制造企业未来从何处寻找工人

        Where Will Manufacturers Find Tomorrow’s Workers?
                   制造企业未来从何处寻找工人                            

       
     By Aaron Hand, Managing Editor

翻译：e-works王聪

校对：加州州立大学东湾分校 柯贤能（Ryan.Ke）

链接：http://www.controlglobal.com/articles/2011/af11-3.html 

        “制造业是美国经济繁荣发展的关键驱动因素。”一个无党派致力于推动技术创新和生产力发展的智囊团，信息技术与创新基金会总裁Rob Atkinson说到。但制造业会扮演美国人力市场的救世主角色吗？“不！”芝加哥联邦储备银行高级经济师和经济顾问Bill Strauss回答到。

        Atkinson和Strauss星期二上午于芝加哥罗克韦尔的一个名为制造业展望的工业出版社组织论坛上同时作出了主题演讲。尽管Atkinson 和Strauss在某些方面意见相左，但他们一致认为在科学、技术、能源和数学方面制造业都面临极大的人才空缺。

        美国的制造业已经从最坏的境地走出来了，现在的出口产值已经达到最为辉煌的2007年的一半，Strauss补充到。但是整个工业仅有30万人回归了他们岗位，仍有230万人没有工作。这种情形短期内很难改变。美国现在失业率为9%，2014年有可能会降低到7%。“这太可怕了！”Strauss感叹到，“如果有任何方法可以降低失业率，我相信芝加哥政府肯定会去做的。”

        事实上，制造企业希望尽可能的招聘到更多的工程师和技术人才，但是市场缺乏此类有能力的技术工人去填补这些职位。根据最近的统计数据显示：“美国大约缺乏60万科技相关人才” Strauss说到，”因为制造企业难以聘到合格的优秀人才。“
                                   
                                            图1  GenMet's Mary Isbister

        自动化的跨越式发展始于19世纪70年代。当年的很多有经验的人才都面临岁月的考验，现如今都达到即将退休的年龄。“我们有很多专业领域的位置开始出现青黄不接的情况。”在罗克韦尔自动化就发展中国家制造工人讨论小组会议上，市场开发副总裁John Nesi针对未来制造工人市场发展感叹到，“在工业领域，替换这些了解企业运转模式和赢利方式的老员工之时，我们将面临年轻一代的教育困境和人力资源方面的困难。”

        “技能由实践加经验结合而得。”位于威斯康星州的金属制造公司总裁Mary Isbister说到：“他们在拥有必要的教育基础之时，还应具备相关的实践经历。这些在当今的年轻一代中是难能可贵的。他们中的大部分甚至连一天的工作经验也不具备，在准备参加工作的前期阶段没有掌握像数学、专业知识等基础的分析能力以及解决问题的方法, 更有甚者不能按时上班。”

        在谈到美国教育系统存在的问题时，教育学专家认为需要贯彻实践操作比理论知识更重要这样一种概念。将实际操作融入课堂学习中可以长远地帮助孩子得到他们未来所需的实践经验，同样这也可以让他们对今后从事的工程工作充满了兴趣。“了解孩子整天坐在教室里学习黑板上的理论知识不会对他们将来运用数学或科学解决实际应用带来任何帮助这点很重要。” Isbister说到，“学生通过实际操作来学习数学可以培养良好的兴趣，他们知道三角法与他们未来从事工作之间存在着何种关系。”

        未成年国家行动工程的总裁兼首席执行官Irv McPhail也认为实际操作、基于项目的学习方法能更好的调动学生的想象能力。他所体现的更深一层观点是：“在美国还存在着很现实的人口问题。这也很好的解释了为什么科技人才的市场缺口越来越大。”

        年轻的一代现在仍认为投身制造业是一份又苦又累的工作，这也许是制造业工作在人们记忆中的烙印。“更糟糕的是，人们对工作内容上理解也存在着曲解。”McPhail说到，“年轻一代的孩子街坊四邻中并没有工程师，他们并没有意识到那些原本可以抓住的机会。”

        “引导学生投身制造业的过程本身对于美国文化来说也是一个挑战，”位于阿斯本研究所的制造业与科学领域负责“21世纪计划”的执行董事Tom Duesterberg说到，“挑战不仅仅存在于学生中，同样还存在于招聘单位中。”

        这些情况在德国不成问题，在那里，学生在学习中获得工作的实践机会，并在所实践的公司做一些实际项目，“他们确实教育了学生如何严肃的思考问题。”Tom Duesterberg说到，“这样做非常有意义，你毕业以后获得的不仅仅是学位。大多数人在毕业的同时获得了几份工作机会。在日本，同样有一系列与制造业实践紧密相关的课程。Duesterberg解释到，它让学生获得足够的实践经验。

        “尽管有许许多多的原因我们不能照搬德国或者其他国家的教育模式，”Duesterberg说到，“我们确实需要在国家标准上明白工业发展平对于国家经济来说有多么的重要。”

        “不仅仅是美国在寻求制造业的相关人才，中国同样面临着此类问题。”Duesterberg说到，发展中国家与发展国家都需要此类人才。我们通常认为印度和中国出产了大量工程师和技术人员，而现状是中国的制造人员比例实际上并没有增长反而开始下降了。

        Goodyear Tire & Rubber公司的工程管理经理Alberto Alfonso在2009年就来到了中国的普兰店市。“当时我们发现这样一个现象：中国同样缺少技术工人，同样缺少制造、电子、水力方面的知识人才。”为了使新工厂拥有所需要的技能人才，Goodyear公司与当地的一所职业学校展开合作，这次合作迄今已经为Goodyear提供了140多名技术人才，Goodyear希望能将其扩展到200-250人。

        Isbister对个项目很有兴趣，她希望能在美国展开类似的计划。当然实施过程中也有一些问题令她头痛不已，当Alfonso询问为什么Goodyear不带一些美国教师到中国来帮助培养此类人才时。Isbister问到：“为什么他们不培养我们美国本土的学生？”

        “美国没有培养足够的工程师和技术人员。”Duesterberg同意此观点，“尽管美国还拥有移民政策带来的竞争优势，但用来填补我们空缺的高级人才远远没有达到我们的期望。

英语原文：
Manufacturing is the key driver to U.S. economic prosperity, according to Rob Atkinson, president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF, www.itif.org), a non-partisan think tank for advancing technological innovation and productivity. But will manufacturing be the savior for the U.S. job market? No, says Bill Strauss, senior economist and economic advisor for the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago (www.chicagofed.org).

