What I am getting at is I don't under stand what you are saying? The operators at my work, don't do anything more complicated then 30 years ago, except they have to keep track of there rejects, good parts, write them down and make damn sure they catch short shots, splay, burns, flash... Back then no one really gave a damn
There is some truth to needing to know more these days.
When I fist got into machining CNCs where in there infancy and ran off punch tapes.
Now of course it's computers.
Hell,most shops didnt even have a CNC,now they've pretty much taken over and manual machinist are hard to come by.
The other side of it is it allows a shop to hire a programer and a set up guy and put a bunch of button pushers on the machine for twelve bucks an hour.
While skilled manual machinist is making the big bucks on R&D and one or two piece orders.