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Manufacturing careers
Saturday, October 29, 2005 A manufacturing summit in Minnesota highlighted a product problem from manufacturers. Few young people have a current understanding of the opportunities in the manufacturing sector. Many parents and teachers have outdated the views of manufacturing careers. They see manufacturing jobs as dirty, dangerous and dead-end. In contrast, most manufacturing jobs today require high levels of technical skill. These skills include the ability to read blueprints, integrate design into machine setups, and the understand the integration of automation. Read more about the Minnesota summit. Recently, I interviewed a component manufacturer here in Northeast Ohio to understand more completely the career path of technical jobs in a component manufacturing operation. Component manufacturing involves manufacturing parts for larger original equipment manufacturers. (In Northeast Ohio, we are working with a group of component manufacturers on a new approach to accelerate automation. This appraoch, which we call RAMTEC, is designed to help smaller component manufacturers focus on improving productivity and quality by applying automated solutions. In Wisconsin, they have worked with OEMs to strengthen their base of component suppliers. In Ohio, our approach is different. We are building a collaborative among the component suppliers.) Component manufacturers provide different jobs with different levels of technical education. At the entry level, a technician or operator knows needs to know how to read blueprints and manage automated equipment. Interestingly, one of the critical skills of a machine operator is the ability to listen to the machine and diagnose problems almost intuitively. These jobs are currently paying about $15-$20 an hour in Ohio. The step above the basic operator, is the programmer. The programmer gives instructions to the equipment to perform needed tasks. The programmer must understand the language that commands the robot and the equipment. The programers currently earn between $45,000 and $65,000. Across the factory for maintenance technicians can earn between $60,000 and $80,000. They require a two years of electronics training and usually develop their capability by working their way through other lower jobs. Above this level comes the applications engineer. These jobs involve managing the production floor and can pay between $65,000 and $100,000 a year. The applications engineer decides how different parts can be machined on different pieces of equipment and what tooling is required. The applications engineer understands programming, but also understands tooling and the capabilities of different equipment. Above the application engineer comes the systems integrators. These people can make between $125,000 and $175,000 year. They require both mechanical engineering and electronics training. These highly skilled engineers are able to integrate equipment from different vendors. In Pittsburgh, educators are addressing the chronic shortage of skilled workers with high school technical training in robotics. The students learn how to operate an maintain robots. Read more. Applying automation represents a big opportunity for U.S. component manufacturers. These companies, mostly small, have lagged in their application of robots and other forms of "hard" automation. Here's a useful overview article. Here's another view of the opportunity: The return on investment for the training of new and incumbent skilled manufacturing employees is higher than on most capital investments. The return on technical education for manufacturing is also much higher than the return from a non-technical four year college education. Read this analysis. (Thanks to Tom Strbac of Titan Manufacturing for this link.) posted by Ed Morrison | |
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