Industry Trade Association Addresses the Skills Gap Issue

Today’s guest blog post comes from Precision Machined Products Association (PMPA). More and more industry trade groups are organizing to address the skills gap, and PMPA has certainly been in the lead of that effort. Just last year they launched MFG, an online one-year certification and job training course for its members that allows companies big and small to have a consistent, accredited training program.

Here is the post, which also appeared in Production Machining.

Training the Next Generation: The Need for Professional Development

Establish a training program that identifies the necessary requirements to be fulfilled.

Professional development and staff training are important to the success of every shop. Professional development ensures employees maintain appropriate certifications, knowledge, safety and ethics in the professional environment. The goal of professional development is to have a qualified staff. Qualified employees have the skills needed to deliver the highest quality of service to our customers. This can be accomplished by establishing training programs, workshops and ongoing educational opportunities. This benefits the company as a whole by improving productivity, culture and customer loyalty while helping employees achieve their highest and best performance.

Establish a Training Program

Establish a training program that identifies the necessary requirements to be fulfilled. Safety training, technical competency and performance techniques are all possible deliverables. By providing this kind of training, the company can feel comfortable knowing they have improved staff knowledge leading to improved performance from their employees. Better performance means improved safety, quality and customer satisfaction. Training improves competency, so it improves performance and trust. Improved trust improves teamwork. Everybody wins. Why would you choose not to establish a training program?

Administer the Training Program

Identifying training needs is the first step. Administering a program to provide the training, testing that it has been effectively learned, and tracking training accomplishments are the next steps. Any course materials should be accredited to recognized national standards such as National Institute of Metalworking Skills (NIMS), of which PMPA is a founding member, or the Department of Labor Apprenticeship. Implement the training through your people, or rely on a provider of training that can assure the accreditation of the material and also monitor the completion of each training course by each learner. Training can be provided by a face-to-face demonstration of skills on the job by mentors in the shop, while other materials can be provided via an online forum. The online materials and the students’ progress are tracked through the online portal.

Evaluate the Effectiveness of Training

In order to ensure that the training is helping the trainees and the organizations reach their goals, a means to evaluate its effectiveness needs to take place. This can be done by managers or by a professional development committee. Feedback from trainees, their team leads and data from the online portal can help the team further refine their training offerings and methodology. Assessing trainee performance is just as important as identifying passing scores on quizzes and tests. Most employees will pass the coursework, but feedback will help the company refine the training to clarify materials that seem unclear or difficult to master, as well as develop a plan to ensure that each employee has multiple opportunities to meet the requirements of the standard.

Evaluate the Efficiency and Effectiveness of the Program

It is not enough to evaluate the training. It is just as important to evaluate the efficiency, effectiveness and impact that the training provided had on the employees and its impact on the company’s overall performance. Less downtime? Shorter setup times? More independent decision making on the shop floor? Better team-work as trained employees become more trusted employees? What do these mean in terms of uptime, operational fulfillment and bottom line profitability?

What is the Cost of Training?

Better yet, what is the cost of not training? What is the benefit of having qualified personnel, a qualified program and a qualified and aligned team? What is the value of having a standard work of best practices in your shop? How can you get to standard work and best practices without some training means to create that knowledge throughout your shop? Which of your performers could not benefit from some additional training?

How important is funding? Funding is what it takes to bridge the gap between your company’s current performance and your aspiration to be the highest performing shop serving your customers. Appropriate funding is necessary to ensure that training is effective, authoritative and appropriate. Without funding, inappropriate training or lack of training may result in misinformation, some staff remaining uninformed and possibly working dangerously because they have not been trained to recognize unsafe practices.

Overcoming Our Shared Challenges

The challenges we share revolve around the ability to remain consistent in the approach to training and developing personnel. They can be overcome by establishing, administering and evaluating the training that we provide, as well as our program that provides it. Planning, persistence and teamwork are keys to getting this done. When an individual is trained, they feel comfortable with information and guidelines, and thus, become successful as they positively impact those with whom they work.

There is no doubt that all our companies need and can benefit from professional development. There are many resources that will help an individual to grow and develop both professionally and personally. All companies claim to have the ability to communicate, document and provide instruction on the skill sets needed. If we are to achieve our desired professional development outcomes, we must be a savvy shopper and keep our eye on the goal.

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An Employer’s Back to School List

Guest Post

Miles Free, Technical Director of the Precision Machined Products Association (PMPA), has been a contributor before to this audience and he and I share the same enthusiasm about giving young people other options than a 4-year college degree. The association has been a great supporter of Right Skills Now that are local technical training programs that are very successful

Miles writes a blog for the association called Speaking of Precision. Miles sheds some current insights into the issue. Enjoy!

I remember the excitement of back to school when I was child – new clothes, new shoes, maybe a new notebook, and new school supplies. These items embodied my parents’ wishes for us to succeed academically and earn a better place in the world. Blue-collar budgets meant money was tight, and a well thought out list assured that they did the best for the family with the resources we had.

It is back to school time and while my children have long since left the nest, I have been thinking about what we, would as employers, put on this year’s back to school list for our shops and for our industry?

People that want to work. At a meeting in Chicago recently, I met a VP of Operations from a major soft drink company. What is number one on his list? He told me ‘people that want to work.’ Really. ‘I am looking for people looking for a job, not those just looking for a paycheck. I’m looking for solid people who can make a difference as they make a career.’  His company offers internships and a company development program, but his first task every week is to review his vacancies report. Add people who want to work to the list.