Atkinson and Strauss both gave keynote presentations Tuesday morning at Manufacturing Perspectives, a forum for the industrial press corps at Rockwell Automation's Automation Fair this week in Chicago. Although Atkinson and Strauss were at odds on a few key points, they agreed that there is a serious lack of talent available to fill vacancies within the science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) sector.

Coming out of one of the worst economic recessions in history, U.S. manufacturing has recovered half of the output loss since its peak year in 2007, Strauss noted, but the industry has added back only 300,000 of the 2.3 million lost jobs. That is not likely to change anytime soon, if ever. Unemployment stands at 9% today, with estimates that it will still be at 7% by 2014. "That's horrible," Strauss said. "If there's something that we can do to bring that lower, our president of the Chicago Fed thinks we should."

In fact, manufacturers say that they'd like to be hiring a whole lot more engineers and technicians, but the market lacks the skilled workers necessary to fill those positions. According to recent statistics, about 600,000 STEM-related vacancies remain unfilled in the United States, Strauss said, because manufacturing companies cannot find the skilled workers to fill them.

Automation really began taking off in the late 1970s. Those workers who were part of that first automation movement are now part of an aging workforce that is beginning to retire. "There is a lot of domain expertise beginning to abandon our space," noted John Nesi, vice president of market development for Rockwell Automation and moderator of a panel discussion on developing the future manufacturing workforce. In replacing those workers who understand what makes a company profitable as well as productive, the industry faces an educational dilemma as well as a PR problem with our young folks, Nesi added.

The skill set necessary is a combination of both education and experience, said Mary Isbister, president of GenMet, a metal fabricator based in Mequon, Wis. "They have to have the basic education necessary, but should also have the experience component," she said, noting how hard that is to find among today's young workers. "Most of them come without the work readiness skills on day one. They don't have the basic understanding of math, science, problem solving or even the basic work readiness skills of arriving to work on time."

There are issues with the education system in the United States, panelists said, based largely on a system that puts more importance on academic learning than on hands-on experience. Introducing applied learning in our schools could go a long way to helping kids get the practical experience they need, and also to get them excited about engineering, Isbister said. "It's a very important point to realize that kids these days sitting in a classroom watching a teacher up at a smart board don't appreciate math and science the way they would through applied learning," she said. In contrast, kids involved in hands-on education courses are excited about math. "They understand the connection between the work they're doing and trigonometry."

Irv McPhail, president and CEO of the National Action for Minorities in Engineering (NACME), agreed that hands-on, project-based learning goes a long way in capturing the imagination of students. The issue, however, runs even deeper, from his perspective. "Here in the United States, there is another demographic reality," he said, explaining that there is an increasing number of minorities that are not adequately participating in STEM workforce categories.

There is perhaps a STEM stigma in which the younger generation still sees manufacturing as a dirty job. "But larger than that, there's an engineering awareness conundrum," McPhail said. Many young minorities don't have an engineer in the family, or one living next door, he said, so they're simply not aware of the opportunities that are available.

There is a cultural challenge in the United States when it comes to turning young people on to the industrial sector, said Tom Duesterberg, executive director of the Manufacturing and Society in the 21st Century program at the Aspen Institute. "There's a cultural challenge not only with recruiting students, but with recruiting educational establishments as well."

That's not the case in Germany, where students can get practical experience working with companies through apprenticeship programs. "They do things to train people that we ought to think seriously about," he said. "There's a very clearly beneficial result, and you come out with a degree. Most students are almost guaranteed at least a couple of job offers." Japan, meanwhile, has a series of technical colleges that work closely with the industrial sector, Duesterberg explained, giving students practical experience.

Although there are "many, many reasons we can't just adopt the German model or any other foreign model," Duesterberg said, we do need to understand at a national level that the industrial sector is an important part of the economy.

That said, the United States certainly isn't the only country hurting for technical talent. "Even in places like China there are issues," Duesterberg said, explaining that the workforce is aging in the developing world as well as the developed world. "We often think that in India and China they're churning out engineers and technical workers. The population in China is not growing, though, and will actually begin to decline."

Alberto Alfonso, engineering manager at Goodyear Tire & Rubber, has been based in Pulandia, China, since 2009. "One of the things we discovered…was the same lack of skill in China," he said. "We have the same lack of mechanical, electrical, hydraulics knowledge." To find the technical skills it needed for a greenfield plant in China, Goodyear partnered with a local vocational school to create a training program. The program has developed 140 technicians so far, and Goodyear has plans to extend it to 200-250 technicians, Alfonso said.

Isbister expressed interest in a similar program in the United States. She seemed bothered, for example, when Alfonso detailed how Goodyear brings American teachers over to China to help develop the technical workforce there. "Why aren't they teaching our kids in the United States?" she asked.

The United States is not training enough scientists and engineers, Duesterberg agreed, although the country does at least have immigration as a competitive advantage. "But the quality of workers we need to fill these positions," he said, "is not what it should be."