Tag Archives: Hiring

One of the most significant threats facing the manufacturing industry is the ongoing labor shortage and how it’s impacting organizations across the nation.

Identifying viable solutions to overcome a labor shortage in any industry is challenging. However, the past few years have made it especially difficult for manufacturers to find skilled employees. The COVID-19 pandemic and The Great Resignation are two major factors that have negatively impacted the manufacturing industry.

How can manufacturers overcome The Great Resignation and attract young talent? Below, learn more about the labor shortage in manufacturing and how organizations can overcome this unprecedented workforce situation.

Understanding the Manufacturing Workforce

The manufacturing labor shortage is not new. In fact, manufacturers have dealt with the shortage for quite some time. Hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs have gone unfilled for years now, with several factors in recent years exacerbating the issue.

Alongside the pandemic, millions of Americans have quit their jobs recently, coining a new term: “The Great Resignation.” Employees are quitting their jobs for various reasons. Pew Research cites three, including low wages, feeling disrespected, and a lack of opportunities to advance.

On top of the pandemic and The Great Resignation, data shows that the labor shortage in manufacturing will likely persist. According to research from Deloitte, manufacturers in the U.S. are expected to have over 2 million unfilled jobs by 2030.

Millennials and Gen Z tend to have misconceptions about working in modern manufacturing. There’s a false impression that working in manufacturing means getting your hands dirty and performing rigorous manual labor for hours on end.

Those misconceptions, however, are far from reality. Employees in these roles often require specialized skills, knowledge, or training and work with cutting-edge technologies daily. Younger generations are digital natives, meaning they can learn how to use new technologies with ease. How can manufacturers make roles seem more attractive to young candidates?

How Manufacturers Should Target Younger Generations

Below are ways manufacturers can make manufacturing roles more attractive to garner newer, younger workers.

1. Leverage Social Media Marketing

Young people dominate social media platforms, whether Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, or Twitter. While older adults also use social media, Millennials and Gen Z grew up with it, so it’s a major part of their daily lives.

Manufacturers should leverage their presence on social media platforms to reach younger audiences and improve their recruiting. Sites like LinkedIn or other digital job boards can also be useful for manufacturers looking to garner young talent.

Additionally, it’s reported that 70% of manufacturing job seekers prefer receiving text messages over emails or phone calls for recruiting purposes. Consider reaching out to candidates through social media or texting.

2. Emphasize New Technologies During Recruitment

Manufacturers that adopt the latest technologies should highlight their tech-savviness to potential candidates. Organizations should try to use their tech adoption as a unique selling point (USP) when recruiting – companies at the forefront of innovation will often be more attractive to candidates than those falling behind.

As mentioned earlier, Zoomers (another moniker for Gen Z) are digital natives. They can easily learn how to work with new tech. Zoomers will be likely to pick up new skills needed in the manufacturing industry.

3. Identify Potential Hybrid Roles

The significant shift to remote work has prompted many companies to adopt remote-first or hybrid-work models. By next year, it’s expected that 40% of organizations will transition to “Anywhere Operations” – a term that describes a digital, distributed workforce.

While many manufacturing companies have unfilled jobs that must be performed on site, they should consider identifying which roles could become hybrid. Other processes within manufacturing can be automated and allow employees to work remotely. If companies find a way to implement a hybrid model, they could appear more flexible and attractive to potential candidates.

4. Connect With Local Schools and Colleges

Professionals in manufacturing understand that young talent may not realize what a manufacturing role entails. By connecting with local educational institutions, these companies can work with students and educate them about manufacturing.

Miller Fabrication Solutions, a manufacturer in Pennsylvania, began visiting schools, adding representatives to industry-related advisory councils, and sponsoring robotics competitions in the community to appeal to young talent. Other manufacturers should follow suit and be more aggressive in their recruiting strategies.

5. Meet (or Exceed) Young Employee Expectations

According to Gallup, Millennials and Zoomers expect three important things from an employer:

• The employer cares about their well-being.
• They want employers to be ethical.
• They value diversity and inclusion.

For example, striking a work-life balance, feeling recognized and respected for their individuality, and working for an ethical leader are all important factors employers should know. Meeting these expectations will help with employee engagement and retention, especially regarding young employees.

Building a Workforce for the Future

The pandemic, The Great Resignation, and the persistent labor shortages in manufacturing require organizations to find innovative ways to improve their recruiting, hiring, and retention efforts – especially when finding young talent in the field. Companies need to overcome these challenges and find young talent to replace employees retiring from the workforce for the manufacturing industry to thrive.