Looking for talent, not labor. U.S Productivity is high, and one consequence is that we need talented people, not just bodies in the ‘labor gang.’ U.S. productivity doubled from 2008 to 2009; then it doubled again in 2010 according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The jobs that were cut in 2008 and 2009 tended to be the least skilled positions at any company, according to most press reports.

Now, companies seem to have hit the limit for what they can produce with the talent that they have. To make more sales, they need to add talent, not just bodies. Add talented people to the list.

Urgent need for craft workers. Much of the value add in our industry comes from the programming, set-up and operation of high-tech multiple axis CNC machines. This is not ‘just push the big green button’ work. An inefficient program can cost the company dollars per part if the program runs too slow. Setting up the machine in a longer time than that planned results in higher costs and lost profits. Operators have to be on top of their game to assure all features are produced to spec and that tools are replaced before they create problems. The craftsmen (and women!) in our precision machining industry add value by what they know and how they do.

Our industry’s employees are getting closer to retirement. Median age (half the workforce is older, half is younger) was reported to be 51 for occupations in our industry according to BLS. According to Mark Doms, Chief Economist for the U.S. Department of Commerce, there is a “…longer-term trend of an increase in the average age of those employed in the manufacturing industry. Those age 45 years or older now comprise almost half of manufacturing employment, up from about one-third in the mid-to-late 1990s.” With 10,000 baby boomers turning age 65 each day, our industry – every industry – needs a plan to retain the knowledge and capture the skills of our departing workers.

Willing to train. My parents bought me my school supplies, knowing that I would take them to school. Given the need to replace our retiring highly productive craft workers, what has changed is that for employers at least, we are going to have to step up our investment in training, cross training, and setting up programs for knowledge retention and the capturing of ‘tribal knowledge.’  Unlike my parents, who bought me school supplies, packed my lunch, and sent me off to school, employers today need to take charge of the training and development of the people who add value in our shops. We can no longer take for granted that a surplus of craft machinists is ‘out there’ somewhere just waiting for our offer. We need to actively manage for today’s reality – High productivity, high technology workplaces require skilled, talented, trained employees. We can’t just take what the schools give us. We need to tell the schools what we are looking for in our hires.

Eliminate the skills gap. The policy wonks in Washington D.C., many state capitals, and on our TV ‘news programs’ can debate the finer points of whether or not the U.S. has a skills gap or a skills mismatch. Every employer that I have spoken with in the precision machining industry has told me that if they didn’t have an opening, they would create one for the right candidate if they applied at their shop. That fact alone tells me that the debate is irrelevant. U.S. advanced manufacturing companies must have a talented, trained cadre of capable workers in our industry specialties like CNC programming, Setup, and operation, if we are to remain competitive and sustain manufacturing as a competitive strength here in North America.

Like my folks who wanted to see their kids earn a better place in the world, our companies should be leaders in helping to improve the visibility, value and prestige of the advanced manufacturing people who make a difference in our shops each and every day. By applying their talent, skills and efforts, cars are safer, food and beverages are delivered hygienically, and aircraft and medical devices can be relied upon. As employers, we have a list of what we need. Our job now is to turn that list into a list of actions to make a difference.

The first item on that list should be “to increase the visibility, value and prestige of precision machinists, programmers, engineers and our other high value team members.” If we take this first step, we will make it possible to find people who want to work, people with talent, people able to be trained for our craft, so that we can eliminate the skills gap and keep our shops as competitive and sustainable centers of advanced manufacturing and productive value adding activity.

The longest journey starts with but a single step. Let’s take that first step to let the world know just how good a career awaits them in precision machining. We can, we must, sustain the competitiveness of our shops and industry through our back to school investment.

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5 Reasons Trade Associations Should Be Blogging

Trade associations, by design, are supposed to be the “official spokesperson” for their constituency. Most though have missed the opportunity to harness the power of the Internet and social media. This is especially true of the more conservative manufacturing-type groups.

One such group that has done a great job in using the Internet and the social media tools is The Precision Machined Products Association (PMPA). They have a blog (Speaking of Precision) and are active on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

Miles Free, Director of Technology and Industry Research (also Chief Blogger) says: “Our members value the PMPA for the ability to network. Using our blog to provide thought leadership, technical resources, advocacy, another channel for communication, and recruitment helps us help our members and the industry stay connected. We use social media to help us provide connection, effective advocacy, and keep our members and the industry apprised of critical issues. At virtually no cost. For PMPA, social media is key to effective associating.”

Here are 5 reasons they are using social media :

  1. Thought leadership – They want to be known as the “Experts” in their space and their blog.
  2. Technical resource – To keep the industry updated on issues ranging from the latest OSHA requirements to new specs for a certain quality program, as well as to promote knowledge retention.
  3. Advocacy – All associations need representation in Government whether it’s national, state or local. Their position on issues are vital and social is a great place to rally the troops.
  4. Communicate with members – Most associations have several ways to touch their members, but blogs let them focus on one key subject and communicate with them on a regular basis, but in a different format that they are used to.
  5. Recruitment tool for new members – All associations are looking for new members, and this is a way for new potentials to see what they are doing and identify themselves as potential new members.

So, if you belong to an association and they aren’t using social media, tell them they are missing a great opportunity.

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