A few weeks ago at the Governor’s Manufacturing Summit in Richmond, an interesting question and a pointed challenge were posed to the attendees.  What is the biggest hurdle in front of manufacturers in Virginia today that the Commonwealth government and manufacturers themselves can together help solve?  And what is it specifically that we should all do to solve these problems?

About 10-12 hurdles were identified among the various breakout groups, but only four topics were identified in every group: workforce, energy, communication of available governmental services and resources, and the image of manufacturing.

But without question, the number one priority, and the focus of most of the conversation throughout the summit, was workforce.  How does an aging skilled workforce be replaced by a younger generation generally uninterested in working repetitive jobs in traditional factories?  (This speaks to the “image” issue as well, since much of today’s manufacturing doesn’t look much like the manufacturing of years ago.)  It appears that the loss of manufacturing jobs today has as much to do with the workforce supply side as it has the demand side.  Brett Vassey of the Virginia Manufacturers Association presented a sobering outlook (based on an impressive and thorough research effort) on the coming gap between the skilled workforce that will be needed vs. what will be available in a few years.

The fact that this issue was so energetically discussed within a diverse group of manufacturing professionals demonstrates the magnitude of this issue facing U.S. manufacturing going forward.  I'm a little contrarion on the solution to the issue though.  While the industry must and will work to address this issue on the workforce supply side, I see it inevitably as a losing proposition by itself.  Sure - keep working to find and train more workers, but we need to think out of the box to completely close the gap.

So rather than swim upstream trying to fit too many round peg workers into square hole jobs, let's instead figure out ways to manufacture better products and processing technologies using our intelligence, not by continuing to throw a diminishing labor force at it.  Let's figure out ways to work smarter, not harder. Schultz-Creehan, is committed to this philosophy, as I am sure are many other forward-thinking organizations like VMA who are committed to seeing manufacturing succeed in the 21st century.

There are several potential contributors to the solution – leaner production – expanding automation – exceptional engineering.  All of these things are priorities and strengths of Schultz-Creehan, and we are focused on helping U.S. manufacturers achieve high performance, despite the fact that there aren’t and won't be enough people in the workforce pipeline.

It's just another challenge, and as a nation we'll all rise up and meet it.  We always do.  Schultz-Creehan will lead the way.