*This article is written by Devin Partida. Devin is a tech writer with an interest in IIoT and manufacturing. She is also the Editor-in-Chief of ReHack.com.

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There’s no sugar-coating it. It’s tough out there for manufacturers on the front lines of the hiring wars. We are in an unprecedented hiring-and-retention situation in this country. The Great Resignation numbers just keep climbing. According to CNN, 47.4 million people left their jobs in 2021. That’s a lot of open positions and a lot of people out of work. You’d think it would be a hirer’s market. It’s just the opposite.

“54% of U.S. manufacturers are finding it difficult to attract skilled workers to get the job done. That’s up from 38% before the pandemic.”

Companies in all industries are feeling the hiring pain, but manufacturing is getting hit especially hard. IndustryWeek reports that 54% of U.S. manufacturers are finding it difficult to attract skilled workers to get the job done. That’s up from 38% before the pandemic. Competition for skilled workers to fill all of those jobs has never been more intense. And that competition isn’t just coming from other manufacturers. It’s also coming from other industries, like transportation, warehousing, even retail.

Hiring is only one part of the challenge. It’s also about retention. From a study by the Workforce Institute at HR solutions company UKG, manufacturers are getting “ghosted” by workers who simply don’t show up for their shifts. A shocking 68% of manufacturers said they let employees go because of it between January and March 2021.

So, what’s going on? Instead of the Great Resignation, you might call it the Great Reassessment. As Industry Week puts it, workers aren’t just reassessing what they do for their 9-to-5 and walking out the door, they’re also thinking about where they do it and why they do it. People have streamed out of the workplace in record numbers because they want more. More pay, more flexibility, more benefits, more meaning and more happiness.

Manufacturers who understand that is the key to winning the hiring wars. Let’s look at how to put that into practice when you’re trying to hire and retain employees.

What manufacturers can do to hire and retain workers

Here are six strategies to help you attract and keep the people you need to get the job done.

1. Open your company purse strings. To borrow a line from Cuba Gooding Jr., show them the money. With McDonald’s paying more than $20 an hour to flip burgers, it’s tough to compete with that. But look at what your competition is paying and match it, or if possible, exceed it. Job seekers today are ultra-choosy, and a high salary is one of the most important weapons in your hiring arsenal.

2. Cast your net wider. Do you have a background check that excludes people who have had felonies or other arrests? Would you consider hiring a retiree? How about someone with special needs? From the same Workforce Institute study, 62% of manufacturers have hired or considered hiring people with special needs, 56% have hired retirees, and 52% are considering hiring people who have been incarcerated. You may not have considered this talent pool in the past, but there are great advantages to hiring people who traditionally have trouble getting a break. Increased loyalty is a big one.

3. Work with schools to train and recruit students. The National Law Review points out that an entire generation of manufacturing workers is getting ready for retirement, and younger workers simply don’t have the skills to take up the mantle. By training students and those just out of school, you’ll be creating a pool of new employees who have the skills to get the job done in your workplace. This, in turn, will help reduce the skills gap that separates your new hires from your seasoned veterans and retirees.

4. Rethink your benefits. Your benefits package is especially important in luring Great Resigners back into the workplace. As we said, many people have quit their jobs because they’re looking for something more, and benefits are a big part of that. Robust health care that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg is a must. But think outside the box, too. Industries like retail and hospitality are luring younger workers by offering to pay off their student debt, cover childcare expenses and grant generous PTO.

5. Invest in upskilling and training. This is vital for retention, but it’s important for hiring, too. If your candidates know you are committed to your current employees’ futures, giving them the opportunity to learn new and valuable skills, it’s a big plus. It shows you’re in it for the long term, not just hiring a warm body to fill a hole on the line. For your employees who are already on the job, upskilling and training can increase their engagement exponentially. One of our clients recently put a new training program in place for longtime employees and awarded certificates when they completed the course successfully. Engagement went through the roof, along with employees’ pride of achievement. A benefit for you, along with happier, more engaged employees, lies in cross training your people. That way, if and when an employee “ghosts” you on a shift, you’ll have a pool of qualified people to step in and do the job.

6. Consider your efficiency. Are your machines breaking down frequently? Are there stoppages on the line? The same client of ours that invested in training and upskilling realized that their employees were continually frustrated with snafus on the line day in and day out. Correcting those problems and making your operations as efficient as possible gives employee satisfaction a boost and helps with retention. Also, it’s crucial to involve employees at all levels, from the corner office to the line on the shop floor, in the process of improving your operation’s efficiency. People with varying viewpoints of the job bring a variety of opinions and ideas to the table.

