Skills required of a millwright encompass the multiple trades of welding, pipefitting, machining, carpentry, and mechanics. This vocation historically grew out of the carpentry craft trade. Typically millwrights are given the components needed to build an industrial project like a wind generated power plant and make it operational. Using blueprints and schematic drawings, these construction professionals take manufactured parts and those they fabricate themselves to construct complex industrial facilities.
Millwrights often hoist individual components weighing thousands of pounds into place, working within tolerances measured in thousands of an inch. They routinely work with power turbines and high-performance pumps. Virtually every step required in constructing a new industrial facility requires this trade.
Common Tasks and Specialties Performed by Millwrights
- Welding, carpentry, pipefitting, mechanics and machining of components
- Installation and maintenance of hydraulic and pneumatic systems with their associated components, such as valves, cylinders, pumps and compressors
- Millwrights in the power generation industry assemble, set, align and balance turbines and rotors
- Critical lifts of heavy components into positions of extreme accuracy
- Working with a variety of industrial equipment like pumps, crushers, conveyors, drill rigs, turbines, rotors, valves, generators, engines and controls
Support for Green Energy Development
The development of green, alternative energy generation facilities has come to the forefront in the nation’s drive to lower our dependence on foreign oil and reduce the impacts of fossil fuel use on the environment.
The skilled workforce in the United States is diminishing due to many factors that include an aging population, lack of training opportunities in the trades and changes in demographic trends. Any development of green technology and alternative energy generation could be hindered by the lack of a skilled workforce. Millwrights are required in the power generation, mining, oil, water treatment and timber industries found throughout the country.
A millwright working in the construction of a facility like a wind generated power plant would be interpreting blueprints on the project and establishing a logical work sequence to construct the power plant. Work is accomplished at extreme heights, with installation and alignment of heavy components like blades and power turbines. The millwright ensures that components are correctly assembled and takes the necessary steps to commission the facility.
Millwrights are the green career choice for the 21st century and vital to the success of future industrial development in areas like alternative energy generation. In Alaska, schools like Prince William Sound Community College (PWSCC) in Valdez are working to develop the next generation of skilled millwrights.
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