Key to Workforce Development MForesight is also making strides to identify best prac- tices in education and workforce development at all levels. To re-establish our strength as creators and producers of advanced technology values, we need to inspire our youth and revitalize our engineering community. While US high schools commonly require students to dissect a frog, hardly any require students to disassemble a power tool. No matter their age, empowering students to take things like power tools apart can engage them in design, ma- terials, manufacturing, and safety challenges by tapping into the curiosity and creativity that many children naturally have. Such exposure to real-world engineering will inspire our youth to attend a four-year degree college to become an engineer or pursue vocational training, without feeling like a second-class intellect, and to master the advanced manufacturing trades (ex. CNC machining) that are desperately needed in industry. The recent emergence of the “Maker Movement” is having a phenomenal infl uence on American youth. Maker Faires bring together science, art, crafts, and engineering in a fun, energized and exciting public forum. FIRST Robotics is an outstanding example of a successful inspirational extracur- ricular program. We need to bring this type of education and experience into mainstream K-12 curriculum. There’s a paradox inherent in America’s manufacturing
prospects. Owing to a proud national tradition as a manu- facturing power, Americans not only believe that the sector is important for economic competitiveness but actually prefer to see manufacturing jobs created in their communities above jobs in any other sector. Yet, puzzlingly, relatively few Americans are personally in-
terested in manufacturing careers. Only half of Americans re- cently surveyed by Deloitte reported believing manufacturing jobs can be interesting and rewarding, and just one in three parents reported that they would encourage their children to pursue work in a manufacturing fi eld. Most troubling, manu- facturing registers dead last among fi elds in which millennials reported wanting to build their careers.
What accounts for this disconnect? If Americans under- stand the importance of creating products to creating strong national, regional, and local economies, why is there so little interest in manufacturing as a vocation? It’s a question of perception. The account that manufactur- ing is “dark, dangerous, and dirty” persists with most Ameri- can adults. Today, however, more and more factories look like
clean rooms or Silicon Valley R&D centers. The key to revers- ing the perception is to give kids fi rst-hand experience visiting factories and meeting manufacturing workers. Michigan’s Mac Arthur Corporation recently organized and implemented a Manufacturing Day fi eld trip event, bringing 75 young students to visit their campus. The event was not only participatory but also directly linked to the Common Core curriculum. Students produced art that they developed with machine tools and got to take home. The whole opera- tion came to less than $500—not including staff time. These fi eld trips turn into internships for high school stu- dents and then careers. They also bring exposure to parents. The premise is simple: kids need to see the careers before they can aspire to them. There’s major opportunity to train counselors to organize trips and create coordinated programs among school districts and companies to facilitate it. Apprenticeships are the original model of “work and learn” since medieval times. Businesses have the opportunity to partner with both high schools and community colleges to get students working up to four hours a day for a partial wage while also gaining classroom knowledge. Apprentices offer real, bankable knowledge and skill as well as a clear pathway to a career.
Perhaps the big challenge now is restoring the requisite coursework and classroom time to offer “shop class” in middle schools and high schools for woodworking, CNC machines, laser cutters, auto mechanics, CAD, etc. There’s a signifi cant opportunity for manufacturing industries to act in their own interest by helping to fund and implement shop classes in the school districts in which they are active. If school districts do not have needed funding, industries can make a strategic investment in the talent pipe- line through these programs.
Only when the United States starts to generate a new pipe- line for a skilled workforce at all levels—from skilled production workers to talented engineers equipped with hands-on and analytical skills—will the country regain its lock on its position at the forefront of technological innovation and high-tech manu- facturing and foster future economic and national security.
Sridhar Kota, Herrick Professor of Engineering, Professor of Mechanical Engineering; Director, MForesight: Alliance for Manufacturing Foresight, The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
May 2016 |
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