At USC Consulting Group, we’ve spent more than 50 years helping companies improve employee engagement and realize greater efficiency in their operations. Ready to talk about what we can do for you? Give us a call.

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It seems most people struggle when it comes to creating an effective resume. People don’t seem to like to talk about their personal and professional achievements. However, if you want to make a career change or earn that promotion, then you need to be able to write an eye-catching resume that will attract attention. This is including a position for a manufacturing operations manager. Here are six tips for creating the perfect operations manager resume that will aid you in getting the job.

1. Understand the position you are applying for before writing your resume

Seems like a no brainer, right? “A lot of job candidates don’t really understand the position they are hiring for, and it costs them the job,” says Mary Kreger, a career blogger at Paperfellows and Essayroo. So, before sitting down make sure you understand the duties of a manufacturing operations manager and makes sure those are responsibilities you are willing to take on.

2. Decide on the format

Once you are sure you can do the job of an operations manager, the next step is to figure out which resume format you would like to use; reverse-chronological, functional or combination. For an operations management position, it’s recommended that you use the reverse-chronological format as it’s the most popular within this field. This is the most popular because it shows off all of your most recent achievements first, highlighting those skills that will make you great at an operations management position.

3. Pick the right layout

After you have decided on a format, you then need to make sure your layout is correct. For an operations management resume here are some layout recommendations:

• Margins: 1” margins on all sides
• Line spacing: 1 or 1.15 line spacing
• Font size: use either 11-12pt for normal text and 14-16pt for headers
• Length of your resume: Do not go over one page if at all possible.

These layout tips will help make your resume easy to follow and legible for the hiring department.

4. Include the right information

Now it’s time to write the resume. However, what should you include and what shouldn’t you include? “These are good questions to ask yourself. If you have been working in a similar field and are trying for a promotion within your company, chances are you probably have many years of job experience that could be relevant,” says Carl Carey, a writer at Boomessays and Lia Help. However, it could be way too much information to condense down to one page.

The main sections on your resume should be the following:

• Contact information: this should include your name, job title, email address, phone number, and a link to your digital portfolio if you have one
• Work Experience: any work experience that is relevant to the position you are applying for
• Portfolio: You can make it an entire section or just include a link to it here.
• Education: Include where and when studied and what was your overall GPA. You can also include any honours or courses you took.
• Skills: Hiring managers usually have a checklist of required skills, so if you skip this part, more than likely your resume will go straight to the ‘no’ pile. List your skills and how they are relevant to an operations manager position.

5. Proofread your resume

Before you move onto submitting your finished resume, you should make sure that you have no typos, grammatical errors, and all the information you included is correct. When you take the time to edit your resume, you can save yourself from looking uneducated or not getting a call back because you typed your phone number wrong.

If you struggle with editing your own work, tools like Resumention, OXEssays, Bigassignments, Elite Assignment Help, Best Essay Services, Simplegrad can help.

6. Write a matching cover letter

After you put all the work into crafting a great operations manager resume, don’t forget to write a matching cover letter. Cover letters demonstrate that you want to work for that specific company not just any company, making them important to the hiring process.

Using the right format, layout, and including the right information in your operations manager resume will ensure you a fair chance at getting hired.

*This article was written by Emily Henry. Emily is a writer at Academic Writing Service and Essay Services. She writes about resume writing. Emily is also a blogger at Do my homework UK.

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Are you having trouble hiring or retaining talent? Not surprising. Our economy, no matter the industry you’re in, is experiencing a hiring crunch the likes of which we haven’t seen in a long time. Even decades. This, in the midst of a surge in demand brought about by the lifting of COVID restrictions and the fact that consumers are spending money again after a long spending drought.

It has been a wild ride. First, demand dropped through the floor, if not dried up completely, as a result of the lockdown. Companies in many industries laid off or furloughed workers. Now, demand is skyrocketing, and companies are scrambling to staff up and fill those positions. In all segments of the economy, people are simply not answering the call.

But the fact that you’re getting few responses to your job postings isn’t the only problem. It’s deeper than that. It’s retention, too. Not only are those laid-off workers not rushing back to their old jobs, but people who kept their positions during the pandemic are now quitting en masse.

