SXSW quartet contends with last five years of change in manufacturing

What you’ll learn:

The events of the past five years—the pandemic, supply chain shortages, labor shortages, and other external factors—have increased the focus on ensuring that U.S. manufacturing has the right resources, technology, and skills.
CESMII, EPIXC, AFFOA and the ARM Institute are part of a network of 18 nonprofit national consortium-based organizations sponsored by the Departments of Commerce, Energy, and Defense.

Experts with diverse manufacturing backgrounds from the Manufacturing USA network, presenting at the South by Southwest Conference in Austin, Texas, last month, explored U.S. manufacturing, what technologies the next few decades will bring, and what steps manufacturers big and small can take to future-proof their business.

While manufacturing has always been important to the U.S economy, the events of the past five years such—pandemic, supply chain shortages, labor shortages, and other external factors—have increased the focus on ensuring that the nation has the right resources, technology, and skills to meet both national and international needs into the next several decades.

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The panel discussion was moderated by Suzy Teele, chief strategy officer of the ARM Institute and featured panelists Maria Curry-Nkansah, chief marketing and analysis officer from EPIXC, Kathie Leonard, founder and CEO of Auburn Manufacturing, representing AFFOA, and Jeff Winter, smart manufacturing adviser for CESMII, Industry 4.0 enthusiast and co-host of Smart Industry’s occasional video series, (R)Evolutionizing Manufacturing.

CESMII, EPIXC, AFFOA and the ARM Institute are part of a network of 18 nonprofit national consortium-based organizations sponsored by the Departments of Commerce, Energy, and Defense. The Manufacturing USA network was created in 2014 to secure U.S. global leadership in advanced manufacturing by connecting people, ideas, and technology.

The network’s Institutes share a collective mission to harness the power of public-private partnerships to drive innovation, bolster domestic supply chains, and cultivate a skilled workforce to solidify U.S. global leadership in advanced manufacturing.

The SXSW panelists (from left to right) were Suzy Teele, CSO at the ARM Institute, Jeff Winter, smart manufacturing adviser at CESMII, Maria Curry-Nkansah, chief marketing and analysis officer from EPIXC, and Kathie M. Leonard, founder and CEO of Auburn Manufacturing.

The discussion began with an overview of today’s U.S. manufacturing industry, with Winter sharing these facts:

The U.S. has about 290,000 factories, with over 90% having less than 99 employees.
About 13 million people are employed in manufacturing, making it the fifth largest employer.
American manufacturing growth outpaced the rest of the world in 2022.
In 2021, of the $602 billion invested in R&D in the U.S., $326 billion was spent on manufacturing.

While these facts are indeed impressive, the panelists identified several challenges that exist in today’s environment that have the potential to stifle continued growth for U.S. manufacturing:

The labor shortage is one of the top challenges overall, making it difficult to grow factory output.
Upskilling existing workers to use advanced manufacturing technology like robotics, 3D printing, digital twinning, IoT, and AI remains a stumbling block for many manufacturers of all sizes.
There is an overall lack of quality data for operational and business analytics and decision-making.

Panelists emphasized that innovations in areas such as predictive analytics, automation, energy security, and streamlined supply chains will be the key drivers to grow the manufacturing economy of 2050. Success for the future of U.S. manufacturing is both attainable and achievable given the continued emphasis on, and commitment to, this key industry sector.

So, what will a factory look like in 2050? All panelists agreed that it will include people, but the roles will be vastly different. The most notable difference is in reduced physicality and an increased use of knowledge, analytics, and communications skills.

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This transition opens manufacturing jobs more widely to adults of all ages, male and female, and with disabilities. The increase in the labor pool is critical as the labor shortage is expected to continue into the foreseeable future.

Curry-Nkansah shared that manufacturers will have employees with job titles that may look different than today’s workers. Some of these titles may include:

Systems integrator engineer
Digital twin specialist/engineer/developer
Generative AI model developer
Blockchain and digital passport developers
Big data analyst
Quantum computing engineers
Sensors and actuators technicians
Cyber-physical systems integrator

These add to roles already in use today such as robotics technician, operator, specialist, integrator and engineer, mechanical engineer, and many others. While some of these jobs need a secondary degree, many entry-level positions can be obtained with an associate’s degree or trade school certification.

On the technology side, factory workers will use AI for inspection, quality control, and production schedule development. They will maintain, operate, and program robots and other automation technologies for maximum productivity and efficiency. They will use data to proactively predict when equipment maintenance is required, how to balance the workload with customer demand, and when to invest in more capacity.

To make this transition, manufacturers will require flexible and affordable technologies with high performance and high-quality outputs. They also need to be easy to install, operate, and maintain.

Many of the Manufacturing USA Institutes are working with their consortium members to achieve these specific requirements to make using advanced, smart manufacturing solutions more accessible to manufacturers of all sizes in the U.S.

Leonard, owner of a small manufacturing firm in Maine, reinforced the importance of organizations like the Manufacturing USA Institutes to help her organization understand navigate technology advancements and build business relationships.

Manufacturers have made recent advances in areas like supply chain management, but more changes are needed to be competitive by 2050. Rapidly developing technologies, like robots and AI, will be adopted more broadly, necessitating a differently skilled workforce.  To get there, U.S. manufacturers need to collaborate and innovate to be successful in the coming decades.