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Employer Quotes
The quotes below are from employers in this industry: Manufacturing
They are talking about this topic: Occupation-Specific Skills
The quotes below are about this issue:
Employers in machine technology and production technology occupations would like to see more candidates with production technology skills. This includes the ability to understand the entire manufacturing process and the ability to effectively implement change.
| "Historically, our company has taken production operators that are advanced, and then transitioned them into maintenance mechanics. We're just now, I think, seeing the trend that we're having to go outside because there aren't enough interested production people. And we're raising the bar a little bit. Now, we're going to be getting into some of these one-year, two-year type of prerequisite skills that you do need to be a mechanic in our operation." | Northeast |
| "If we could raise that educational level a little bit, it would make it that much better as we continue to refine and get leaner and leaner. We need to have smarter and smarter people. People that can recognize it when things aren't quite right, and then make the necessary changes to correct those things." | Northwest |
| "When you look at the worker coming in with production technology—that person coming in either out of high school or even out of a technical school—they may not have, even a drafter, may not have that whole overall view of manufacturing operations and manufacturing processes. And they may not understand where they sit within that. Or maybe a tech doesn't understand the whole process piece of it. Those are important pieces." | Northwest |
| "So, what does it mean to get together as a small team and make process improvements? It's the ability to look from a 10,000 foot view of a factory or a flow of a product, and to kind of take it apart to find where the waste is at. That sort of thing is extremely helpful—to have people out of the gate that have at least exposure to that skill set." | Northwest |
| "There was a comment about production technology. Do you need it to get the folks? Maybe not, but it would be a real good pipeline, I think, for development once they're in the door. It would be natural to look at those folks for the next step—whatever that might be—because they've been exposed to some of that. It shows initiative and desire just for having learned those basic manufacturing principles. So, set us up internally with a pipeline at least to have some folks that are differentiated from anybody else coming in the door." | Northwest |
| "It's almost like a basic process flow in certain principles of manufacturing, including some lean principles, some product flow theory at a very high level, and quality systems. And how those pieces—not how they all work—but just the fact that there are those pieces would be a start. And that they do work together to make a product at the end. Boy, that would get us a long way if they have that understanding." | Northwest |