It has been termed “The Great Resignation,” and the numbers are staggering. According to the Department of Labor, 4 million people left the workforce in April 2021. Voluntarily. In May, another 3.6 million joined them. In June: 3.9 million.

It adds up to staff shortages nationwide coming at a time when demand is through the roof. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce called it a “national economic emergency.”

Strategies to combat the hiring and retention crunch

At USC Consulting Group, we’ve been helping companies find efficiencies in their operations to do more with less for 50-plus years, and this year, because of what everyone is going through, that effort has kicked into high gear. Here are five strategies we’ve been recommending to our customers to combat the hiring and retention crunch.

1. Put a greater focus on onboarding and training

A couple of staggering statistics about onboarding and training: Glassdoor tells us that companies with a strong onboarding process improve employee retention by 82%. And, according to Gallup, 88% of companies aren’t doing it well at all. If your onboarding is focused on paperwork, informal or inconsistent, you’re in danger of losing your talent. One key to onboarding: automate what you can. Great onboarding is not about paperwork. It’s about acclimating your new hire to your company, and to the job. Automating the paperwork will allow you to focus on more important things: namely, getting your new hire onto the floor and doing the job faster. Also, onboarding and training need to go hand in hand from Day 1, but training doesn’t and shouldn’t stop when onboarding ends. Develop training programs that will keep talent up-to-date with the latest and greatest techniques and skills.

2. Preserve your institutional knowledge

Companies that are experiencing the hiring and retention crunch are having more problems than simply being short-staffed. It’s also a matter of losing their institutional knowledge. What is that, exactly? It’s generally defined as “what an organization knows.” Expanding on that, it’s the experiences, processes, deep understanding and “this comes naturally” abilities of your people to get the job done in an intuitive way. The hard-won, trial-and-error-gleaned instincts that your senior people have absorbed from years on your front lines. That’s your company’s institutional knowledge. But what happens when those people leave? It’s critical to find ways to retain or pass along institutional knowledge when talented, experienced workers retire or leave the company. Read more about this important topic in “How to Preserve Institutional Knowledge for Future Operational Success.”

3. Identify gaps and weaknesses in your operations

At USC, finding holes in the operation is one of our specialties. Are those gaps or weaknesses due to people or processes? Is your line as efficient as possible? What’s the ideal throughput, and how can you get there? Hidden efficiencies can be lurking in your operations. They could help you do more with less.

4. Enhance your management operating system

This is about assessing how you plan the work, assign it to employees, and follow up on their progress. Define the roles and responsibilities of each employee so your process drives your success. We help companies do this by meeting with everyone, from the bottom up, from blue to white collar. Getting different perspectives from different angles lets us see the whole picture. It also ties in with EIP, because it gets people on board and involved in the process.

5. Realize that hiring may not be the solution

If you’re used to working with a certain number of boots on the ground, naturally that’s the number you were going to gravitate to when it was time to staff up after the pandemic. But do you really need all of those people? Focusing on efficiencies and streamlining operations may well mean you can get the job done with fewer people.

If you’d like to learn more about how we work, or talk with us about strategies you can use to harness your existing assets to meet your growing customer demand in the midst of this hiring and retention crunch, please get in touch today.

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Demand is back. After many industries saw customer demand dry up during the pandemic, it is surging like it hasn’t in a long time. Consumers are spending money again. That’s the good news. The bad news? Companies across many industries, especially manufacturing, are struggling to meet that demand.

The reasons for this are as varied and unique as every company out there, but we are seeing a one-two punch creating capacity limits among our clients: the tight hiring market coupled with supply chain disruptions. So, how can businesses overcome these restraints and get ahead in the current landscape? First, let’s understand the issues at hand.

The hiring problem

We haven’t seen this tight of a hiring market in two decades or more. Businesses in many industries were forced to lay off or furlough workers during the pandemic, and now that demand is back up, they’re finding it next to impossible to fill those shoes, or in many workplaces, steel-toed boots. Why? The pandemic caused employees of all stripes to rethink their life choices. Maybe they don’t want to work in a manufacturing facility, or retail shop, or in a cubicle anymore. The result of that is what economists are calling “The Great Resignation.” According to the U.S. Department of Labor, 4 million people up and quit their jobs in April 2021. In May, that number dipped “all the way down” to 3.6 million, but by the time June rolled around, it was back up to 3.9. We haven’t seen this kind of mass exodus in generations, if ever. Make no mistake, the jobs are out there. Companies in all industries are scrambling, even desperate, to fill them. But this is not a matter of “if you post it, they will come.” They’re not coming.

