Asee peer logo

Board 76: Bridging the Workforce Skills Gap in High Value Manufacturing through Continuing Education

Download Paper |

Conference

2019 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Tampa, Florida

Publication Date

June 15, 2019

Start Date

June 15, 2019

End Date

June 19, 2019

Conference Session

NSF Grantees Poster Session

Tagged Topic

NSF Grantees Poster Session

Page Count

9

DOI

10.18260/1-2--32423

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/32423

Download Count

597

Paper Authors

biography

Michael Johnson Texas A&M University Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0001-5328-8763

visit author page

Dr. Michael D. Johnson is an associate professor in the Department of Engineering Technology and Industrial Distribution at Texas A&M University. Prior to joining the faculty at Texas A&M, he was a senior product development engineer at the 3M Corporate Research Laboratory in St. Paul, Minnesota. He received his B.S. in mechanical engineering from Michigan State University and his S.M. and Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Johnson’s research focuses on design tools; specifically, the cost modeling and analysis of product development and manufacturing systems; computer-aided design methodology; and engineering education.

visit author page

biography

Bimal P. Nepal Texas A&M University

visit author page

Dr. Bimal Nepal is an Associate Professor in the Industrial Distribution Program at Texas A&M University. His research interests include integration of supply chain management with new product development decisions, distributor service portfolio optimization, pricing optimization, supply chain risk analysis, lean and six sigma, large scale optimization, and engineering education. He has authored over 100 refereed articles in leading journals and peer reviewed conference proceedings in these areas. He has B.S. in ME, and both M.S. and Ph.D. in IE. He is a member of ASEE, INFORMS, ASEM, and a senior member of IIE.

visit author page

Download Paper |

Abstract

Research shows that there is a growing need for skilled workers in the area of advanced manufacturing; this refers to making use of new technologies and advanced processes to produce products that have high value. More importantly, U.S. government employment data reveals that there is lack of supply of skilled workers in the manufacturing sector. Furthermore, it has also been widely cited in industrial literature that there is a concern regarding the job readiness of fresh college graduates and the gaps in skills sets needed to be successful in an industrial setting, especially in the engineering or manufacturing fields. One approach to bridge the skills gap is to provide customized continuing education to current the workforce as per the industry need. This paper presents a case study of such customized continuing education offered by Texas A&M University for oil and gas industry in Houston, Texas. Specifically, as a part of National Science Foundation Advanced Technological Education project, two professional development sessions were organized in the summer of 2018 in Houston targeting the energy industry. Both programs were two-days long and focused on two key aspects of high value manufacturing: manufacturing operations excellence and manufacturing quality excellence. The professional development sessions were focused on materials and inventory planning, production economics, manufacturing quality, non-destructive evaluation, statistical process control, and lean/ six-sigma. The continuing education programs and course materials were developed based on the feedback from the industry advisory board for the Manufacturing Center of Excellence at Houston Community College, which is a collaborating partner on the ATE Grant. As a part of assessment of the programs, industry participants in the both sessions were given comprehensive surveys asking for their feedback on the applicability of the educational sessions. Overall, the participants rated the sessions very highly on the organization and the relevancy of the program topics and learning materials. The participants also felt that they learned new information through these programs.

Johnson, M., & Nepal, B. P. (2019, June), Board 76: Bridging the Workforce Skills Gap in High Value Manufacturing through Continuing Education Paper presented at 2019 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition , Tampa, Florida. 10.18260/1-2--32423

ASEE holds the copyright on this document. It may be read by the public free of charge. Authors may archive their work on personal websites or in institutional repositories with the following citation: © 2019 American Society for Engineering Education. Other scholars may excerpt or quote from these materials with the same citation. When excerpting or quoting from Conference Proceedings, authors should, in addition to noting the ASEE copyright, list all the original authors and their institutions and name the host city of the conference. - Last updated April 1, 2015