Happy Manufacturing Day!

Manufacturing Day is celebrated on the first Friday in October, with events continuing throughout the month and beyond. Check out MFG Day for details on related events. Manufacturing Day is an initiative of the Manufacturing Institute, an affiliate of the National Association of Manufacturers.

Manufacturing news is bright this year as American companies, expand their US operations offering new job opportunities. Yet dark clouds continue to form. Manufacturing Day arrives to an industry that is struggling to overcome worker shortages. The Bureau of Labor Statistics just released its manufacturing job openings report for August 2024: 506,000 job unfilled.

Reach out to Gen Z

Some industry watchers believe manufacturers need to take a new approach to attract young workers. In the 2024 report, Manufacturing Needs a Makeover, McKinsey offered a dire warning to manufacturers seeking to attract Gen Z workers: “Invest in people and develop career paths to nurture and sustain long-term productivity from long-term employees. Or, at the other end of the scale, run your recruitment efforts in overdrive when numbers are short and bemoan the fact that you can’t get staff because no one seems to want to work for your company.”

Related:Smart Manufacturing Is About Change Management

Gen Z will have plenty of opportunities in manufacturing over the coming decade. A recent study from Deloitte and The Manufacturing Institute noted that US manufacturers could need as many as 3.8 million new employees by 2033. As many as 1.9 million jobs could be left unfilled, underscoring the need for employee-focused strategies to keep up with growth. Sixty-five percent of manufacturers responding to the study said attracting and retaining talent is their primary business challenge. “Investments in skills and strategies that address the workforce’s evolving expectations, including flexibility and technology, could be pivotal to how manufacturers position themselves for success,” said the researchers.

Seeking help with technology

Bryan Christiansen, CEO and founder of Limble CMMS – a maintenance software company – noted that worker shortages is the leading concern of manufacturers. According to Limble’s 2024 State of Maintenance in Manufacturing report, more than 50% of manufacturing leaders cited downtime and workforce shortages as their greatest challenges.

He noted that implementing advanced automation technologies, such as computerized maintenance management Systems (CMMS) that Limble builds can help alleviate the issue. “This Manufacturing Day should be used to showcase the innovation and technological advancements driving the industry forward and inspire the next generation of workers to pursue careers in this evolving field,” said Christiansen.

Related:The Next Big Things in Advanced Manufacturing

Image courtesy of the International Federation of Robotics.

Manufacturers are turning to a wide range of technology to help overcome worker shortages, from robotics and IoT to augmented reality and virtual reality for employee training. Part of the worker shortage is fueled by the Baby Boomer retirement. Manuifacturers are watching their most skilled plant workers leave their jobs, taking their knowledge with them.

At Honeywell’s user conference in Dallas recently, Amit Jain, chief engineer at Chevron, noted Chevron is working with Honeywell on technology designed to capture the expertise of senior workers. “We capture the knowledge over the years. Operators reveal their best ideas of when they push on this or pull back on that. Action speaks louder than words. So, we’re trying to capture the operator’s actions,” Jain explained to Design News. “In the process we get a lot of hallucinations. The operator may be responding to an alarm that has nothing to do with the knowledge we’re trying to capture. When we remove the hallucinations, we are able to capture the action related to the solution. We’ve created a library of all the alarms and the actions that were taken by the expert operator.”

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