By David R. Butcher

It is widely argued that the U.S. is falling behind in innovation, a problem exacerbated when the so-called baby boomers retire. Addressing the need for a skilled-enough technical workforce, the Dept. of Labor has announced a framework identifying skills that workers must possess to meet future needs.
 
Whether or not you find validity in the fear of a forthcoming workforce gap exacerbated by a mass baby-boomer retirement, it is nigh impossible to ignore the importance of actively promoting skilled technical workers, from entry level to sophisticated frontline.

And in concert with that need, late last month the U.S. Department of Labor announced a new competency model, a framework identifying skills that workers must possess to meet future needs.

"In a global economy, American workers need strong academic, workplace and technical skills to maintain our innovative edge," said Assistant Secretary of Labor for Employment and Training Emily Stover DeRocco. “The tools released [in May] allow industry, educator, and government to match their investments to the modern needs of the advanced manufacturing workplace.”

In the hiring of employees, the industry to date has not had accepted standards for industry-wide skills and competencies.

In an effort to help manufacturers attract and train skilled workers, the Employment and Training Administration (ETA) convened a group of researchers to study workforce-training issues faced by advanced manufacturing. The group, which included the Manufacturing Institute, National Council for Advanced Manufacturing, National Association of Manufacturers, Society of Manufacturing Engineers, National Institute for Metalworking Skills and others, devised the framework by reviewing existing industry standards and curricula.

Thus, the group identified the common elements that apply across manufacturing sectors, addressed in the new competency model. Common elements include working with spreadsheets, interpretation of CAD (Computer-Aided Design) drawings, and database navigation and reporting. This “dynamic set of resources,” or framework, is intended to enable consistency across industries, customization within sectors, and easy updating in order to accommodate changing technology and business practices.

“After decades of using incomplete and inconsistent standards for training the manufacturing workforce, advanced manufacturers came together to embrace a common framework of skills necessary to pursue a successful career,” DeRocco said.

The U.S. manufacturing industry continues to undergo a dramatic transformation in terms of technology being used, market dynamics, workforce demographics and the skills necessary to work in an advanced manufacturing environment. As readers of IMT know, a modern manufacturing facility bares little resemblance to the gloomy factories that seem to often remain common public perception. Yet, to remain viable in the face of intense global competition, U.S. manufacturers need to become high-tech enterprises.

Some already have.

Already, U.S. manufacturers are implementing process improvement techniques, incorporating quality management systems, and overhauling their production operations with advanced technology. In this way, the U.S. manufacturing industry has achieved remarkable productivity gains in recent years.

However, the transformation of manufacturing has profound implications for the incumbent manufacturing workforce and for the new workers that employers demand, notes a recent ETA report entitled Addressing the Workforce Challenges of America’s Advanced Manufacturing Workforce. In order to operate a modern production facility, manufacturers require workers with advanced skills. Rather than hiring a worker to perform a specific task, employers increasingly need workers who are continually focused on the innovation of products and processes. Hence, the need for modern manufacturing workers with advanced academic, workplace and technical skills — to enable their employers to stay competitive.

Upon announcement of the newly announced training resources, the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) applauded and pledged to promote the new comprehensive model framework of crosscutting skills, particularly with a looming baby boomer retirement in mind.

According to the above report by the Dept. of Labor’s ETA, “America’s labor market is facing a serious challenge arising from two primary sources: an insufficient supply of people with required skills and the ‘leveling off’ of the number of American-born people available for jobs.”

According to NAM President John Engler: “If we are to avoid a human capital crisis in advanced manufacturing, we need to step up to the plate and actively promote these new core competencies to employers and educators.

“The framework provides a long overdue snapshot of what the 21st century manufacturing technical worker looks like.”

The Dept. of Labor also will shortly announce a competition for funding under the President's High Growth Job Training Initiative for the advanced manufacturing industry.