A Look at Labor: How to Make the Ongoing “Manufacturing Skills and Labor Challenge” a Non-Issue

A Look at Labor: How to Make the Ongoing "Manufacturing Skills and Labor Challenge" a Non-Issue

Depending on where you are in the world, you may be hearing conflicting reports about the current state (and future) of the manufacturing workforce.

For example, here in the U.S., some leaders are touting the creation of hundreds of thousands of new manufacturing jobs as a signal of improving economic health. However, this good news is counterbalanced by a stark truth: millions of manufacturing jobs are likely to go unfilled in the next 5-6 years in the country. So, while there are now plenty of opportunities to work in manufacturing, the talent pool for skilled labor positions is far from plentiful.

Speaking with colleagues and customers in other global regions, similar challenges exist as some manufacturers try to scale and others respond to changing consumer and policy pressures (i.e., the automotive sector's shift from combustible engines to electric batteries).

Short of investing heavily in reskilling and upskilling talent and the earlier recruitment and training of future workers, what can you do to make the numbers work? How do you compensate for so many open jobs without having to compromise on growth or output?

Jake Hall, better known as The Manufacturing Millennial, had some fantastic suggestions on a recent episode of the Industrial Automation Insider podcast:

Industrial Automation Insider: Manufacturing Millennial Says Automation (and People) are Severely Misunderstood, and That's Hurting Your Production Capacity

However, I have three more that I spoke a bit about here:

The Manufacturing Skills and Labor Challenge Is Real-Here Are Three Things To Do About It

I know some of these recommendations may seem like they'll require a lot of time and effort to implement. However, in many cases, we're talking weeks, not months or years, to make some incremental yet substantial changes to your operations. This isn't a rip-and-replace situation or complete redesign of your workflows. It's a strategic insertion of technology that helps you automate bits and pieces of your processes to give the people you do have more bandwidth.

There are actually a couple manufacturers you may want to speak with if you think your business - or budget - is too small to automate workflows or make the changes you believe will move the needle. You can hear one of their stories in this podcast :

"This Has Been a Dream Come True": Hunt Country Components CEO Howard Hellwinkel Finally Found a Way to Use RFID "Like the Big Companies" in His Upholstered Furniture Manufacturing Operation

There are also dozens of other manufacturers my team has worked with to augment labor shortages with RFID, vision, voice, sensor, AI, robotics, and barcode scanning technology. You can read some of their stories and experiences here. (Just select "Manufacturing" in the Industry dropdown filter.) I'd be happy to connect you with some of them if you'd like to learn more about what worked well for them and what they found wasn't as helpful as they expected.

However, the main thing to recognize is that you can get past the point where open jobs hinder growth or performance. It is possible to make labor shortages a non-issue while you work to reskill, upskill, and recruit more people. So, don't think this is something you have to just accept as a "problem." With the maturation of different automation tools, the learned experiences of engineers, and the creative innovation of both technologists and manufacturing industry workers, we can chip away at this "problem" quite quickly once everyone commits to fixing it. So, let's prioritize these changes and put forth the resources to follow through.

As a vision industry engineer said a few weeks ago, "Nothing is impossible to solve anymore."