Manufacturing Day is held on the first Friday of October. Organized by the National Association of Manufacturers, the nationwide event seeks to increase awareness among students, parents, educators and the general public about modern manufacturing and to make it clear that there are many career opportunities, in addition to pointing out that manufacturing has changed dramatically — it is cleaner, with advanced technology, and far more hip than its smokestack past. 

Most states do as the name suggests — have a one day event filled with factory tours and event presentations. But in New Mexico, they run Manufacturing Day for the entire month. 

The New Mexico Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) organizes and sponsors events and a 3-Day Advanced Manufacturing Summit (that link takes you to each day’s virtual presentations on YouTube).

Mel Cossette, Executive Director and Principal Investigator for the National Science Foundation’s Advanced Technological Education funded Online Instructional Resources for Material Science Technology Education (home of MatEdU News) housed at Edmonds College in Lynnwood, WA, presented on Workforce Development. She is also the Co-PI on a newly funded NSF ATE Micro Nano Technology Education Center and Co-PI on the MANEUVER Project with Purdue Northwest. Mel has 20+ years of experience in manufacturing education focusing on technician education and workforce development. 

Ms. Cossette opened with the importance of embracing the future workforce, with all of its changes and opportunities. As you can see in the image above, people are searching for manufacturing jobs. She then went through a variety of manufacturing areas and how they all lead to growth in manufacturing as a career:

• Additive Manufacturing (aka 3D Printing)
• ASTM and technician training and core competencies (and how the Technician Education in Additive Manufacturing & Materials — TEAMM was a big part of defining those new standards)
• Manufacturing Workforce and new skills needed

She highlighted a variety of statistics to help attendees wrap their minds around just how big and vast the manufacturing job market is:

• Preliminary numbers indicate there will be 942,000 manufacturing job openings – from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, July 2021.
• Deloitte and The Manufacturing Institute (NAM) reported — 2.4 million manufacturing jobs may go unfilled by 2028.

“To be prepared, not only for today’s jobs but for those of a rapidly changing, highly automated future, technicians will need skills beyond those required by their specific role and industry,” she said. 

In summary, Ms. Cossette said that “we need to embrace the future of the manufacturing workforce… as the start of my presentation I heard this cool comment made by one of the manufacturing folks here. Powell has said, manufacturing is a cool career. I agree.”

In a study by Deloitte and The Manufacturing Institute (2021), an estimated 2.1 million manufacturing-related jobs may go unfilled by 2030 — and this could cost the U.S. economy as much as $1 trillion. MatEdU News and its partners have reported on the manufacturing skills gap before (in this Materials Science Careers post, for example) and offered educational strategies to help mitigate it, including a new training workshop in early 2022.

A wide range of universities and colleges, including Tennessee Tech University, Edmonds College, Purdue University Northwest (links go to related programs or professors), and many others, are lining up to help educators guide students to deeper understanding and knowledge of advanced manufacturing methods, using cutting edge technology and innovative approaches. 

Using Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR), the upcoming workshop in January 2022 will give educators the tools to, at minimum, keep up with, and hopefully outrun this seemingly faster skills gap. Manufacturers are looking for new ways to teach workers new skills and VR and AR are increasingly being used. Community college professors and high school educators can use this workshop to move to the forefront of this shift to speed up and improve training for and student awareness of manufacturing. 

From January 10 – 14, 2022, this NSF-funded virtual workshop on Digital Manufacturing (DM) Instruction using Virtual Reality (VR) technology will cover VR-based digital manufacturing instruction practices. 

The workshop is directed toward community college instructors and high-school teachers interested in digital manufacturing instruction using virtual reality tools and techniques. A stipend of $600 and a high-tech VR headset will be provided.

Please apply for the workshop only if you can commit to attend the entire workshop and complete the workshop requirements. Application deadline is December 10, 2021. Applicants can apply via the 2022 Digital Manufacturing online application here, including the full expectations and requirements. The number of participants is limited to 30 and successful applicants will be announced by mid-December. Contact information for the outreach coordinator, Michelle Davis, at the Center for Manufacturing Research, Tennessee Tech University, is also at the main application link above.

Learn more about how Project MANEUVER (Manufacturing Education Using Virtual Environment Resources; NSF Award # 1700674) is developing an affordable VR framework.

In a National Science Foundation (NSF) article in late 2020, The future of how things are made, the NSF began asking researchers to “reimagine the future of how things are made, laying the groundwork for manufacturing that is sustainable; takes full advantage of artificial intelligence;  incorporates advancements in fields such as bioengineering and materials science…” 

NSF is already helping those imaginations to move fast, by investing approximately $250 million per year in advanced manufacturing research. The article states that “advances in computer-aided design to drive development of 3D printing and sustained advanced nanomaterials, NSF’s decades-long investment in fundamental research has transformed manufacturing, resulting in products modern society has come to depend on.” 

Advanced manufacturing, for many people, brings to mind large machinery that melts, cuts, and bends metal, among other things, but a fundamental part of innovation in manufacturing and many other industries, is the field of materials science. 

Materials science is increasingly joining together with other specialties, in this post we’re highlighting how biology, or more specifically, Biotechnology experts are teaming up with Materials Science experts. MatEdU and InnovATEBIO, led by NSF Principal Investigator, Dr. Linnea Fletcher, and based at Austin Community College, are teaming up to create and increase technician-level skill to serve the companies, new and old, at the intersection of these two fields. 