The supply chain problem

Yes, many restrictions have been lifted, but supply chain snags, roadblocks, disruptions and downright stoppages continue to bedevil many industries. So even if you have enough people to get the job done, the supplies may or may not be there when you need them.

The hiring crunch and supply chain double whammy, combined with skyrocketing demand, is creating a difficult situation out there for many industries.

How USC Consulting Group can help

When it comes right down to it, meeting increased demand with fewer workers and a disrupted supply chain means one thing: Getting the job done requires increasing your operational efficiency. At USC Consulting Group, that’s our specialty. We’ve been doing it for 50-plus years. But it’s not easy. Sure, everyone wants to do more with less. But how, exactly? Here are some ways we find work well to ferret hidden opportunities for greater efficiency.

Engage the line. This means getting up close and personal with anyone who has anything to do with the production line, mining their expertise about what’s working and what’s not, and looking closely at the job on an hour-by-hour basis. Looking at the operation through that lens, you’ll be surprised what you can find.

Get a firm handle on capacity. How much is actually possible to produce? How much time will it take?

Rethink your staffing. How many people will it really take to get the job done? Looking at the operation with an eye toward people power, you may find you can get the job done with fewer employees. Which is good news for companies scrambling during this hiring crunch.

Scrutinize the management operating system. This is about how you plan your work, assign it and follow up to ensure the job is getting done. Make this part of your business a well-oiled machine.

Get real about throughput. What is the ideal “drumbeat” of your production line? Are things moving at the right speed? But, this isn’t just about speed. It’s about producing good product faster.

In the end, we use these and other strategies to uncover opportunities for efficiency and help companies meet rising demand even with the constraints they’re facing today. If you’d like to read about this topic in more depth, download our whitepaper, “Strategies for Meeting Customer Demand” or give us a call today. We’re ready to help.

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If you have noticed — or, in many cases, been run over by — dramatically increasing customer demand for your products, you’re not alone. Now that restrictions have been lifted in many parts of the country, and the world, consumers are spending money again. And spending. And spending. All of that increased customer demand translates to the need for ramped-up production across a wide swath of industries, from manufacturing to mining to agriculture to pulp and paper — and the list goes on. Some pundits are predicting an economic boom the likes of which this country hasn’t seen since the last Roaring ’20s. They’re calling it a “supercharged rebound,” one that may well lead to many years of strong growth. That’s great news!

The problem is the speed at which it’s coming and the capacity of companies to meet that demand.

Download USC Consulting Group’s white paper Strategies for Meeting Increasing Customer Demand today. We’ll look deeper into this issue, the reasons for the disconnect between demand and the ability to meet it, and overcoming challenges such as supply chain disruptions and the hiring crunch.

Why is USC uniquely qualified to help?

We were founded as Universal Scheduling Company in 1968. Back then, it was all about shop floor control and working with employees to find out how to get more work done. We spent years refining our capabilities and analyzing processes. We’re up and down the supply chain now. We do organizational design, spend analysis, strategic sourcing. But the heart and soul of our business has been built on getting more efficiency on the shop floor, helping companies do more with less, and increasing operational efficiencies overall.

We’re not like the consultants who started at the high level and then dabbled with the floor. They don’t get out on the shop floor very often. We built our business from the floor up. We’ve had our (steel-toed) boots on the ground for more than 50 years. We’re most comfortable where they’re most uncomfortable. Getting out on the floor — it’s where we live.

If you’d like to learn more about how we work, or talk with us about strategies you can use to harness your existing assets to meet your growing customer demand, please get in touch today.

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Even the most bearish of economists couldn’t have predicted the degree to which the nation’s economy has changed in a mere six months, let alone years. The unemployment rate is in the double-digits, long-standing companies are closing their doors for good, and working from home has become the new daily routine for employees in numerous industries.

But one thing hasn’t changed – manufacturers remain in hiring mode, eager to find and recruit experienced laborers to fill the manufacturing skills gap, which is widening. Business owners must face this new reality head-on and adjust to remain as productive and competitive as possible by leveraging existing resources and making sense of data.

Over 522,000 positions require filling

According to the most recent statistics available from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, detailing job opening and labor turnover from this past June, there were 522,000 jobs among manufacturers that had yet to be filled across the U.S., nearly 20,000 more in less than two years’ time.

