A recent visit to Quality Online's reader forum to gage some of the topics of interest, left me baffled. A topic that surfaced a number of times was the search for qualified technicians to operate advanced equipment. One visitor was looking for operators in multiple cities, including the town I used to live in. Now, I know many people and companies in that area where the skill set exists, and I will send that person some contacts he can use, but the fact that these manufacturers are having difficulty finding qualified operators bewildered me.
For years, voices have rallied that to solve the shortage of qualified workers in manufacturing there must be education and incentives to high school and college students to get them to decide on engineering and manufacturing careers. While that is a step in the right direction, frankly, at those ages, it's too late for such efforts to be very successful. To stir interest in manufacturing and engineering, one must start teaching children about its importance in grade school. It has to be made as attractive and exciting as being a firefighter, police officer or software billionaire. But such an approach takes time. Today's 5-year-old won't be ready for the workforce for at least another 15 years. What is a manufacturer to do in the mean time?