Many in the industry believe that is due to manufacturing’s image problem. Brent Weil, Senior Vice President of the National Association of Manufacturers, explained that while many Americans believe in the value of manufacturing to the country, many parents do not want their kids pursuing careers in it. Weil added that the two biggest factors driving career choices for young professionals are personal experiences and parental influence.
Cramer believes that problem is largely due to the ambiguity surrounding the field as a whole.
“’What is manufacturing?’ Everyone has such a different concept,” Cramer says. “Most students can’t answer that question.”
Cramer said that SME is combating that problem through its Education Foundation’s Partnership Response In Manufacturing (PRIME®) initiative, which engages and builds a network between students, educators and industry to grow and train the next generation workforce while driving interest and awareness in manufacturing. The program emphasizes the importance of building specific, tailored engagement points, from hourly employees all the way up to executives, so people can get a sense of the manufacturing environment.
According to Cramer, when those students graduate from the program, about 84 percent of them end up working in manufacturing. He says that due to demand, the program is aiming to grow from 12,000 students per year to 25,000 students per year.
“Our goal is to create a student who has more than a high school diploma,” said Cramer. “We want to make sure they’re credentialed and that credential means something and it’s matched up with a company that says ‘I want that credential, I know what it means, and it’s a benchmark for us.’”
Mary Ann Pacelli, Program Manager, Workforce Development at the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership, added that there’s a lot of small businesses themselves can do as well, including creating a workforce development plan. However, many small businesses don’t have the resources to do that.
“That’s when you need to engage with other people in your community,” said Pacelli. “You find other companies that have life skills that have life needs and [figure out] how do you work together to build that pipeline of workforce and build the skills within your facility so that you can share in the developing and paying … the financial investment that needs to happen.”
