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Manufacturing's skills gap crisis at a critical juncture

Advanced automation is here to stay, but fabricators can’t automate their skilled labor problems away

Automated welding robot and skilled worker in fabrication facility

Advanced automation is here to stay, but fabrication shops really can’t automate their skilled labor problems away. Getty Images

In the early 2000s I recall chatting with a weld shop owner at FABTECH. He had landed some big orders that would suit robotic welding perfectly, at least for as long as the order lasted. But then what? Besides, some employees were outright fearful of losing their jobs. Robotics, he thought, would hurt the shop’s culture. So he decided against robotics and hired some outside temps to muscle through the large order.

I can’t remember the last time at FABTECH or anywhere else when I heard that automation would hurt shop culture. Sure, the fear of losing one’s job to automation exists. But the view toward automation in general seems to have changed. Automation is just part of the manufacturing landscape, and it’s here to stay.

Besides, thanks to retiring baby boomers and the great demographic shift, many in this business can’t remember a time before advanced automation. They take touchscreens for granted. When you can’t remember a time when your phone’s GPS didn’t know exactly where you are at all times, it’s no big deal seeing software unfold a blank, perform the setup, and nest pieces all on its own.

Something that hasn’t changed since the early 2000s, though, is the industry’s quest for people. Riding the longest economic expansion in the nation’s history, fabricators face increasing demand heading into the next decade. The demand might not be as robust as several years ago, but expansion is expected to continue this year all the same.

It’s a problem the fabrication industry needs to solve, a point driven home by a panel discussion on skilled labor held on the final day of FABTECH, on Nov 14. Adjacent to a show floor full of automated systems and software, panelists presenting at the FABTECH Theater spoke of the importance of skills development, and the fact that, in the long term, shops really can’t automate their skilled labor problems away.

Some Context

Hernán Luis y Prado is founder and president of San Diego-based Workshops for Warriors. “Workshops for Warriors trains, certifies, and helps place veterans, wounded warriors, and transitioning service members into advanced manufacturing careers throughout America. I launched the school because I saw more veterans die of drugs and suicide in San Diego than of bombs and bullets in Baghdad. I wanted to change that.”

To begin the panel discussion, Luis y Prado provided some context. “According to the latest available statistics, 59 years old is the median age of America’s advanced manufacturing employee. So in six years we’re going to be in trouble. The other troubling statistic is that 3.5 million manufacturing jobs are going unfilled due to the lack of skilled labor, and that number is expected to rise to 5 million within the next 15 years. We’re at a point of crisis in America. The silver tsunami is coming, with 80% of the workforce leaving within the next five to eight years.”

Another reality is, of course, the lack of awareness and educational opportunities in manufacturing, both of which have only grown more acute in recent years.

“Since the 2008 recession, there has been a bump in technology and a drive for more efficiency and shorter cycle times,” said fellow panelist Rob Tessier, national director of advanced fabrication technologies at Airgas, Radnor, Pa. “The challenge is that we need to make sure we put high-tech equipment in schools and into the hands of students, and get them using what the industry uses now, not what it used 20 years ago.”

This issue applies from the shop floor all the way through engineering and other technical positions, as panel moderator and Global Director of HR Kord Kozma, Nidec Press & Automation in Minster, Ohio, explained. “The industry might have candidates with bachelor’s and master’s degrees, but they’re not lining up to be at the nation’s top manufacturers. They’ll see a job opening with all sorts of opportunity at, say, a foundry, and then scurry off to a software place. We in manufacturing need to be the ones who drive the message.”

FABTECH panel discussion

Kord Kozma of Nidec Press & Automation; Hernán Luis y Prado of Workshops for Warriors; Rob Tessier of Airgas; and Dean Steadman of FANUC America Corp. discuss the skilled labor crisis on the main stage at FABTECH.

The Cultural Shift

Historically, people in metal fabrication spent years learning what they know, and it was a time-consuming process, considering how manual some manufacturing steps were. Some are unwilling to share knowledge—and understandably so. They lived through the onslaught of globalization, the recession of the early 2000s, and the Great Recession of 2008 and 2009. Their knowledge kept them employed through it all—at least that’s what they perceive, though the reality might be very different.

