Building the Manufacturing Workforce of the Future: Inside SME’s Workforce Pipeline Challenge

Advanced Manufacturing Now

Manufacturing is at a pivotal crossroad. Rapid advances in automation, AI, and industrial IoT are transforming the shop floor, creating an urgent need for a new generation of skilled workers. But how do we build a workforce ready to keep up with this technological wave?

In this episode, we go Inside SME’s Manufacturing Imperative Workforce Pipeline Challenge (MI-WPC), a national initiative dedicated to answering that question. We sit down with Dr. Deb Volzer, SME’s Vice President of Workforce Development, to discuss how this program is reshaping the collaboration between community colleges, employers, and local organizations to solve America's skilled labor crisis.

What you’ll learn:

• Why the Workforce Challenge Exists: America's competitiveness hinges on closing the widening skills gap caused by unprecedented technological change.

• The Power of Community College Hubs: How 25 colleges across 17 states are using innovative strategy sessions—like the "sticky storm" design thinking exercise—to align community resources and create hyper-local talent pipelines.

• Piloting New Approaches: Hear about the initiative's success using AI-powered chat tools for targeted social media marketing, reaching hundreds of thousands of prospective students and uncovering thousands of potential learners in just a few weeks.

• Critical Takeaways: Dr. Volzer shares three vital lessons from the first year, including the looming faculty shortage crisis and the essential role of continuous industry dialogue to keep curriculum current.

This conversation is a blueprint for how communities can future-proof their workforce and ensure manufacturing remains strong in America.