alone, annual imports of 92,000 million pesos a year are registered; and this is the first opportunity for the Mexican industry, which manufactures molds for an amount that does not exceed 7% of that amount.
In addition, what is important for this industry is the speed to respond to international adjustments determined by geoeconomics, the role that Mexico must play in the struggle of its largest trading partner, the United States, with the Chinese power.
"The main challenge is to generate manufacturing to the needs of the United States, as we are its main supplier in the T-MEC. With this treaty, as Chinese industries are left aside, they intend to come to Mexico or settle or buy local companies, but it happens that when an assembly plant of Eastern origin comes, dozens of companies of that origin open around it and not of Mexican capital".
Finally, Aguirre points out that if you are in an innovation business and you do not attend an innovation event, how do you want to sell? He warns that it is important to bring the whole team, not just the person who designs or operates the machine, because it will allow them to improve the process or profitability, and FABTECH MÉXICO 2022 means getting closer to innovation again after years of absence.