Manufacturing is a broad field, from consumer electronics to packaged goods. Virtually all of them are in the midst of a work experience deficiency. If conditions don’t change, some 4.6 million jobs may be left unfilled between now and 2028, according to forecasts from the Manufacturing Institute.

Speaking to CNBC, Samsung America Regional Director of Human Resources Sherri Satterfield said that while her company has received plenty of applications from those ready and willing to work, applicants frequently don’t have the background in the industry that’s required to make the transition seamless.

“We’re pulling candidates from all over the surrounding counties, and they don’t always have that experience,” explained Satterfield, who works at the electronics conglomerate’s Newberry, South Carolina-based plant. “So it takes them a while to get acclimated to it. Some of them decide that it’s not for them, and then other ones they activate, they’re here for a good amount of time.”

Hiring complicated by COVID-19

The economic aftereffects of the lockdown, instituted in virtually every state to control the spread of the novel coronavirus, have made the vetting process even more complicated and prolonged. For almost the entirety of 2019 and the first two months of 2020, joblessness in the U.S. was at record lows, under 4%, according to BLS and Labor Department figures. Once it ballooned to nearly 15% in April, manufacturers were inundated with employment inquiries, frequently from people who were laid off and looking to enter an all-new career. The sheer volume of resumes made locating experienced laborers the equivalent of finding a needle in a haystack.

Given the ongoing recession and the urgency that COVID-19 has created, manufacturers are adjusting their expectations and making the most of their situation. In short, they’re optimizing existing work processes, their skilled laborers’ capabilities, and their current equipment. Some of this involves investing in new technologies or better utilizing existing ones.

Utilizing technology to reimagine the shop floor

While the manufacturing skills gap is often considered a human resources issue, technology can help to upskill potential or current employees to address it. Case in point is Honeywell Technologies. As detailed by IndustryWeek, the multinational defense contractor is leveraging both augmented reality and virtual reality for onboarding workers and providing their existing employees with new skill sets.

Eric Seidel, vice president of strategy and chief marketing officer at Honeywell Technologies, told the publication that since many of their workers are entering retirement, they’re bringing their often decades-long experience with them. Taking advantage of AR and VR helps new and current hires to learn more efficiently and quickly.

“Instead of traditional classroom learning, AR and VR allow someone to actually perform the task and therefore the learning curve is much faster,” Seidel explained to IndustryWeek.

He further noted that intelligent wearables enable workers to be more hands-on in their understanding of how to implement certain jobs, tasks, and processes so they’re learning and working simultaneously. Along with employee education, wearables can collect data around footprint and equipment utilization, which can be used to better optimize the shop floor.

In essence, Honeywell is reimagining the shop floor, where workers are learning something new every day and putting those lessons into practice almost immediately. This is a strategy that manufacturers may want to consider in order to optimize existing processes or make more strategic adjustments to when employees are on the shop floor and for how long. Revamping work shifts can help increase productivity with the workforce they have.

Another way that manufacturers are aiming to close the skills gap – and succeeding in those efforts – is by making processes more predictable in terms of results. Outcome simulation gives workers the foresight they need to know what to expect in terms of throughput and where potential logjams may exist in the supply chain. The ability to replicate processes so they’re done virtually is accomplished through VR.

Samer Forzley, CEO of Simultech Multimedia, likened outcome simulation to what prospective military or commercial pilots do to obtain certification for careers in the cockpit.

“Think about a pilot who learns through simulating a variety of problems that could occur,” Forzley told IndustryWeek. “We are doing the same thing for the factory floor.”

Forzley added that simulation is effective not just for people who are brand new to manufacturing, but also those who are long-tenured. Since technology is always getting more advanced, utilizing tech helps workers acquire new skill sets or refresh what they’ve already learned.

Dive into data

Much can be learned from data, but manufacturers must first be able to obtain it and parse it, said Marco Annunziata, senior contributor for Forbes. Improved data collection and visualization in addition to well-defined KPIs can help manufacturers to get a better understanding of the extent of their skills shortage in order to best address it.

“We need more analysis and data to better understand the problem,” Annunziata wrote.

You don’t necessarily need workers with decades of experience to remain competitive. You have to work smarter by making the most of your existing resources and knowing what data to collect to diagnose pain points. Whether it’s asset utilization, cycle time reduction, or quality improvement, USC Consulting Group can help you close the manufacturing skills gap by making processes smoother and more efficient. This will help you rediscover what you do well and how you can become better. Contact us today to learn more about what we can do for you.

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