Hydraulic forging press worker

Description

Hydraulic forging press workers set up and tend hydraulic forging presses, designed to shape ferrous and non-ferrous metal workpieces including pipes, tubes and hollow profiles and other products of the first processing of steel in their desired form by use of compressive forces generated by a piston and fluid pressure.

Other titles

The following job titles also refer to hydraulic forging press worker:

hydraulic foundry patternmaker technician
hydraulic patternmaking operator
hydraulic sheet metal apprentice
hydraulic foundry patternmaker
hydraulic foundry moulder
hydraulic sheet metal worker
hydraulic sheet metal operative
hydraulic foundry moulding operator
hydraulic sheet metal technical
hydraulic patternmaking technician

Minimum qualifications

A high school diploma is generally required to work as a hydraulic forging press worker.

ISCO skill level

ISCO skill level is defined as a function of the complexity and range of tasks and duties to be performed in an occupation. It is measured on a scale from 1 to 4, with 1 the lowest level and 4 the highest, by considering:

  • the nature of the work performed in an occupation in relation to the characteristic tasks and duties
  • the level of formal education required for competent performance of the tasks and duties involved and
  • the amount of informal on-the-job training and/or previous experience in a related occupation required for competent performance of these tasks and duties.

Hydraulic forging press worker is a Skill level 2 occupation.

Hydraulic forging press worker career path

Similar occupations

These occupations, although different, require a lot of knowledge and skills similar to hydraulic forging press worker.

mechanical forging press worker
drop forging hammer worker
upsetting machine operator
wire weaving machine operator
riveter

Long term prospects

These occupations require some skills and knowledge of hydraulic forging press worker. They also require other skills and knowledge, but at a higher ISCO skill level, meaning these occupations are accessible from a position of hydraulic forging press worker with a significant experience and/or extensive training.

automated assembly line operator
pulp control operator
metal production supervisor
industrial robot controller
machine operator supervisor

Essential knowledge and skills

Essential knowledge

This knowledge should be acquired through learning to fulfill the role of hydraulic forging press worker.

  • Hydraulic fluid: The various types, qualities and applications of hydraulic fluids used in metalworking processes such as forging and moulding, consisting out of mineral oils and water.
  • Types of metal: Qualities, specifications, applications and reactions to different fabricating processes of various types of metal, such as steel, aluminium, brass, copper and others.
  • Quality standards: The national and international requirements, specifications and guidelines to ensure that products, services and processes are of good quality and fit for purpose.
  • Forging processes: The various processes in the metalforming practices of forging, such as swaging, open-die forging, automatic hot forging, cogging, impression-die forging, roll forging, upsetting, press forging, and others.
  • Hydraulic press parts: The qualities and applications of various parts of a hydraulic press, such as a piston, hydraulic cylinder, hydraulic fluid, ram, upper and lower die, and others.

Essential skills and competences

These skills are necessary for the role of hydraulic forging press worker.

  • Maintain hydraulic forging press: Tend a hydraulic forging press, designed for forming hot or cold metal by use of a high energy force hydraulically, monitor and operate it, according to regulations.
  • Remove inadequate workpieces: Evaluate which deficient processed workpieces do not meet the set-up standard and should be removed and sort the waste according to regulations.
  • Troubleshoot: Identify operating problems, decide what to do about it and report accordingly.
  • Remove processed workpiece: Remove individual workpieces after processing, from the manufacturing machine or the machine tool. In case of a conveyor belt this involves quick, continuous movement.
  • Perform test run: Perform tests putting a system, machine, tool or other equipment through a series of actions under actual operating conditions in order to assess its reliability and suitability to realise its tasks, and adjust settings accordingly.
  • Wear appropriate protective gear: Wear relevant and necessary protective gear, such as protective goggles or other eye protection, hard hats, safety gloves.
  • Ensure equipment availability: Ensure that the necessary equipment is provided, ready and available for use before start of procedures.
  • Operate forging tongs: Operate the appropriate forging tools and equipment safely, including forging tongs for handling and moving hot metal workpieces during forging processes.
  • Monitor automated machines: Continuously check up on the automated machine’s set-up and execution or make regular control rounds. If necessary, record and interpret data on the operating conditions of installations and equipment in order to identify abnormalities.
  • Supply machine: Ensure the machine is fed the necessary and adequate materials and control the placement or automatic feed and retrieval of work pieces in the machines or machine tools on the production line.
  • Ensure correct metal temperature: Ensure the necessary, usually constant, temperature of processed metal workpieces during metal fabrication processes.
  • Remove scale from metal workpiece: Remove the accumulated scale, or metal ‘flakes’, on the surface of the metal workpiece caused by oxidation after removal from the furnace by spraying it with an oil-based liquid that will cause it to flake off during the forging process.
  • Set up the controller of a machine: Set up and give commands to a machine by dispatching the appropriate data and input into the (computer) controller corresponding with the desired processed product.

