FANUC America’s answer to millions of manufacturing jobs going unfilled.
The Manufacturing Skills Gap has had a real negative impact for FANUC America customers. As a global leader of automation solutions, FANUC knows to maximize an investment in automation, manufacturers needed to have a skilled workforce that understands cutting-edge technology.
“Our customers were saying their workforce was their number one concern,” says Paul Aiello, Executive Director of Education for FANUC America. “We developed this partnership with education to bolster our customers’ needs.”
For the last 10 years, FANUC America’s Certified Education Program, or CERT, has been working towards developing an infrastructure with educational partners all throughout the country. Together, FANUC and educational partners have been building the capabilities of instructors and working with them to teach industry-relevant curriculum. This framework now can handle the demand from anyone looking to grow their advanced automation skills, in any part of the nation.
“Now, we have a complete educational pathway that says here’s the curriculum to develop these occupational skills, here’s certification that validates those skills, and here’s employers that are looking for those skills,” explains Aiello.
Building the Vital Manufacturing Worker Pipeline from High School
One of the unique features about FANUC America’s CERT Program is many of the skills can be introduced and developed at the high school level. This benefits younger students who might not be aware of the career opportunities manufacturing can offer.
With developing pipeline resources, the most critical source is secondary education, Aiello explains.
“High school is when students are really deciding what their career path may be,” says Aiello. Having secondary education programs provides a vitally important pathway for building a pipeline of people going into manufacturing careers.
“The biggest impact to influencing a career decision is the experiences that those individuals have,” he says. “By not having these programs in high schools, we are doing a disservice to our younger generation because they don’t know what they don’t know.”
Experiences with manufacturing careers may speak to young people while they are still in high school, which is what FANUC America CERT partner school, RAMTEC, is trying to do. The Ohio-based technical school trains both younger students and adults, but also has a two-year program designed to teach high school juniors and seniors manufacturing skills they can use to get jobs right out of high school.
In fact, Mark Edington, FANUC Certified Robotics Instructor at RAMTEC, says they recently had four high school level seniors accepted into Whirlpool’s apprenticeship program, where they will shadow employees and then have the opportunity to be hired. Edington says over a dozen of RAMTEC’s former students are now employees at Whirlpool, all with good paying jobs, no college debt, and loving what they do.
“Companies like Whirlpool know what we teach,” he says. “And FANUC has been a great partner to help us teach these students.”
However, without this introduction to manufacturing careers provided by schools like RAMTEC in partnership with FANUC, these former students—now with up to six-figure salaries—would possibly not have these jobs.
“High school students don’t understand what’s available to them in manufacturing without having a program that introduces them to it,” Aiello says.
The CERT program offers secondary education classes in robotics, CNC as well as systems integration. This helps expose students to not only advanced manufacturing technology, but also different types of manufacturing processes.
“If we offer these programs, students can take it as an elective, such as a language elective or computer coding class,” Aiello says. “If the students find that they like it and want to pursue it, that’s great. If they don’t, then we are helping them define what they do or don’t want to do.”
Challenging Manufacturing Misperceptions through Education
When discussing developing a skilled workforce pipeline from secondary education to manufacturers, not everyone shares the same positive opinion. The antiquated stigma associated with manufacturing— that the environment is the three D’s, dirty, dull and dangerous – still exists.
“We are often challenged by educators, parents and students alike for our manufacturing educational programs,” says Aiello. “Often times they associate manufacturing with negative connotations and that their career would only consist of working in a ‘shop.’”
As FANUC America and its customers know, the manufacturing industry is much more advanced than the average person understands it to be. On the flip side of the “manufacturing is outdated” opinion, there is the belief that the industry deploys too much automation and that all the manufacturing jobs will eventually be eliminated.
Without this introduction to manufacturing careers provided by schools like RAMTEC in partnership with FANUC, these former students—now with up to six-figure salaries—would possibly not have these jobs.
“Those two sentiments couldn’t be further from the truth,” explains Aiello. “Robotics create a more advanced working environment and offer higher value skilled labor positions.”
Many of FANUC America’s customers that have deployed our automation solutions—robotics and CNCs alike—have attested to the fact that they can go after more and new business, which ultimately leads them to expansions and hiring more people.
FANUC and its educational partners are working to change these misconceptions. These classes serve as ways to not only develop occupational skills, but also to communicate to the wider public what manufacturing truly looks like.
“One of the worst things that could happen to high school students is parents sending them blindly down a four-year college path,” says Aiello. “And the students don’t know what they want to do and end up saddle with lots of debt and without a career.”
The Different Pathways to a Successful Manufacturing Career
Even though the CERT Program is designed to ultimately land students manufacturing jobs, there are many options still available through the program.
“With our CERT program, we’ve tried to align to a pathway that will lead to occupational career starting positions,” says Aiello. “But the certifications can take students in a number of different directions.”
For instance, the skill-development pathway can lead directly to an employer. With the CERT certifications, the employer can feel comfortable this individual has the ability to execute the technical skills needed for the job.
However, a student can also take the certifications achieved and go into a one or two year post-secondary program where they can gain more knowledge or technical skills. After that, they will be well equipped to enter the workforce.
If the individual would like to continue onto a 2+2 program for advanced degrees, such as a bachelor’s degree, the CERT Program can help them do that as well. There are many paths a younger student can take to land a successful career in manufacturing, but the manufacturing workforce doesn’t just develop high school students. Stay tuned next week to receive the 4th edition of our 5 part series on developing the future of manufacturing skills.