Four times a year at the Cherry Valley Ipsen plant, the comprehensive three-day Ipsen U training program is held. Throughout the rest of the year, Ipsen USA’s Technical Training Lead, Cavan Cardenas, spends much of his time traveling across the country providing on-site training for heat-treating departments using their own furnaces.
“We’re constantly developing Ipsen U on-site to meet the growing demands of today’s customers,” Cardenas explained. “In the field, (instructors) are able to be more specific. We can talk to customers about everything from their common processes, to calibration, to planned maintenance, solving nagging issues along the way. An on-site Ipsen U experience is completely unique to the customer’s needs.”
Ipsen U is a three-day training program designed to work with furnace operators, engineers, metallurgists, and maintenance staff to become deeply familiar with Ipsen furnaces, their design and operation, and how to maintain and troubleshoot furnace systems.
While many customers pass through the frequently held Ipsen U sessions at the Vacuum Technology Excellence Center in Cherry Valley, Illinois, there has been a steady demand for trainers like Cardenas to provide an immersive, specific version of the classes on-site for customers across the country.
One specific benefit of having an Ipsen U class at a your own facility can be fixing a problem that the customer may not know they had.
“We do find issues with the equipment almost every time, either spotting something in the furnace that may not be right, or a process that could use some improvement. Many customers find that they end up getting a full-service furnace checkup out of an on-site Ipsen U class,” Cardenas explained. “it helps these companies save money in the long run. Solutions may seem complicated to a customer before training that turn out to be simple after the class.”
Ipsen customer Sig Sauer invited Cardenas to run an Ipsen U in the summer of 2024 for their new furnace. Sig Sauer is an industry leader in firearm manufacturing, headquartered in Germany with manufacturing locations in New Hampshire and Arkansas.
“Our company chose to enroll in the Ipsen U course on-site to ensure proper representation from everyone on the floor (operator, setup, maintenance, engineering, etc.).” Said Zachary Raboin, Manufacturing Engineer for Sig Sauer. “We also wanted to ensure we got information directly from the source. It wouldn’t make sense to go through anyone else to learn about our Ipsen products,”
Cardenas was elevated to his position as Technical Training Lead after five years as a service engineer and field trainer for Ipsen.
“It’s rewarding when you’re able to mentor people, particularly when they’re very interested in learning. Empowering people to solve their own problems, being able to teach people the ability to fix things themselves, to be self-reliant… it can be eye-opening.”
Demand for on-site training is high, with training sessions being scheduled as much as six months out. Customers are encouraged to plan ahead when reserving Ipsen U onsite training sessions.
“Customers really do see the value in having an expert on site. Throughout training, employees can pick the expert’s brain for two days straight.”
“Our team really appreciated Cavan’s ability to hold everyone’s attention while remaining informative. Cavan did not need to retreat to outside resources or colleagues to answer any questions we had. Cavan also made sure everything tied back to our application (vacuum-stress relief), but still introduced us to technology that is not present in our furnace. I wish we had completed this course a long time ago.
“The Ipsen class was worth every penny. Cavan not only taught very well, but was immediately able to recommend changes to programming, operational practices, and upgrades to the machine that may benefit us in the future and make the shop run more smoothly.”
– Zachary Raboin, Sig Sauer
If you’d like to set up an Ipsen U training program on site at your facility, email Cavan.Cardenas@ipsenusa.com.