Manufacturing is merging with modern technology. Artificial intelligence, cloud computing, sensors and robotics will soon be ubiquitous on many factory floors.
But in Connecticut’s highly advanced manufacturing sector — for decades making jet engines, precision aircraft parts, medical equipment and semiconductor components — adjusting to this “fourth industrial revolution” is overstretching small and medium-sized businesses. It is creating a growing demand for high-tech training and postsecondary certificate and degree programs at colleges and universities across the state.
Without a coordinated approach between business and higher education, state and industry leaders say Connecticut’s advanced manufacturing sector could lose out to its competitors.
Sen. Joan Hartley, D-Waterbury, chairwoman of the General Assembly’s Commerce Committee, said, “The supply chain will not be aligned to meet the high demand for defense products in the state.” “And if we can stop to get that engine going, things are moving so fast, everyone around us is going to eat our lunch.”
These new advances in manufacturing technology come as pockets of industrial production are reemerging in the United States after decades of corporate foreign exchange moving to lower-cost countries. Recent developments, like pandemic-induced supply chain disruptions and new federal subsidies for high-tech manufacturing, have encouraged companies to move their engineering and manufacturing operations back to the United States.
This, in turn, has led to an urgent need in various regions of the country for new, more productive industrial technologies – and the manpower to design, build and maintain them.
“What you’re seeing is a big push in the U.S. to build resilience in advanced manufacturing, re-industrialization,” said Alexander Kersten, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
As a result, Connecticut, with its reputation as a super-producing juggernaut, is facing a lot of hot competition.
Two years ago, Connecticut lawmakers passed legislation creating a task force tasked with helping manufacturers transition to “Industry 4.0,” as it’s known. In the year By the end of 2022, the group will publish a report listing publicly funded programs for companies in the state — including technology research, training and deployment assistance — and how to access them. The providers include universities, industry groups and consultants such as CONSTEP and the Connecticut Center for Advanced Technology.
“Think of manufacturing as 9-1-1,” said Hisham Alnajar, dean of the College of Engineering, Technology and Architecture at the University of Hartford and a member of the Commerce Committee’s Manufacturing Technology Working Group.
Many small companies may want to automate their operations, but they don’t have the capital to invest, and they don’t understand the technology well enough to know where to start, Alnajar said.
“If they want to move and when they move, they should be supported,” he said.
At CSU, for example, companies can use lab space, test applications like augmented reality, or collaborate with students and faculty to explore new technologies and design production processes using the university’s knowledge and tools. As an engineer-in-training, that can take the form of a student internship, supervised by a professor, or an applied research initiative led by a faculty member, university president Zulma Toro said.
“As we’ve transitioned and more technology has become available and more knowledge has increased, we’ve left more and more small and medium-sized companies behind,” Toro said. “I see it as a facilitator to help them get to where they want to be in terms of readiness.”
Considering the gaps
In addition to research, Connecticut manufacturers look to colleges and universities to provide people—skilled graduates will make up the industry’s future workforce. In the year By 2030, the State Department of Labor projects that jobs in industrial, mechanical and electronic engineering will increase by more than 20%.
The industry’s demand for four-year college graduates in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields, such as technicians with two-year degrees or short-term certificates, can build and maintain advanced machinery. from McKinsey & Co. in Boston. Partner with Andy Volker.
“Aerospace and defense leaders and executives typically have a highly skilled, commercial, hourly employee base that runs the manufacturing side of the operation. The other half is typically these engineers, technologists, scientists, whatever is included in their ‘professional’ skill set,” Volker said. “Both are equally important.”
Connecticut’s colleges and universities — and the technical high school programs that feed them — must do both well.
“This will require a real investment and commitment by the system to create a curriculum that will lead to 10 years from now – not only meeting current needs, but looking to the future,” said Kathryn Saint, president of Bridgeport Manufacturing Company.
In its report, the Manufacturing Technology Working Group called on the state to develop “critical educational pathways” that ensure industrial workers have the right skills. “We must recognize that gaps in the preparation of all workforce participants will hinder the successful adoption of Industry 4.0 technologies,” the report states.
Already this year, the legislature is considering several bills intended to address the workforce needs of the rapidly changing manufacturing sector. One calls for the Department of Economic and Community Development to conduct research on the issue and publish its findings early next year. Another is that the department guides young people into the field through advertising, job fairs and career support.
They will be paired on campus.
Several co-op programs are already underway on college and corporate campuses across the state.
The University of Hartford Engineering, Technology and Architecture has an advisory board of industry leaders who meet with faculty several times a year. They review the curriculum and suggest which technologies or software to add or remove, based on what they use in their work.
The private university used that insight to design and build the new 60,000-square-foot academic facility, the Hursey Center, which includes everything from robotics to 3D printing, mechatronics and cybersecurity laboratories. Business partners helped the university select equipment and design the labs.
“In fact, we stopped everything and redesigned everything,” Alnajjar said, to focus on the future needs of the industry. “A train called Industry 4.0 is coming here. We have to make sure we’re on the train.
Jet engine maker Pratt & Whitney has established a scholarship program for engineering students at the University of Connecticut’s School of Engineering that began last year. The selected students will work as interns for Pratt during the summer and complete their senior year design project for the company.
Kara Redding, a Pratt design engineer who mentors students in the program, is amazed at how intuitive the younger generation seems to be about new technologies. “They’re so smart, and so much more understanding than I was at my age,” she said.
Small businesses may also seek funding from the state’s Manufacturing Innovation Fund to support internships. Other collaborations include the state’s “Tech Talent Accelerator” program, sponsored by the New England Board of Higher Education and the Business-Higher Education Forum. One of these grants will enable Mitchell College to create accelerated cybersecurity training for the advanced manufacturing and defense sectors. (UConn now offers a short-term certificate program in cybersecurity.)
Goodwin University in East Hartford offers certificate programs in mechatronics and robotics and automation. It also operates a mobile lab — a 44-foot trailer that’s actually a classroom on wheels — for companies that want their employees to learn additional skills without having to send them off-site.
And the Regional Center for Next Generation Manufacturing at Tunis Community College in Farmington — funded by the National Science Foundation — is developing a curriculum for those entering the field and training educators to teach advanced technologies.
The programs are gaining traction, but Mark Burzynski, who runs recruiting and talent development for Bristol-based Arthur G. Russell, says he’s still concerned about the industry’s workforce pipeline.
AGR builds high-volume production assembly systems that use automation, smart sensors and other cutting-edge technologies. The company is struggling to find people with the skills to build and maintain those systems, and its customers and competitors face similar challenges. Burzynski urged state leaders to expand training and education, especially for a program created by Toyota called FAME, which stands for Federation for Advanced Manufacturing Education.
But he also has a long-term solution in mind.
On the mezzanine floor of the AGR plant, the company has allocated space for a team of high school students to design and build robots. The company provides used equipment and computers and the staff provides help and feedback each afternoon when the children are seen after school.
“This is a long-term strategy, but it has come full circle,” Burzynski said. One of the team’s founding members now works as a design engineer at AGR.
This story was produced as part of the Higher Education Media Alliance. The Union supports reporting on employment and technical education. It is administered by the Institute for Citizens and Scholars and the ECMC Foundation.
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