The Manufacturing “T” Defined
The Manufacturing Institute and EY recently released our ‘How manufacturers should invest beyond adaptive skills to build tomorrow’s workforce’ report. Our research did not uncover a “silver bullet” for solving manufacturing talent challenges, but we did identify next-generation skills that serve as foundational building blocks for nurturing organizational transformations and future-fitted talent growth.
Cross-discipline enablers (top of T): The top of the T represents next-generation skills that are transferrable across roles and thus need to be trained broadly across the organization.
- These skills provide a critical foundation that accelerates organizational transformation, aligning with Manufacturing 4.0 transformation and digitalization requirements.
- In addition, these skills are central to breaking down siloes, serving as a critical step for inspiring innovative thinking in new and unexpected areas.
Role-based enablers: Next generation skills that are focused on addressing the direct role evolutions experienced by the production workforce.
- These evolutions include the shifts in role expectations to hold multiple roles at once, transition from physically taxing to mentally stimulating job duties, drive connectivity across the end-to-end manufacturing processes, and directly interface with digital tools with multigenerational production assets.
- Developing these skills accelerates the production workforce’s ability to effectively evolve alongside the changing shop floor, while enabling improvements in productivity, employee experience, quality and safety.
To be economically rational, manufacturers must invest in next-generation skills based on their business needs
Forbes recently published an article highlighting the findings of the report. View the full report.
Learn more how to address these gaps: The MI’s earn-and-learn training initiative, FAME – Federation of Advanced Manufacturing Education, provides individuals with an opportunity to obtain training and education while receiving on the job training with real world work experience while getting paid.
- Participants earn a FAME Advanced Maintenance Technician certificate as well as an Associates degree, all while potentially graduating debt free.
- Participating manufacturers benefit by helping train the high skilled technicians to they need in order to operate in modern manufacturing.
- Founded by Toyota in 2010 and led by the MI since 2019, FAME now has over 40 chapters in 16 states and over 450 engaged employers.
- FAME can be a resource for your company in meeting your workforce needs.
- To learn more, sign up for a FAME overview session here.
