The Competitive Edge Research Priorities for U.S. Manufacturing (1991) / Chapter Skim
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Manufacturing Skills Improvement
Manufacturing Skills Improvement
Pages 120-139
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From page 120... ...
It is related to a set of goals, specifically to the creation and maintenance of a well-trained, flexible, and motivated manufacturing workforce, comprising prospective workers as well as current workers at all conventional levels, including technical professionals and managers, mid-level technicians, and shop floor personnel. Education of prospective manufacturing workers typically occurs in elementary and secondary schools {grades K-12)
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From page 121... ...
The current work force usually is trained typically in basic skills, communication skill, and skills related to teamwork and group dynamics—through continuing education and training and retraining programs. Retraining tends to be job-, industry-, or company-specific and to be structured by levels {e.g., upper, middle, and lower)
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From page 122... ...
manufacturing firms. Also in serious doubt is the ability of the country's prospective work force to meet the skill requirements imposed by the advanced manufacturing technology on which our international competitiveness depends.
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From page 123... ...
A Hudson Institute study,3 furthermore, predicts that more than half of all jobs created between 1984 and 2000 will require some education beyond high school and almost a third will be filled by college graduates (Figure 6-2, Tables 6-2 and 6-31. Department of Labor projections for manufacturing employment to 2000, though level, show a change in occupational mix, with greater proportions of engineers, technicians (who may be upgraded operators!
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From page 124... ...
In this vein, Dean Meyer Feldberg of Columbia University Business School observed in an interview with The New York Times that fewer than 4 percent of all college students will graduate in engineering, compared to 24 percent who will graduate with degrees in business.5 Dean Feldberg noted that Japan, with half the population of the United States, graduated twice as many electrical engineers as this country in 1989. Of the graduate students in science and engineering in the United States, almost half, according to the DOD report, are foreign.
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From page 125... ...
industrial firms have neither the money needed to develop effective programs nor access to instructors competent to teach a broad range of modern manufacturing skills. Apprenticeship, despite criticism and unfavorable appraisals by academics and public policy analysts, "has stubbornly persisted and actually thrived in certain occupations, industries, localities, and countries," according to a report from the National Center for Research in Vocational Education.5 The report reveals that a rich diversity of apprenticeship practices exists in the United States unbeknownst to many for want of effective means of fostering awareness, dissemination, and replication.
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From page 126... ...
A business school dean observed recently that the same companies that send vice-presidents of marketing and finance to recruit for those functions often send a personnel specialist to recruit for manufacturing jobs. "The salary structures they offer," the dean remarked, "might as well have a big sign attached that says: 'Don't apply for this job category."' Until this image is changed and public understanding enhanced, people not previously motivated to choose manufacturing careers can hardly be expected to do so.
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From page 127... ...
Precedent for improving manufacturing skills is lacking in many companies that are unaccustomed to paying for skills beyond entry level. The need to provide for continuing development is slowly being recognized, but managers untrained in modern manufacturing methods are inclined to look at manufacturing training as less productive than other training.
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From page 128... ...
The consequences can be seen in microelectronics manufacturing. To illustrate, the typical undergraduate experience in microelectronics is shown in Table 6-4, and the missing manufacturing engineering content is shown in Table 6-5.8 University shortcomings in this field can be grouped into two categories: impressions or attitudes conveyed to students that undermine the country's ability to produce highly talented and skilled semiconductor engineers, and significant curriculum deficiencies that limit students' ability to acquire the broad knowledge needed
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From page 129... ...
Integrated circuit processing lecture Integrated circuit fabrication laboratory Device physics None None None Small None SOURCE: Microelectronic Engineering at Rochester Institute of Technology: Manpower for Tomorrow's Technology, 1990. TABLE 6-5 Manufacturing Engineering Content Missing from the Above Curriculum Subject Area Operations Research Statistical Process Control Computer automation Other Specific Skills Factory floor simulation Work-in-progress tracking Total cycle time management Materials resource planning Scheduling Productive maintenance Joe Juran methodology Gathering and~processing data for control and quality improvement.
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From page 130... ...
RESEARCH NEEDS AND GENERAL RECOMMENDATIONS Manufacturing skills improvement is particularly difficult because so much of what affects it lies outside the manufacturing sector. The order of the day is to develop competence, in both the work force and management, with the advanced manufacturing technologies essential to manufacturing competitiveness.
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From page 131... ...
None of the generic skills noted—such as basic literacy, numeracy, integrative and interpersonal abilities, and problem solving and higher order thinking are peculiar to manufacturing; these are the skills that virtually every industry, vocational, and skills study has found lacking. Recognition of the indispensability of these skills to people working with advanced manufacturing technologies might serve to reinforce efforts to build them in the population as a whole, but only if manufacturing is itself considered important.
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From page 132... ...
Among the many diverse and useful education and research efforts aimed at improving manufacturing skills at the engineering and management end of the education spectrum are: the Laboratory for Manufacturing and Productivity, Materials Processing Center, and Leaders for Manufacturing Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; the m~nufacturing-oriented Engineering Research Center at Purdue University; the National Technological University's Master of Science Program in M~nufacturing Systems Engineering; the Center for Innovation Management Studies and Manufacturing Engineering Program at Lehigh University; and the University of Wisconsin's Manufacturing Engineering initiative. These programs, though they appear to be very effective, are not nearly numerous enough to serve the population in need of skills improvement at this level.
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From page 133... ...
An effective way to swiftly bring this about is to establish for engineering faculty a professional development program in manufacturing that is cost effective and readily available. Recommend ation i: NSF should establish a Faculty Professional Development Program .n manufacturing with a goal of reaching 20 percent of the engineering faculty in ABET9 accredited programs within two years.
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From page 134... ...
Recommendation NSF should fund and coordinate research that involves business and management schools, engineering colleges, and industry in collaborative studies of manufacturing management in particular and technology management in general. In-house training sponsored by industries and individual companies and educational programs provided through university extension and business and management school executive education programs also are appropriate.
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From page 135... ...
Much more knowledge is needed about the skill, knowledge, and behavioral requirements of advanced manufacturing systems. Research should be undertaken to help employers and employees articulate needs for specific skills and to help educators translate these needs into curricula.
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From page 136... ...
Recommendation NSF should fund research to identify, analyze, and document secondary school and university curricula that successfully teach conceptual and integrative thinking. The results of this research should be made widely available, and a pane!
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From page 137... ...
educational enterprises might be brought together in a financially self-sustaining program to determine how different instructional methods might be combined to bring the highest quality of instruction to the broadest range of students without sacrificing the benefits of individual contact and experimental practice. The unique qualities of television might be studied, for example, with the aim of using it to improve training in manufacturing skills.
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From page 138... ...
Recommendation NSF should inform those studying the problems of secondary education of its import for manufacturing and should encourage the incorporation of manufacturing awareness in the nation's high school curricula. Summary Manufacturing competitiveness in the international arena will rely increasingly on the deployment of advanced manufacturing technology, which in turn will rely on the nurturance of a highly skilled and multidisciplinary work force.
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From page 139... ...
7. Two exceptions are The Great Lakes Manufacturing Technology Center {supported by the National Institute of Standards and Technology)
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