County Manufacturing Group- Establishing a Sub Committee to fill the Skills Gap

I know you mentioned middle schools, but if you are also interested in older students, our local technical college has an advisement board for all of their programs. We meet once a year to discuss what skills the labor force is really looking for out of someone straight out of tech school. The board consists of local business owners/managers that would be hiring these students. The school takes the feedback seriously.

Your local tech school might have the same thing or you could try to convince them to start one.
 
our local technical college has an advisement board for all of their programs. We meet once a year to discuss what skills the labor force is really looking for out of someone straight out of tech school. The board consists of local business owners/managers that would be hiring these students. The school takes the feedback seriously.

That is a very admirable policy. I hope it sets a precedent for all other schools.

My only concern is that it is too late - not being introduced to a field before high school doesn't give the students years to ponder if it is something they want to explore.

Also, learning something new at a younger age ingrains it into the mind better, then if the do go into the field as an adult some of the preliminary aspects are already there.
 
I think your best route into the middle schools would be to sponsor and be heavily involved with Vex Robotics, or whatever flavor of competitive robots is popular in your region. This program is already popular in middle and high schools and already school sponsored/sanctioned. You won't be a standalone program in the region.
 
I saw this problem coming over 30 years ago I am just surprised that it took this long

At the time I was working in an iron foundry one of 10 in the maintence department
A very strong union we were all under the same union.
Since it was a small shop we had to everything. I was the only shift electrician but we all had to do whatever job came up air system problems, hydraulic system problems lift trucks, splice conveyor belts repair lift trucks. In addition to do the job right I had to be able to fill in for production people when needed. Our day didn’t end at 8 hour typically it would be 10 to 12 hours every day sometimes longer we couldn’t go home until everything was ready to run. I would even get called in on my off shift to solve a problem and keep production up.
We worked nearly every weekend. My duties includes everything in plant electrical system from simple plant lighting, machine controls changing motors, Electric induction furnace maintence and controls, crane controls. To the plant power substation a dual feed 66,000 Volt system
This was a small plant owned by a major corporation
If you work maintence you give up personal time with family and friends, vacations, don’t even think about it there is never time for them. In addition we were required to provide all our tools which as you can be quite expensive. And it that plant more than one supervisor would take it on themselves to “borrow “ your tools and returning them was at their option.

There came a time when the contract was up and everybody in the plant got a small raise except maintence. It was a small raise at best. When I asked why we were not included the answer shocked me.
Because there was just a few of us compared to the total members we were left out of all talks and maybe in the next contract we might be considered. The next contract was 3 to 5 years out. I knew the general manager well enough that we could talk and I asked him the same question. The answer was they consider maintence to be pure overhead a complete loss to profits. We could be easily replaced and didn’t have any necessary production skills. So we were expendable easily replaced.
About 2 months later I packed up and left. I went into construction where I could at least get paid for my skills.

So you ask what you can recommend to your committee

Show respect for your maintence personnel and treat them like the professional’s they are.

Understand that a good maintence person can make or break any company and the managers would not even relies what happened.

Offer your people an opportunity to aquaria new skills or upgrade their existing skills at minimum or no cost. Their improved skills will benefit both of you.
Relies that improving ones skills takes time. It must either be part of the paid work schedule or it must be compensated if you people are training on their time.

The compensation package for the maintence personal must be better than the package offers to production people. After all their skill level is far above what is required for production.
To be good at maintence requires about 10 years of training. Give you people the incentive to want to learn the skills necessary.

In this day you are not going to find a single person to do the multiple skills it takes.
An electrician is an electrician
A millwright is millwright
A mechanic is a mechanic
You get the picture the days of a multi skilled maintence person is long over the training needed for each of these skills is all specialized now each require years to master.

Think about what it will cost to outsource these skills, the downtime while you are waiting for them to arrive on site. Most service companies charge an extra fee for emergency call in and of course there is overtime for after hours. So you need the in house maintence personal.

Don’t be afraid to talk with your maintence personal and get feedback from them and work together to improve conditions for them. Keep in mind that if your maintence personal are happy management will not even know they are there, so everybody is happy.

I hope this helps and maybe improve things for others
 
Our suppliers have mobile trailers already set up. Barnum has a nice Banner set up and our AB suppler has an Allen Bradly trailer pimped out with everything under the sun. I'd contact your local reps to see if they will help. Our AB guys are real good for that.
 
“Train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough so they don't want to.”

Said nobody in manufacturing ever.
 
+1 For Sparkie I also have acquired an attitude over the years.
In most states one of the qualifications for accreditation is a curriculum advisory committee. Members must prove direct qualifications to the industry. I always had trouble getting the right people to show up as maintenance go to guys are always overworked. Sometimes I wound up with HR folks and don't get me started on that.
I had plant managers call and want students before they finished....for 10 bucks an hour.
The industry people that you are working with have to know all the unpleasant history so they know what to expect.
 

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