From Brexit, COVID-19 and blockages in the Suez Canal to the impending climate crisis, how we manufacture parts and where we manufacture parts have never been more under the microscope.
In nearly every TCT Magazine issue over the last two years, we’ve had business leaders, industry analysts and academics discuss the ideas of adopting additive manufacturing (AM) to add supply chain flexibility and reshoring production to reduce risk and CO2 emissions. But to do either of those things – or both – and make it work, companies and countries need the relevant skills, and ample amounts of them.
With more and more products being manufactured in cheaper Asian markets, there has been a gradual decline in the need for domestic manufacturing labour, and with it, a steady decline in manufacturing expertise. Today, in the US, UK and parts of Europe, studies suggest there is a skills gap, which is going to make manufacturing goods more sustainably a bigger challenge than it already is.
A report published by Deloitte and the Manufacturing Institute earlier this year, for example, suggested the manufacturing skills gap in the US could leave up to 2.1 million jobs unfilled by 2030, with finding the right talent said to be 36% harder now than it was in 2018. The reasons manufacturing jobs are going unfilled includes 'new entrants having different expectations for jobs and careers' (38%), a 'lack of interest in the industry' (36%) and 'the retirement of baby boomers' (34%). More than 75% of the manufacturers surveyed by Deloitte believed they would have ongoing difficulties attracting and retaining workers beyond this year, while diversity, equity and inclusion was presented as both a challenge – one in four women are said to be considering leaving the industry, as an example – and a potential solution to manufacturing hiring and retention.
This report was cited by Xometry recently as it announced its partnership with Howard University to create the Xometry Scholars Program. Xometry, an on-demand manufacturing network that comprises 5,000+ suppliers, is passionate about localising manufacturing and recognises the need to make sure that the domestic manufacturing skills that exist today ‘don’t disappear.’
“I think it’s very important we build [manufacturing] internally,” Xometry Chief Strategy Officer Laurence Zuriff tells TCT. “The more local you make something, the less your CO2 output is on a global basis. That’s just a truism. The United States has a very large network of small machine shops that can help localise production and that’s what we really want to firm up because we don’t believe that we can meet the success required to reduce CO2 output without that type of manufacturing reorganisation.”
Through its work with thousands of machine shops in the United States, Xometry has observed that the ‘cohort’ of manufacturing professionals is ageing and when the engineers running those companies retire, there needs to be skilled people to take their place. Two years ago, Dara Treseder – Carbon’s former CMO who now heads up Peloton’s Global Marketing & Communications – told TCT there are no pipeline issues when it comes to STEM sectors, rather there are opportunity issues.
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Exhibit at the UK's definitive and most influential 3D printing and additive manufacturing event, TCT 3Sixty.
Xometry is seeking to address those opportunity issues and has aligned with Howard University – one of the US’ largest Historically Black Colleges and Universities – to pledge 900,000 USD to provide eight scholarships over the next four school years to Mechanical Engineering students. The motivation here is provide eight students – selected by Howard University – with every opportunity to complete their degree and pursue a career in engineering, should they wish to, with no obligation that they need to work for Xometry when they do.
“One of the reasons we’re providing mechanical engineering degrees to Howard is we want to make it as easy for someone who wants to do that, to do that. It’s often hard,” Zuriff says. “We’re trying to expand the cohort and educate the cohort at the engineering level. And then next step for us is more at the technical level. We’re going to see how the Howard programme works over time and expand it if appropriate.”
20211006 BAE Systems Air digital skills programmes
BAE Systems' Air Sector AM Lead Jenny Manning.
In the UK, BAE Systems has made its own 300,000 GBP investment to facilitate digital skills programmes that will support 7,500 Lancashire students aged 12-16 in 70 schools. Splitting the investment equally between CREATE Education and InnovateHer, the former will provide 3D printers and training to 50 schools to ‘empower students to become creative innovators’, while the latter will provide online education and resources to female and non-binary students to build their skills and confidence.
