Every day should be Manufacturing Day

Manufacturing Day, celebrated on Oct. 3, has come and gone. More than 1,600 companies opened their doors to students, teachers, guidance counselors, and the general public, allowing them all to see what modern manufacturing is like. At least 50,000 people in the U.S. and Canada took advantage of this one-day open-door policy.

“I had no idea what manufacturing was,” my 16-year-old son told me as we were winding up our tour at Super Steel, a contract manufacturer in Milwaukee, last Friday. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., and nearly 180 guests attended the event. They all got to see how cutting, forming, welding, and assembly transform plain plate into the top section of a locomotive, one of which happened to be in Super Steel’s rear bay. The sections are made up of 12,000 separate metal parts fabricated at the company’s 450,000-sq.-ft. facility.

That’s what manufacturing is, and it was hard not to be impressed. I’m sure others had similar experiences at other events. For one day, manufacturing was in the spotlight, even capturing the attention of a sitting president.

But what about the rest of the year? Do manufacturers simply go back to work and wait until the 2015 edition of Manufacturing Day?

Some might, but others realize that the battle to win the hearts and minds of the next generation of manufacturing workers has to be fought on a regular basis. The strong memories of dirty and dank manufacturing settings and massive layoffs won’t be dispelled with an annual one-day celebration. A lifetime of negative memories has to be addressed on an ongoing basis.

J & D Tube Benders Inc., Schofield, Wis., realizes this and has reached out to other companies in the region to form a metal manufacturing alliance. For the last 18 months, the group has worked together to create a plan to promote the many career paths available in manufacturing.

The recent efforts have culminated in the tube fabricator’s participation in the Heavy Metal Tour. J & D Tube Benders hosted four groups of 38 students at its facility. In total, approximately 3,500 middle school students visited area manufacturing facilities.

“As the owner of a third-generation manufacturing company, my biggest fear is the third generation will struggle to find not only skilled workers, but general laborers as well,” Tom Felch, J & D Tube Benders president, said in an e-mail.

Hope isn’t a business plan, and it simply isn’t good enough to guarantee this country’s manufacturing prowess over the next 100 years. For that to happen, every day needs to be manufacturing day in the U.S.