American Injection Molding Institute Achieves Distinguished ANSI Accreditation for its Plastics Technology and Engineering Certificate Program

American Injection Molding Institute Achieves Distinguished ANSI Accreditation for its Plastics Technology and Engineering Certificate Program

The American Injection Molding (AIM) Institute, a Beaumont organization, is proud to announce its renowned Plastics Technology and Engineering (PTE) Certificate Program to be the first plastics program to achieve accreditation by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). Accreditation by ANSI, the official U.S. representative in the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), is “nationally and internationally recognized as a mark of quality and assures that employers can have confidence that the certificate holder has completed the prescribed course of study” (ANSI.org).

The accreditation of the PTE Program, based on ASTM standard E2659, adds the AIM Institute to the list of prominent organizations including the U.S. Army Combat Readiness/Safety Center and the National Environmental Health Association who have chosen voluntarily to undergo an intensive accreditation process to ensure their programs continuously meet the highest quality standards. The AIM Institute is only one of 48 organizations globally to achieve this accreditation.

“The program was developed to fill the vast void between today’s industry training and university education,” said John Beaumont, Founder and President of the AIM Institute. “The PTE Program provides a fast-track for employers to not only advance the technical knowledge of their employees, but to advance their problem solving, critical thinking, and creativity. The PTE Program’s unique delivery integrates on-site education with online lectures, labs, and exercises to provide both the breadth and depth required for professionals to more effectively and creatively contribute to the successful development and production of high-quality plastic parts.”

The unique design of the PTE Program is suited for a broad range of students. Program alumni include engineers and managers from all functional areas within the plastics industry, as well as quality personnel, senior level technicians, mold makers, and designers. Companies whose employees have completed the program have reported significant improvements in all aspects of their product development, manufacturing, and quality control.

“Many of the students that come to us are from life and health critical industries such as medical, automotive, and aerospace, where product failures can have catastrophic consequences,” said Dave Hoffman, Director of the AIM Institute. “Our ANSI accreditation helps assure these organizations that the education and training their employees are receiving have been subjected to high-level scrutiny and quality assurances similar to what their businesses encounter.”

Patrick Kippes, Senior Engineering Manager at Cepheid, a leading OEM and supplier to the medical industry, noted “at Cepheid, nothing short of exceeding our customer’s expectation each and every time is considered acceptable. It takes world-class methods, behaviors, and practices from top-notch talented people to achieve those types of goals. The PTE Certificate Program from AIM has been a foundation of both the training plans and continuous improvement rigor we apply to our personnel development and our approaches to design, development, and validation of injection molded components.” Cepheid has also found that the PTE Program structure “accelerates the time a student can translate their new skills to their day-to-day job functions.”

In addition to the oversight by ANSI, the AIM Institute also utilizes an advisory board consisting of plastic industry leaders and experts from over 20 companies. This ensures the PTE Program delivers the subject matter expertise accurately and in a manner most beneficial for our industry.

AIM’s ANSI accreditation marks the latest in a series of announcements from the growing AIM Institute, who recently expanded its facility and added two additional educational programs to its catalog.

The American Injection Molding Institute was founded by John Beaumont, who helped develop and chaired the Plastics Engineering Technology program at Penn State Erie, The Behrend College. In 2014, after 25 years of service, Beaumont retired from the University to focus on growing his Beaumont companies and developing the AIM Institute to be the model educational and research resource for the injection molding industry and its practicing professionals.

Beaumont Technologies is an innovation based company that provides a broad range of unique technologies and engineering services to the plastic injection molding industry. The company was founded in 1998 by Plastics Hall of Famer John Beaumont, the inventor of MeltFlipper®, Therma-flo® and other industry-leading injection molding technologies.