“A culture that fights knowledge transfer is probably going to kill that company off eventually,” said panelist Dean Steadman, CNC education program manager for FANUC America Corp., Rochester Hills, Mich. “I think we really need to utilize all the generations coming to the workforce. Other kinds of people might have different ways of thinking. Others with 30 or 40 years of experience are about to retire. Let the experienced take the new people under their wing. Let them work together, perhaps implement some version of their new ideas and see where it takes you. We need to find the synergy between the old way and new way of doing things.”

Tessier chimed in. “Don’t be afraid that someone has a different thought process and comes from a different place than you do. This really helps build knowledge, and it’s so different from the way things used to be. Forty years ago, everything was very regimented. You had to fit a specific mold, and if you didn’t fit that mold, you had it drilled into you.”

Of course, listening goes both ways. When two welding engineering students in the audience stood and asked about what they can do to further their careers, panelists offered some timeless advice.

“It’s about evolution,” said Tessier, who has a career in metal fabrication spanning almost four decades. “Don’t try revolutionizing something. Don’t rip it all apart. Take little steps. Because if you come in and say it’s all wrong, you’ll have a group of people who do nothing but push back. You might even be the smartest person in the room. But if you want to come in and revolutionize everything, everyone will fight you, even if you’re right.”

Put another way, listening with humility and empathy is key, and it needs to be a two-way street.

Fill a Career, Not a Position

Decades ago a company hired a position—a welder or a punch press operator or a press brake tech with certain experience in certain industries, be it aerospace, heavy equipment, or anything else. The person needed the right credentials and the right attitude. Today is different. Many fabricators simply don’t have the talent pool to find someone with such specific credentials.

But this challenge might have a silver lining. Because fabricators simply can’t find those with specific qualifications, they hire for attitude alone and in many cases work with a blank slate. As panelists explained, fabricators can use this opportunity to rethink their hiring practices even further. Instead of hiring for a specific position, shop managers can hire for a career.

“Many of the best people are those who don’t just want a job,” Tessier said. “They want a career. Help people have that career. Look at what people can offer, take it, and use it.”

Periodic machine and tool maintenance is baked into the most progressive fab shops, and as panelists explained, periodic career maintenance should be baked in as well.

Training takes time, but eventually the skills development becomes a two-way street. Is there a reason this job is set up on three different machines? Why not stage bend this repeating job on this new brake? Have we considered launching the offline simulation package?

The communication builds the foundation for career paths. Are new employees happy standing in front of the brake and forming parts all day? Or do they want a more varied workday? In the long term, are they interested in advancing to management, or do they have other priorities in life?

Training Never Stops

Panelists opined about the days of comprehensive apprenticeships, when many companies paid for such education. Everyone agrees that the industry needs more training opportunities, be it through a nationally recognized credentialing program, networks of technical schools, or anything else.

“We need a nationally viable training pipeline that benefits all Americans,” Luis y Prado said.

Panelists agreed that companies shouldn’t avoid training for fear of poaching. The long-term cost of a mediocre, untrained employee is far greater than instituting a healthy training program that builds shop floor knowledge, even if it causes a few to be poached.

“We could have a great training infrastructure, with centers of excellence based throughout the nation,” Luis y Prado said. “These would be able to train your exceptional employee or student to a certain level. But you as an employer take them with the full understanding that they are not going to be 10,000-hour journeymen. They are not going to be a six-stage progressive die master. They are not going to be programming a 7-axis robot on day one. But you will get a good 80% solution, and your company will take them on board and train them the rest of the way.”

But what if they leave after all this training?

“Our view is this,” Luis y Prado said. “You train them so well that they could leave for anywhere, but you pay them and treat them so well that they would never think of leaving in the first place.”

About the Author
The Fabricator

Tim Heston

Senior Editor

2135 Point Blvd

Elgin, IL 60123

815-381-1314

Tim Heston, The Fabricator's senior editor, has covered the metal fabrication industry since 1998, starting his career at the American Welding Society's Welding Journal. Since then he has covered the full range of metal fabrication processes, from stamping, bending, and cutting to grinding and polishing. He joined The Fabricator's staff in October 2007.