Prioritizing actions and outcomes for community-based future manufacturing workforce development and education

Abstract

Rapid innovations in manufacturing process technology, information technology, and systems technology have led to simultaneous concerns about labor displacements and skills shortages. To address these concerns, the key challenges for educating and training the current and future workforce should be identified and the specific activities leading to the design of new manufacturing career pathways should be defined. Thus, the objective of this article is to define and prioritize the necessary activities and short- to long-term outcomes that will aid in developing high-skill career pathways that will positively impact children and families, students and teachers, and future workers. Expert perspectives from industry and academia have been analysed through two lenses: education (primary/secondary, technical, and university levels) and policy/innovation. The nominal group technique (NGT) is applied in this research to capture these perspectives, which enabled the generation of ideas followed by discussion and ranking by the experts. This approach encourages participation and avoids the associated drawbacks of typical group interactions. As a result, prioritized activities, short-term outcomes, and policy ideas to introduce children and families, students and teachers, and future workers to careers in advanced manufacturing are presented for each lens of focus. In addition, inputs from experts were captured to discuss desired medium- to long-term outcomes. In conclusion, this article summarizes the key findings from the study.