Exciting future for manufacturing careers

Much is said and written about the future of manufacturing in Australia and elsewhere. True that great change is occurring, but what of the skills that manufacturing has utilised for decades? Many of those skills will continue to be required for maintenance functions in areas such as Power Generation, Water and Sewerage transmission, Air conditioning, Lifts and Elevators, Aircraft and so on. But as reported later in this article, these same skills are a valuable and important basis for learning, adapting to change and for innovation.

Much is changing.

Other changes affecting manufacturing include, Prototype Printing, High Speed machining, Nanotechnology all which are leading to new, in many cases smaller, manufacturing establishments. These are often associated with utilisation of the internet and collaboration with online design companies. For an example of such change see this video at Wired Magazine. (Apology for the reference in the video to weapons made with Lego). A report “State of Cloud Computing in Australia: 2011” claims 43% of Australian companies now use cloud computing in some form and forecast that by 2015 this will grow to 94.2%. The skills for these new developments usually build on or add to existing skills, rather than embodying entirely new skills.

Manufacturing ideas and sales are likely to be boosted by extensive participation in social media and will also transcend national boundaries.

Manufacturing important for equality.

The importance of manufacturing to the economy stems from the traditional spread of the wealth it creates being diffused through the community contributing to the historical development of the middle class. The wealth created by the mining industry does not permeate as widely through the community and, it is argued, contribute to the downward pressure on the size of the middle class. The OECD describes  the decline in the middle class in the USA as ,“The middle class, once the solid core of American life, is being hollowed out, leaving a class structure that’s now shaped more like an hourglass.”

As the middle class grows in China and India and their wages increase, manufacturing will commence to shift to other countries.

Innovating the key.

However Australia needs to improve its R&D performance if it is to keep pace with the emerging middle class countries.  The Australian Innovation System Report 2011 says “…a comparison of Australia’s investment in intangibles with that of other countries shows that we are more than twice as likely to adopt existing technology embodied in physical machinery and equipment, than we are to invest in our own intangible innovation capabilities.” It goes on to say “Where data is available, most other OECD countries appear much more likely to develop innovations that are new to international markets than Australia.”

There are a number of Government programs in place to improve innovation in Australian industry. These include

- Clean 21 Manufacturing

- R & D Tax Incentives

- Clean Energy Initiative

- Australian Innovation System Report 2011

- CSIRO Future Manufacturing Flagship

Clean 21 Technology Innovation Network brings specialised Business Advisers, companies and researchers together to adopt new technologies to assist in reducing the environmental impact.

It also has a Making Better Managers Program. Industrial Scholarships for research students and Cooperative Research Centres prioritised for manufacturing. The R&D tax incentive encourages industry to undertake R&D that may not otherwise be conducted.

We can compete with technological solutions

The CSIRO Future of Manufacturing is undertaking a number of projects. For example their advanced casting technology ensured that the Nissan Casting Plant in Dandenong successfully won a bid to supply components for Nissans’ LEAF electric car. Nissan’s Senior Vice president of Global Manufacturing, Toshiharu Sakai said this year “Australia showed it can compete with some of the world’s leading low-cost countries by combining cost control and technological manufacturing solutions.”

The CSIRO are also pursuing flexible electronics, cleantech manufacturing, biomedical manufacturing, materials science and engineering, surface, fibre and protein chemistry, biomedical, nanofibrous and nanostructured materials, thin film coatings, modelling as well as other fields.

The CSIRO Manufacturing Materials and Minerals Group Director of Business Development, Damien Thomas, have stated that the world is moving past mass production and on to mass customisation. Distance is no longer an issue and Wilson Transformer Company in Wodonga, Uncle Toby’s at Wahgunyah and a number of regional fabrication companies were forging ahead with high value added products.

Fundamental skills provide the basis for change.

John Stanwick’s paper” Innovation: Its links with productivity and skill development” commissioned by the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) says that Skills Councils should focus on the fundamentals skills and knowledge of a vocation, because they provide the ability to learn, adapt to change and to be creative.  A survey in 2011 of the R&D workforce by Dr Phil Toner emphasised the importance of VET as a basis for trade and technical jobs. 16 of the 17 respondents thought these qualifications were important for these workers in the R&D industry.

 Dr Phil Toner has said “It is fairly well understood that R&D can’t happen without the assistance and contribution of tradespeople and vocationally trained technicians on the shop floors and research labs of Australian Industry.” The report “The role and contribution of Tradespeople and Technicians in the Australian R&D Workforce” amongst their recommendations called on Skills Councils to examine VET qualified trades and technicians career paths, the level of apprentices and technicians in-training in R&D enterprises and best practice approach to sustained high entry level training of apprentices and technicians.

There is every indication that a career in Engineering, Science and Manufacturing will extend the opportunities for self-fulfilment, creativity and socially useful occupations. The industry sectors with the most change for occupations relevant to MESAB coverage are forecast by the US based o-net to be Advanced Manufacturing, Biotechnology, Construction, Geospatial, Green and Nanotechnology.

The real issue is that for change to occur establishments and industry must become more innovative, and have a desire to continually change as our skills and knowledge grow. The education of our tradespeople and technicians provide a sound basis for ongoing learning and adaption to change leading to greater innovation.

The following link illustrates some of the new opportunities for making products.See slides here from SmartPlanet.