INDIANAPOLIS –
Nearly 40,000 industrial technology maintenance jobs remain open in Michigan,
Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio and Tennessee prompting the National Institute for
Metalworking Skills and Lightweight Innovations For Tomorrow, Ivy Tech
Community College to develop a new training program to fill these jobs.
“Manufacturing
enterprises, especially those serving the defense and transportation sectors, continue
to embrace new light weight metals and technologies, adding advanced technical
requirements to critical jobs already going unfilled because workers do not
have the required skills,” said Larry Brown, executive director, LIFT. “This is
an unprecedented partnership among our new manufacturing innovation institute,
a national credentialing body and a premier statewide community college system
collaborating to address the workforce needs of our industry partners and their
supply chains.”
There are
currently 38,727 industrial technology maintenance jobs posted in the region.
These jobs entail the maintenance, troubleshooting and improvement of complex
machines and automation systems that create efficient and productive
manufacturing. To support the rapid deployment of new light weighting
technologies being developed at LIFT, workers will have to understand and be
confident in using the latest advanced technologies, help integrate them into
companies’ processes and maintain their performance over time.
The
initiative will focus on building high-quality training programs by:
Rolling out
the first-ever industry standards for educating and training the industrial technology
maintenance workforce;
Training
instructors from community colleges across the entire region; and
Equipping a
competent workforce with the knowledge, skills and credentials theyneed
to enter into and advance in the field.
“This is not a six-week
proposition,” said Emily DeRocco, education
and workforce director of LIFT. “We are in development of a properly skilled
manufacturing workforce for the long haul.
“LIFT will help remake the image of manufacturing jobs in the eyes
of young people, parents, schools and transitioning workers,” DeRocco said. “First
order of business is clearly making sure all individuals know there are good
high tech jobs in manufacturing that are going unfilled. Good solid middle
class jobs with sustaining wages. Awareness is key to this.”
DeRocco said the certificate program will be implemented by
Community Colleges and other technical learning centers in the five-state
region. But she is optimistic the new much higher tech manufacturing
environment will be embraced by younger workers who already are experimenting
with high-tech manufacturing through the Maker Movement. DeRocco said this new
initiative also hopes to pull together resources for the Maker Movement in all
five states as another avenue of the educational process.
In partnership with Ivy Tech, NIMS worked
with over 125 industry, education and workforce development experts to develop
the industry standards for the training programs and the credentials that will
prepare industrial technology mechanics and technicians. Ivy Tech will launch a
new instructor training facility to prepare 50 instructorsto deliver the
training, and NIMS will bring to market credentials that certify individuals’
skills by Fall of 2016.
“While
employers are facing a real-time skills gap, job vacancies and competitive
wages, which can average up to $25 and hour, mean that opportunities abound for
motivated people looking to secure good jobs in a growing, technology-driven
field,” said NIMS executive director, Jim Wall.
“As the
first national instructor training facility for this field, Ivy Tech’s goal is
to lay a solid foundation and become a beacon for other training programs
responding to the demand,” said Thomas J. Snyder, president, Ivy Tech Community
College. “We have a responsibility to the communities we serve to build a first-rate
workforce pipeline that has access to the most high-quality and economically
relevant training and credentials.”