Optional knowledge and skills

Optional knowledge

This knowledge is sometimes, but not always, required for the role of hydraulic forging press worker. However, mastering this knowledge allows you to have more opportunities for career development.

  • Non-ferrous metal processing: Various processing methods on non-ferrous metals and alloys such as copper, zinc and aluminium.
  • Manufacturing of metal structures: The production of metal structures for construction.
  • Ferrous metal processing: Various processing methods on iron and iron-containing alloys such as steel, stainless steel and pig iron.
  • Metal forming technologies: The variety of technologies and techniques, such as forging, pressing, stamping, rolling and others, used for the forming processes of metal product manufacturing.
  • Manufacturing of metal containers: The manufacture of reservoirs, tanks and similar containers of metal, of types normally installed as fixtures for storage or manufacturing use. The manufacture of metal containers for compressed or liquefied gas.
  • Dies: The qualities and applications of various kinds of dies, the different components of a die (such as the die block, punch plate, pierce punch and others) and the types of die used in specialised manufacturing processes ( such as extrusion dies, drawing dies, forming dies, cutting dies, compound dies, and others).
  • Manufacturing of steel drums and similar containers: The manufacture of pails, cans, drums, buckets, boxes, through metalworking processes.
  • Cold forging: The metalworking process of forging whilst hot metal is right below its recrystallisation temperature, being cooled and solidified after casting.
  • Dust usage for forging: The qualities and applications of frit dust, sawdust, coal dust, and others, in the process of hot forging when strewn into dies to ensure the metal workpiece does not stick to the die.
  • Manufacturing of heating equipment: The manufacture of electrical ovens and water heaters by metalworking processes.
  • Types of metal manufacturing processes: Metal processes linked to the different types of metal, such as casting processes, heat treatment processes, repair processes and other metal manufacturing processes.
  • Hot forging: The metalworking process of forging whilst the hot metal is right above its recrystallisation temperature after casting and being solidified.
  • Types of forging press: Types of presses used in the metal forging process, such as hydraulic and mechanical forging presses.
  • Manufacturing of steam generators: The manufacture of steam or other vapour generators, the manufacture of auxiliary plant for use with steam generators: condensers, economisers, superheaters, steam collectors and accumulators. The manufacture of nuclear reactors, parts for marine or power boilers. Also the production of pipe system construction comprising further processing of tubes generally to make pressure pipes or pipe systems together with the associated design and construction work.

Optional skills and competences

These skills and competences are sometimes, but not always, required for the role of hydraulic forging press worker. However, mastering these skills and competences allows you to have more opportunities for career development.

  • Inspect quality of products: Use various techniques to ensure the product quality is respecting the quality standards and specifications. Oversee defects, packaging and sendbacks of products to different production departments.
  • Supply machine with appropriate tools: Supply the machine with the necessary tools and items for a particular production purpose.
  • Monitor gauge: Oversee the data presented by a gauge concerning the measurement of pressure, temperature, thickness of a material, and others.
  • Record production data for quality control: Keep records of the machine’s faults, interventions and irregularities for quality control.
  • Apply preliminary treatment to workpieces: Apply preparatory treatment, through mechanical or chemical processes, to the workpiece preceding the main operation.
  • Hold metal work piece in machine: Manually position and hold a, potentially heated, metal work piece for the machine to perform the necessary metalworking processes on it. Take the forming character of the machine into account in order to optimally place and maintain the processed work piece.
  • Monitor conveyor belt: Monitor the flow of the work pieces on the conveyor belt as they are processed by the machine to ensure optimal productivity.
  • Perform machine maintenance: Perform regular maintenance, possibly including corrections and alterations, on a machine or machine tool to ensure it remains in a proper productive state.
  • Provide advice to technicians: Offer help and advice to service technicians in case of machine malfunctions and other repair tasks.
  • Consult technical resources: Read and interpret such technical resources such as digital or paper drawings and adjustment data in order to properly set up a machine or working tool, or to assemble mechanical equipment.
  • Operate lifting equipment: Transport heavy objects using lifting equipment such as cranes, forklifts etc.
  • Keep records of work progress: Maintain records of the progress of the work including time, defects, malfunctions, etc.
  • Tend mechanical forging press: Tend a mechanical forging press, designed for forming hot or cold metal by use of a high energy force mechanically, monitor and operate it, according to regulations.
  • Replace die: Evaluate if a replacement of the die of a machine is deemed beneficial and take the necessary actions for replacing it either manually (depending on its size, by the use of a manual lifting tackle) or mechanically.

ISCO group and title

7221 – Blacksmiths, hammersmiths and forging press workers


References
  1. Hydraulic forging press worker – ESCO
Last updated on September 21, 2022

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