“As a large employer in the North West [of England], we have a role to play to make sure we’re inspiring future generations about different pathways and routes to get into engineering and technology professions,” Jenny Manning, AM Lead in BAE Systems’ Air Sector, says. “There is work to do to make manufacturing and technology more inclusive to young people from diverse and underprivileged backgrounds, and we’re proud to play our part in doing this through this initiative.”
Manning joined BAE Systems 2007 as an aerospace engineering apprentice and is now ‘at the heart of developing new manufacturing technology’ to transform how the company ‘designs and manufactures parts now and into the future.’ BAE has bet big on 3D printing, acquiring four Stratasys F900 FDM systems, while also outlining its plans to additively manufacture 30% of the parts on its Tempest fighter jet, for example. But as it looks ahead, the company can’t ignore that research by the Lancashire Enterprise Partnership shows fewer than one in six of the Lancashire digital workforce is female and that there is a dearth of employees below the age of 25.
“We’re nurturing new digital skills in Lancashire to address skills shortages and support a levelled-up recovery from the pandemic,” Manning adds. “Investing in these skills will create a pipeline of highly skilled experts that are crucial to our future as a leading manufacturing nation.”
Ensuring the UK is a leading manufacturing nation is also the remit of Made Smarter, which supports manufacturers across four main areas – adoption, innovation, leadership and skills – in order to keep them competitive in the marketplace. Increasingly, this involves investing in new technologies which, of course, require the acquisition of new skills. Through her role as a Made Smarter AM specialist, Claire Scott observes that businesses “don’t have the skills or expertise in-house to adopt the technology,” but that they still “recognise the need to invest, and are willing to invest, in the technologies.”
Scott’s efforts largely fall within the ‘adoption’ pillar of Made Smarter’s services where she works with business leaders to assess the business case for investing in AM.
“84% of the manufacturers we’ve worked with said, ‘it’s been fantastic, productivity has increased and we’re able to engage in digital supply chains,’” Scott says. “Now, adoption is great, but if you don’t have the skills to be able to use it, especially with technologies such as additive manufacturing, you’ve got a car, but you don’t know how to drive. So, it needs to be an integrated approach. We’ve seen with the businesses that I’ve worked with, they have an idea of what AM is, but they haven’t been able to spot the opportunities.”
Scott observes that much of the AM training that is currently available needs to focus more on the fact that AM is a workflow, rather than just a single machine or process, and that there needs to be more initiatives. Through its Academy offering, Additive Minds is one such organisation working to deliver them.
Since last year, the company has been offering digital trainings that bundle its consulting and technical training experience into ‘knowledge snacks, learning modules, comprehensive learning paths and whole learning programmes.’ These have all been designed to prepare users for specific roles such as application specialist, data preparation specialist and AM designer, with the required competence able to be built up within 4-6 weeks.
So far, Additive Minds has focused its efforts on professionals, but as it continues to evolve its offering, intends to partner with universities to provide academic programmes that ‘enlarge the talent community’, as well as work with federal agencies to support job seekers with re-training programmes. Xometry, meanwhile, is planning to support vocational schools and community colleges in the poorest regions of the US to help students obtain the skills they need to make the next step. BAE Systems is looking to collaborate with other organisations to encourage STEM subjects and skills, while Made Smarter is offering businesses access to free training courses through its Engage platform and is working on some awareness raising courses for a variety of digital technologies.
There are many more organisations doing likewise and the urgency is outlined by Patrick Schrade, Head of Additive Minds Academy.
“The pace of digital transformation continues to redefine the way we work,” he says. “Production in general needs to become more digital, decentralised and flexible to adapt to ever changing market requirements and customer needs, which additive manufacturing can perfectly address. Responsible manufacturing is a journey – AM technologies play a crucial role in reducing global CO2 emissions through sustainable manufacturing with spare parts on demand, sustainable design by reducing materials needed, and sustainable education through online training.”
