Industry’s Image Issue: People & Companies

The results from a recent SME survey of parents about their views relating to careers in manufacturing showed they do not have accurate information about the opportunities a manufacturing career offers.

For example, more than 20 percent view manufacturing as an outdated and/or dirty work environment.

I can’t believe people still think of manufacturing plants as dirty, dark and dangerous environments to work in. They must have watched too many movies where robots touch off welders with huge spark displays as tremendous noise fills unlit expanses where stuff is piled up, ready to topple on unsuspecting workers.

Maybe that’s how manufacturing was in the old days. When I first started, I worked in a shop that had old, wood-cobblestone floors soaked with excess oil from the machines. Walk at your own risk! The machines had virtually no guarding and would spray cutting oil at the drop of a hat.

You had to be tough in those days. It seemed like shop workers followed the motto for postal employees: “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.”