Actual running of the production machinery needs two things:
- Skilled hands and eagle eyes
- Understanding of the machinery and ability to run the machinery correctly
As someone building model airplanes for 60 years I know some of my friends built models so cleanly and accurately I could only look at their achievements with awe. These are the people we want to train.
We may look for them racing and building custom cars and bikes. Perhaps they have jobs in bus maintenance. They should have innate feel for metals and joining materials.
In other words, we want to recruit the people with the correct talent. Sometimes they may already be in a community college program. Other times we may direct them to the local community college.
Hiring and training local people is good for job retention. We also pay above middle-class wages as these are valuable people.
Valuable enough to provide continuous training as technology changes or new processes are added to the production facility. This also includes promoting the correct people to production management jobs.