Continuing what we started

Many U.S. companies seem to have realized the error of sending manufacturing jobs to low labor-cost countries, known as offshoring. Over time, labor rates overseas increased, along with shipping costs. The resultant long lead times and, in some cases, poor-quality products, have many companies bringing back the manufacturing of parts and finished products to the U.S. With modern, high-tech equipment and good old Yankee ingenuity, the U.S. is competing favorably again. But who will continue what has been started?

Although manufacturers can always buy advanced, high-tech machine tools to boost productivity, who will program and run these new machines? Who will determine the process that turns a raw piece of material into a more valuable product?

The only answer is to get young people interested in manufacturing and train them. Whether we’re machinists, programmers, manufacturing engineers or material scientists, we need to prepare our replacements. The big push is in STEM education (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics). This is great, but how do we generate interest in this type of curriculum to begin with? We need to educate high school students—male and female—about our industry before they decide to go to college to get a degree or, God forbid, drop out of school all together.

Manufacturing Day, which takes place Oct. 3 this year, is a great start. But why not have your company sponsor a day (or a half day) each month to promote manufacturing? If you have a shop or manufacturing facility that you’re proud of, here’s an opportunity to shine. Contact the principal or technical instructor at area schools, but don’t limit the focus to shop classes—target mathematics and science departments, as those skills apply to modern manufacturing as well. Explain that you would like to offer tours of your facility and demonstrations in various segments of your business so students can have a better understanding of what manufacturing is all about.

Take a small group of students and provide a show-and-tell in your conference room with snacks and refreshments. Show them what you make and tell them where it’s used. Conduct a comprehensive plant tour, starting in the engineering or programming department, and walk the students, step by step, through the process of completing a part or assembly from a CAD drawing or model. Encourage them to talk to your programmers, machinists and engineers and ask questions.

If you use conversational programming, have students input some data from a drawing and show them what happens when you press the machine’s start button. If you have a robot, have them “teach” the robot a few points in space and let it run the program. Have your human resources department explain the skills and attitude needed to work in such a facility and the salaries and benefits that are available.

It does take a little investment in staff time and resources to host these tours, but conducting them helps our industry’s and your company’s future. You may not get any of these students to work at your facility, but at the very least you will have expanded their viewpoints on manufacturing. Our facilities are not like the sweat shops of old, with dim lighting and slick floors and oily mist in the air. As the saying goes, “We’ve come a long way baby.” CTE