Professional Certifications

[[An...]]

Hi all, 

I have been thinking about getting a GD&T certification, as the majority of my knowledge has come from on the job training. Some classroom knowledge, but mostly just asking questions and learning as much as possible. I think that both classroom theory and real-world application are useful and I am pretty well lacking in one of the two.

My thinking is that a certification would fill holes in my knowledge base and give me something to point to for either my current or a future employer to say "these people agree that I know what I am talking about". Specifically, I have been considering the GDTP Technologist Certificate, seen here.

Do any of y'all have opinions, either on this certification or other certifications that are available?

Thanks!

[[Ky...]]

Hey Andy,

 

As far as I know at any rate, the GD&T-P certification is the most robust. For training for it, we usually go through AGI (Mark Foster's company: https://gdandt.com/). A few years back I went through both their basic and advanced courses and a month or two back I was in a GD&T-P "prep" course. There are definitely other options, of course but honestly it is almost necessary to read the whole standard through, probably a couple of times, to actually pass that test.

[[Aa...]]

Hi Andy,

In my opinion, the ASME Y14.5 GD&T certification is mandatory.  This is the most important certification.  You can take training from a third party, but there is no substitute for the actual ASME GD&T exam.  This is required to truly gauge and validate your knowledge.  Be advised the test questions are often written in a manner that mirrors specific phraseology directly from the Y14.5 text.  Because of this, I recommend carefully reading the relevant ASME Y14.5 standard itself, along with perhaps one or two study guides of your choice.  Class room training will also help, but this can get kinda pricey.  If you go that route, I would insist on an instructor that has passed the exam at some point in their past.

I find that almost everyone I interact with has a very weak understanding of design tolerancing.  They could be CMM instructors, quality people, engineers of all kinds, statistical master gold level meta standard black belters --doesn't matter, all of them are trying to get their novel published, but can't recognize that they are struggling to compose a full sentence.  Ridiculous.