The InnovATEBIO website states: “Advancing the U.S. bioeconomy will require a growing biotechnology workforce that is well educated and diverse. Located at Austin Community College in Texas and partnering with institutions of higher education, high schools, industry, and non-profits throughout the country, the InnovATEBIO National Biotechnology Education Center, an NSF-funded Advanced Technological Education Center, works with the biotech community to scope out workforce needs and address them by educating highly skilled technicians. InnovATEBIO supports a cadre of well-trained instructors and is helping to increase the number and quality of biotechnology education programs, as well as introducing a wide range of underrepresented students to biotechnology.”

For example, in her detailed InnovATEBIO presentation, Bio-inspired and Sustainable Design: Towards Functional Materials (YouTube video link), Dr. LaShanda Korley, at the University of Delaware, highlighted how her Center (funded under the NSF PIRE program) takes inspiration from “nature to design new materials that can change toughness in response to their environment, are safer and more effective biological implants, will transmit nerve-like electrical signals, and can respond to the environment to initiate biological processes with an eye toward soft robotic applications.” 

Like MatEdU with its National Online Resource Center and course modules, InnovATEBIO offers “Courses in a box” with materials to help instructors get a new course off the ground quickly. 

These resources may include:

• course description
• student outcomes
• reading assignments or references to a textbook or articles
• laboratory exercises
• lecture materials
• classroom activities
• homework assignments
• exams and quizzes
• videos

Here are a few of the InnovATEBIO courses: 

Bioinformatics for Biology and Biotech

Contributed By: Sandra Porter

This bioinformatics course was developed by Dr. Sandra Porter over a ten year period as a semester-long course in the biotechnology program at Austin Community College with a …

Chromatography Techniques

Contributed By: Oana Martin

This course introduces the basic concepts involved in the separation of molecules. The purpose of this course is to give students a basic understanding of the basic underlying …

Hazardous Materials

Contributed By: Mary Ellen Kraus

Welcome to the Hazardous Materials course-in-a-box. This course is not designed as a safety training course. The educational philosophy of this course, like that of most of the … 

Laboratory Math for Biotechnology

Contributed By: Mary Ellen Kraus

Bench work in the biotechnology laboratory requires that technicians possess certain fundamental math skills and the ability to apply these skills. 

If you are interested in Biotechnology jobs, including biomaterials jobs, you will want to visit the BioTech Careers page on LinkedIn (via InnovATEBIO) as well as the main Biotech-Careers.org site that is run by the Digital World Biology team (again funded via InnovATEBIO). The site receives 500,000-plus visitors each year and helps students find biotech careers. 

Finally, our recent MatEdU post: HI-TEC Event Supports Materials Science Workforce Of The Future, reports on related biotech presentations and materials science resources.

The High Impact Technology Exchange Conference (HI-TEC) is an annual event centered on advanced technological education. It’s goal is to bring together secondary and postsecondary educators, counselors, industry professionals, trade organizations, and technicians so they can update their knowledge and skills. 

On the surface, most of the HI-TEC presentations do not have “Materials Science” in the title, but like so many STEM-related curriculum and research areas, materials provide a foundation for many of these disciplines and degree programs. Much of what MatEdU has done and continues to do is to find the people and resources interested in advancing materials science, particularly where it intersects with influencing and driving technician hiring in the not-so-distant future. 

Charged with preparing America’s skilled technical workforce, the event focuses on the preparation needed by the existing and future workforce for companies in the high-tech sectors that drive our nation’s economy. 

HI-TEC explores the convergence of scientific disciplines and technologies including:

• Advanced Manufacturing Technologies
• Bio and Agricultural Technologies
• Energy and Environmental Technologies
• Engineering Technologies
• Information, Communications, and Geospatial Technologies
• Learning, Evaluation, and Research
• Micro and Nanotechnologies
• Security Technologies
• Workforce Diversity

Materials Plays Important Role in Health and Biotechnology

Materials Science combined with Engineering often means Biotechnology, as our world faces more health crises and challenges. The HI-TEC event offered seven different presentations focused on biosciences and biotechnology, to dive into just one category from the above list. With 80-plus presentations, there was something for every participant. 

The InnovATEBIO National Center for Biotechnology Education, located at Austin Community College, Texas, one of MatEdU’s most recent allies (a more detailed post is coming soon) presented on how their national center serves as a model for ATE National Center Websites and Education Databases and how they built out their community and social presence. ATE national centers are expected to develop and support communities focused on educating technicians for the high-technology fields that drive our nation’s economy. 

• Todd Smith, Director, InnovATEBIO, Digital World Biology, Seattle, WA; 
• Sandra Porter, President, Bridge to Bio-Link’s Future and Biotech Careers, Digital World Biology, Seattle, WA

The HI-TEC event showcases how schools join forces with industry and nonprofits to advance technician education. MatEdU is an example of this and supports a range of technician-oriented programs across the nation, serving as a resource repository. MatEdU maintains a national network of industry and educational professionals to increase the number and diversity of highly skilled technicians ready for employment. Likewise, the HI-TEC event is organized to disseminate how NSF ATE projects are improving and building technician programs across nearly all industries, from aviation to medicine, automobiles to drones.

The July 2021 event has over 80 sessions available on the HI-TEC On-Demand Sessions page on a wide range of topics: Advanced Manufacturing, Biotechnology, Cybersecurity, Diversity, Equity, And Inclusion, Employer Engagement, Energy And Environmental Technologies, Engineering Technologies, Future Of Work, Grant Funding, Information Technology, Internet Of Things, Learning, Evaluation, And Research, and Micro Nanotechnologies (including a post on the Micro Nano Technology Education Center News page lists out HI-TEC presentations in that area).