Recently, I had the opportunity to attend the Advanced Manufacturing Symposium hosted by The Workforce Development Institute.
The symposium was enlightening. It put the concept of "advanced manufacturing" in perspective relative to what is happening worldwide, and it pointed out the need to examine how we might be training people for high-skill, high-wage jobs in manufacturing.
While there isn't yet a comprehensive, widely accepted definition of Advanced Manufacturing, there are strong commonalities within the varying definitions. The definitions all refer to either manufacturing "high-tech innovative technology," or how manufacturers use technology to improve products or processes that take manufacturing operations to another level; a level not easily replicated by competitors.
Direct digital fabrication, nanotechnology, three-dimensional printing and micro manufacturing are a few of the technologies to which the term advanced manufacturing is applied. I have no idea what any of them are.
I do know that advanced manufacturing is where U.S. manufacturers need to be if they hope to compete internationally.
But isn't manufacturing on the decline in America? Aren't factories closed or closing? Aren't manufacturing jobs being sent to countries with lower-cost labor, fewer environmental regulations and less litigation?
Au contraire.
According to the National Association of Manufacturers:
? For the first time in a decade, manufacturing is creating more jobs than are being eliminated - 250,000 since 2010.
? 21% of the world's manufacturing still takes place in America compared to 15% in China and 12% in Japan.
? In 2009, 12 million Americans worked directly in manufacturing, about 10 percent of the overall workforce.
? Taken alone, U.S. manufacturing would be the 8th largest economy in the world.
? U.S. manufacturers perform half of all R&D in the nation, driving more innovation than any other sector.
? U.S. manufacturers are the most productive workers in the world, twice as productive as workers in the next 10 leading manufacturing economies.
The future may be even brighter.
A paper by the Boston Consulting Group predicts that in the next few years there may be a wave of reinvestment in U.S. manufacturing. Pay attention to the term reshoring, It refers to companies that moved operations offshore returning some or all of those operations back to the United States.
At the symposium, Chuck Miller from Mohawk Global Trader Advisors gave a compelling presentation on reshoring.
According to Miller, rising wages in China, a weakening of the U.S. dollar, rising fuel and transportation costs, increasingly complex international security and compliance issues, increasing political and economic pressures and "the Japan effect" (supply chain problems created as a result of the tsunami) are causing some manufacturers to re-think where they locate.
The future may be bright, but don't get those sunglasses out just yet.
Not unlike other sectors, manufacturers claim their most difficult problem is finding qualified workers. The lack of a skilled workforce may be the greatest hindrance to pushing U.S. manufacturers ahead of foreign competitors.
A 2009 study conducted by the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) found 32 percent of surveyed manufacturers said they couldn't find enough qualified workers. The report states that "due to the large number of individuals retiring over the next 10 years, a critical shortage of people available to work within the manufacturing industry is looming." It always seems to come down to the same two things: education and training.
Reshoring won't happen overnight, and it may not happen at all if manufacturers aren't convinced that the workforce is highly skilled. A graying workforce and an inadequate pipeline aren't dynamics that instill confidence in any employer.
Manufacturers need a strong technical workforce to drive innovation. Workers need the right occupational and soft skills to find employment and to avail themselves of advancement opportunities.
So, what to do?
One answer may be to adopt the Manufacturing Institute's Skills Certification System, a set of industry-recognized skills credentials. NAM's certification system "maps to both career pathways across the manufacturing economy and to the educational pathways in postsecondary education."
But whether it's NAM's system or another system, we will do the region a disservice by not integrating the core components of skills certifications into educational pathways so that a worker can progressively pursue industry-supported stackable credentials.
We have an aeronautical institute, why not a manufacturing institute to complement it?
By Paul Grasso: Press-Republican
Paul Grasso is executive director of the North Country Workforce Investment Board and the St. Lawrence County Workforce Investment Board, the counties' designated workforce development planning agency, and the North Country Workforce Partnership Inc. He has more than 20 years experience developing workforce programs in both the United States and Europe.