OPENING EYES TO MANUFACTURING
Today, instead of waiting for schools bring manufacturing and technology back in, many companies are bringing the schools to their plants via open houses, apprenticeships, job shadowing, and more. Four years ago, Mack Molding began an internship program, partnering with colleges and universities to recruit potential talent. Last year, it went a step further, and participated in National Manufacturing Day, inviting four area high schools to visit and opening its doors to more than 90 students for a day of learning and interaction. Both programs allow younger people to see modern manufacturing firsthand and replace clichéd images of grime and grunge.
“We wanted to open up their eyes to what a modern manufacturing site looks like with automation, with a lot of computerization,” says Mack Molding’s Horst, noting that her company’s involvement in medical device manufacturing means its factory has a “very clean, pristine work environment that’s very high-tech and appeals to high school students.”
“When you walk into one of our buildings, I think people are more often pleasantly surprised with the working environment here,” says Kevin Dailey, human resources director for Mack’s Northern Division. “It’s not the factory that they see on TV from the old days.”
Mack’s internship program has grown every year since its inception, largely through word of mouth between participants and their peers, with 20 involved this year across multiple functions at the company. Four former interns have moved on to become full-time Mack employees, and all have contributed virtually from day one, according to Horst.
“We got the interns in and saw that they were not only very skilled but also very quick to pick up on new things,” Horst explains. “We realized that it was really very fertile ground.” That ground has been fertile in talent and business success, according to Dailey. “We really do get a return on that investment,” Dailey says. “Not only on the recruiting and workforce development side, but the interns actually do very good work. It’s a good arrangement for both sides.”
In December 2012, moldmaker United Tool and Mold Inc. (UTM), Duncan, S.C., announced the first federally recognized School-to-Registered-Apprenticeship program in the Upstate region of South Carolina and the second in the state overall. Students participate in the program for up to two years, during which they’re paid, and at the end of the program, they earn an apprenticeship certificate from the U.S. Department of Labor.
Jeromy Arnett, UTM’s production administration manager, notes that the firm’s president, Scott Phipps, was himself a product of an apprenticeship program in the 1970s. “Our apprenticeship program was really driven by Phipps,” Arnett says, “because it’s something that he went through and it’s a good way to build skills and earn a living.”
Beginning in 2008, the company began investigating a certified program. “Every day, your workforce gets older, and if you’re not doing anything to combat that, you lose valuable skill sets from employees that retire,” Arnett says. “We couldn’t go out on the street and find someone that has the skill set to be a moldmaker, so that’s partly the reason why we chose to go down the apprenticeship path.”
In addition to pulling in young adults from area technical schools, UTM has begun to bring in high schoolers who enter the program during the second half of their senior year. “Instead of going to a career center or vocational school, they would come to work,” Arnett says. “They’d go to their regular high school for half a day, and then come to us and work.” UTM also works with high school juniors, employing them over the summer before their senior year. Many of these teens are then “buddied up” with a mentor to transfer life and work skills to the next generation of moldmakers.
“When we started in 1995, the core group of individuals at UTM was 25 to 35 years old, and now, that core group of individuals is 45 to 55, and we started noticing we’re not getting any younger,” Arnett says. “Our key employees are going to start retiring, and we don’t have anyone ready to step in and fill those positions.”
UTM hasn’t stopped with high school kids. Arnett explains that the company speaks with elementary school kids, particularly ones engaged in STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) programs. “We actively go out and speak at the STEM nights they have at elementary schools. We go to middle school career fairs. We’re actively involved in job shadowing with our local school district. Anytime we’re given the opportunity to go speak to a group of kids, we go.”
In doing so, Arnett says the goal is to change the perception of industry among young people. “Manufacturing now—and I’m 40—has changed from when I graduated high school. It’s different from when my dad started when he was coming out of high school 40 years ago. Manufacturing now is not some dimly lit room that has dirty floors and cobwebbed ceilings. Manufacturing now is technology-based, it’s robots, it’s cloud computing.”
If nothing else, companies like Mack and UTM have seen the tremendous benefit of using internships and open houses to allow today’s young people, and their parents, to see what manufacturing is really about. B A Die Mold’s Petrucci says her company is working on restarting its apprenticeship program, but in the interim, she has actively reached out to area schools, letting them know that her shop’s doors are open.
“We feel like if we can get these teachers and parents and kids into these facilities and they can see that they’re brightly lit, computer driven with automation, that really will change their perception of what manufacturing is, let alone mold manufacturing,” Petrucci says.
Denver-based custom injection molder and contract manufacturer Intertech Plasticshas long seen value in reaching out to younger people, particularly economically disadvantaged kids, as beneficial to the bottom line and the community, according to Noel Ginsburg, president and founder. “Outreach is philanthropic, but I think it’s also good business,” he explains. “You have to build the pipeline. The challenge with a company like Intertech is, if we’re a minority—if there are not a lot of us that are doing this—it’s kind of throwing pebbles into a lake. It’s not going to make a big difference. So I think more and more companies are beginning to engage, and I think the larger companies are realizing that that skills gap can’t be resolved simply by the schools, it’s got to be a partnership of business and industry with the schools and with the community to build and strengthen that pipeline because it’s a long-term investment.”
The article comes from China injection mold manufacturer - Mold Best Assurance Company Limited, website is www.mbamoldanddesign.com
