Technology Showcase: Are We Ready?

The discussion about “reshoring” in this month’s Maintenance Technology magazine is exciting. That’s because a growing body of evidence suggests the actual cost of offshoring is significantly higher than a simple comparison of dollars per hour. Reshoring (or “onshoring”) can be good business. It’s time to bring the jobs home.

In the midst of all the enthusiasm, however, there’s an irony confronting us: The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports the impact of retirees leaving the current workforce has already resulted in a shortage of between 5-10 million skilled workers—a skills gap, unfortunately, that today’s large pool of unemployed workers can’t even fill. And this gap is growing bigger by the day.

So, if your numbers really said you should manufacture here in the USA, could you?

Having been at the forefront of this challenge for 30 years, NTT—like many end-user organizations across industry—has had to retool to help clients meet the needs of an increasingly automated, technically sophisticated manufacturing and operations process. Three successful trends are clear.

• Blended Learning:  Computer Based Training (CBT) is not a silver bullet outside of compliance training. The proven most effective and fastest training is a blended combination of CBT and hands-on training.
• Industry Endorsed Certificate Programs:  Much like a la carte apprenticeship training menus, certificate programs can allow both individual employees and employers to target specific skills that advance production and keep training and skills focused.
• Customized Qualification Training: Training is increasingly sophisticated, too, with on-time, job/task-specific hands-on training now viable. A natural out-come of the first two trends, we are now seeing specific task qualification as a required measurable outcome.

This future works. Where NTT has helped implement these programs, clients have increased their productivity, controlled costs and produced profits. 

But these approaches require training providers and clients to think differently. To leverage them, we have to work differently. How is your thinking? 

Do you think you’re ready to ramp up and bring the jobs back home? Do you have a plan to build the team to build your product?  NTT is ready to help. MT

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