October is manufacturing month in Ohio, and here in the Northeastern part of the state that means a broad variety of conferences and seminars specifically targeting manufacturers. Kicking things off this year was the Crain’s Cleveland Business/MAGNET “[M]Power Manufacturing Assembly”. One session at this event was a panel discussion entitled “What Keeps Northeast Ohio Manufacturers Up at Night?”, featuring three area CEOs.
The responses given by these executives reflect the concerns of many manufacturers: attracting and retaining the “best and the brightest”, the economic climate, the effects of government regulation, capital resources, and “losing our mojo” (is culture scalable with growth?). They touched on two areas which caught my attention: losing the high-tech edge and dealing with the skills gap.
“What has happened to all the tool and die guys?”, asked Steve Peplin, CEO of Talan Industries. “With all the downsizing going on you would think there would be plenty of them available, but we’re just not making them – as a country. We’re kind of forced into having to build some of our own.”
“It’s not short-term”, added Ramzi Hermiz, CEO of Shiloh Industries, “It takes a long time [to internally train the skills].”
The tool and die making profession is just one example where the skills gap is hitting manufacturing. At the publication of a 2012 Congressional Research Service report[1], the average tool and die maker was 52 years old (which puts a very large percentage in the “near retirement” category), and few replacements were available in the labor pool (this is still true in 2015). International competition, new technologies, and two recessions had forced closure of over one third of all the U.S. tool and die shops by 2010. The skills needed for this trade have also changed considerably; the market now requires an understanding of CNC programming, CAD modeling, and product lifecycle management (PLM) or product data management (PDM) systems, skills which many older workers don’t possess.
“The crisis we face is in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education…I would argue that if we look at technological game-changers like additive manufacturing and the Internet of Things, the whole work force is going to have to become numerically literate. We’re going to have to make sure the craft workforce as well as the college workforce have numerical literacy”, stated Dr. Michael Heil, CEO of Ohio Aerospace Institute.
Dr. Heil’s comment shows how closely bound the fear of losing a high-tech edge is to managing the skills gap. One of the major trends in manufacturing is digitization. The first generation of digital automation – isolated PLCs, CNCs and other devices – is being replaced by networked versions which are more tightly integrated into the organization. These devices can interact with higher-level systems such as ERP, MES, and PLM as well as collaborating with each other, creating new capabilities which has sparked initiatives such as Smart Manufacturing here in the U.S. and Industrie 4.0 in Germany, as well as an Industrial Internet of Things. But successfully utilizing these technologies will require that executive management also become more digitally savvy, for they will need to establish a vision, create strategies, and nurture a culture of innovation within their organizations.
Here in the northeast Ohio area, there are many educational institutions which are striving to meet the demands of manufacturing. I recently had the opportunity to tour the Cuyahoga Valley Career Center, and was impressed with what they are doing to prepare high school-level kids for careers in industry. They have a broad array of industrial robots, CNC machines, PLC programming, some 3D printing capabilities, engineering design, and networking – all skills which will be needed in a digital world. Local engineering schools also expand their curricula to include many of these skills as well. But I can’t help wondering what happens when these students get into the workforce and discover that the level of technical innovation within many manufacturing organizations lags far behind that which they experienced in their training. Is it any wonder manufacturing executives are losing sleep?
[1] “The
Tool and Die Industry: Contribution to U.S. Manufacturing and Federal Policy
Considerations”, Bill Canis, March 16, 2012
Are your operations ready for the next wave of
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Your Manufacturing Operations are Becoming Obsolete”.
If you’re in the NE Ohio area on October 21st,
why not join me at the Cleveland Engineering Society’s Industrial and Manufacturing
Conference? I and co-presenters from Clear Process Solutions and Litzler
Automation will be discussing “Bridging the Skills Gap with Automation”.
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